04: What to Read When Wanderlust Hits
Two books that will take you all over this world and many others. We're also talking magic doors, more art crime (!), digital neighborhoods, alternative visions of cities, and Neopets.
New here? Welcome! Consult my first post to see what amateur bibliotherapy means.
We’ve all had to cancel plans, be they far-flung vacations or local birthday parties, in light of all that is happening Right Now. Those of us who are already predisposed to bouts of wanderlust might be feeling particularly squirrelly at the moment; let us heed advice from the New York Times and use books as our passports for a little while.
The Books
With that in mind, the two books I’m recommending today are linked, most obviously, by a central motif that will take you just about anywhere you wish to go: magical doors. While many books with this trope are allegories for a “thinly veiled colonial fantasy,” both of these selections rework the lore powering magical doors.
The Light
If we address stories as archaeological sites, and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical. It is at the moments when the doors open, when things flow between the worlds, that stories happen.
Some doors lead to entirely new and magical worlds; in the pages of THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY by Alix E. Harrow, you’ll be taken by the hand and whimsically guided across each threshold. The book goes down like a frothy, sweet chai; you can almost smell the worlds Harrow establishes, all deeply flavored with the spices of her universe’s vivid offerings. This is a story you can curl up with, fully immersed and invested, for a good long while.
What to know going in: From her home in Vermont at the turn of the twentieth century, January Scaller embarks on a “fantastical journey of self-discovery” that also happens to entail the discovery of magical worlds just beyond mysterious doors. I cannot stress enough how absolutely enveloping and sumptuous it feels to read this book; Harrow’s writing is just such a satisfying journey of magic and mayhem. Someone recently called into the Reply All podcast to recommend this book as an “adult Narnia.” If that is an insufficient hook for you, this gushing NPR review also makes a convincing case to read the book.
The Dark
All their doors remained simple doors, on/off switches in the flow between two adjacent places, binarily either open or closed, but each of their doors, regarded thus with a twinge of irrational possibility, became partially animate as well, an object with a subtle power to mock, to mock the desires of those who desired to go far away, whispering silently from its door frame that such dreams were the dreams of fools.
Other doors lead to far less accommodating places. In the pages of EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid, migrants travel through mystical doors for safety and shelter, often fleeing war-torn cities rather than seeking out adventure. That said, Hamid also manages to narratively “shift through time and space with a godlike equanimity” to reveal that, even when the world feels at its worst, there can be moments of quietude and magic. This book goes down like a mulled wine perfumed with clove; it’s rich and bitter and warms you and makes you shudder all at once.
What to know going in: This is an award-winning and buzzy book; reviewers heap praise on Hamid’s “fictional universe that captures the global perils percolating beneath today’s headlines” and how he “captures the feeling of being displaced beautifully.” Those things are certainly true. But equally true is the fact that this book is simultaneously both intimate and omniscient. One of my favorite lines best displays this quality: “the end of the world can be cozy at times.”
I thoroughly recommend listening to the audiobook, read by Hamid himself, to add even more to that feeling.
Looking for something else? Fear not. Electric Literature has a fully different roster of books containing parallel universes; WIRED has a long list of sci-fi recommendations ready for you; or settle in with this NYT piece, “36 Hours in...Wherever You Are,” that will take you around the world and back as people settle into weekend routines while isolating.
The Articles
Keeping with the theme of allowing narratives to transport us, let’s pretend to be somewhere else, together. Perhaps we’ll voyage to:
The Netherlands. Do you remember, in a moment of prescience, how my last newsletter included an article about a prolific art thief? Between now and then, a prominent Van Gogh painting was stolen from a Dutch museum. Does this make me a Thomas Crown predictor? Is this newsletter my Jumanji board? (~5 min)
Lower Duck Pond. This place does not exist on any earthly map, and yet it has 87,000 residents. They’re just all digital. Read about the ecosystem and goings-on of a neighborhood that only exists online, but has a dedicated community of folks to make it feel like real life. (~6 min)
United Kingdom. I’ve found that immersive text-based visual games, like Fallen London, occupy my hands and brain long enough to keep me off social media for a while. This iOS or in-browser game drops you into an alternate, gothic, Victorian-era London where you can participate in “various storylets, short strands of stories that you explore step by step” to determine different endings. (~infinite min)
South Korea. Grandmothers and grandchildren have started going to school together in rural South Korea. This article is a snapshot of rural schools that, because of the country’s low birth rate, now have both elderly women and young children learning to read and write in classrooms. Even a heart of stone would be moved by the infectious smiles of these learning ladies. (~6 min)
Neopia. Sometimes I just miss playing silly Flash games and visiting the Tyrranian Plateau for free omelettes to feed my menagerie of Neopets. This article giddily summarizes the many joys of Neopets (the Faerie Fountain! NEODAQ Stock Exchange! Guilds!) and vividly reminds me of the time in fourth grade when I accidentally broke the class printer trying to print copies of The Neopian Times. But if that article at all inspires you to try logging into your old account, be warned--the demise of Adobe Flash means that Neopia may soon fall, too. (~12 min)
And with that, I leave you for now; here’s to hoping we find captivating worlds to fall into for a little while.