I’m usually late when it comes to book releases. My reading backlog is rather extensive, so it’s a huge deal if I can read a book a few months after the release. I really don’t mind since I choose books based on what I feel like reading at the time, but it was hard to pass up on the chance to immediately read The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern when the kindle version went on sale a few weeks ago.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a grad student who loves to get lost in a good book, which helps him forget how disconnected he sometimes feels with the world. But when he borrows Sweet Sorrows from the library, he does not find the usual solace and escape he gets from reading the short stories it contained. Instead, he reads in its pages a story about him, recounting a childhood experience of finding a door painted in an alleyway that he chose not to open. If a true story of his life can be found in a book older than he is by generations, then what else in the book is true? The search for the Starless Sea starts for Zachary, and he crosses paths with the painter Mirabel, the mysterious Dorian, and a group determined to keep doors to a secret world closed.
Interspersed with Zachary’s story are different stories from the books recorded in a strange underground library. Myth or fable-like in their telling, the stories feature the adventures, romance and tragedies of characters that may or may not come up again in other stories as Zachary attempts to understand a strange new (but definitely old) world and what his role in it is meant to be.
It can take getting used to… the switching of stories or perspectives, and I understand that some might struggle keeping track of the stories and their characters, as evidenced by the rather divisive reviews the book has gotten since its publication. But I found that each story is essential, whether it’s in fleshing out more of the underground world or in helping us understand the characters that Zachary meets. I also rather enjoyed the vague quality in the way the stories are told, emphasizing the beautiful strangeness of Zachary’s journey.
While I do agree that The Starless Sea doesn’t feature as strong a plot or character growth compared to Erin Morgenstern’s debut, The Night Circus, I found her latest work to be just as enjoyable, albeit giving us a different flavor of fantasy fiction to enjoy. I appreciated how it’s a love letter to stories and their power to affect us, both in Zachary’s case or in the case of this particular reader. It’s easy enough to see how this was meant to inspire us to create our own stories or read a whole lot more. I may never fully understand the workings of The Starless Sea, but the journey it offered was one I appreciated as a reader with every story read and every step taken within its pages.
Happy reading!
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