A Book Review: The Starless Sea
Title of the book: The Starless Sea
Author: Erin Morgenstern
Publisher: Vintage
Publication Date: 6th of August 2020
Genre: Fantasy
Why I picked up this book:
I first received this book about a month or so ago as part of my subscription to Chocolate and Book. One of my favourite book subscriptions so far, but more on that later.
Initially, I was taken aback by the stunning cover. Yes, I know: ‘Never judge a book by its cover’, but look how pretty! The marbling, the stunningly delicate gold bee. I would pay to have this blown up and hang this on my wall.
The synopsis only pulled me in further. A mysterious book, a hidden library filled with stories. I think many of my fellow book worms would agree this has something we have all secretly dreamed of. To hide from time itself to explore countless stories housed on so many bookshelves. To be pulled into a magical fairy-tale world, only to find out our hours of training, reading all those books, has prepared us for this quest. To use a particularly loved quote of mine:
“We can roam the bloated stacks of the Library of Alexandria, where all imagination and knowledge are assembled; we can recognize in its destruction the warning that all we gather will be lost’”
So without further ado, let’s find the door that will lead us to the Harbor on the Starless Sea.
About the author:
Erin Morgenstern is the author of The Night Circus, a number-one national bestseller that has been sold around the world and translated into thirty-seven languages. She has a degree in theatre from Smith College and lives in Massachusetts with her husband and their adorable kitten.
Synopsis:
Far beneath the surface of the earth, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. The entryways that lead to this sanctuary are often hidden, sometimes on forest floors, sometimes in private homes, sometimes in plain sight. But those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is searching for his door, though he does not know it. He follows a silent siren song, an inexplicable knowledge that he is meant for another place. When he discovers a mysterious book in the stacks of his campus library he begins to read, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, lost cities, and nameless acolytes. Suddenly a turn of the page brings Zachary to a story from his own childhood impossibly written in this book that is older than he is.
Review of the book:
Oh, how I longed, oh how I desperately wished for this book to meet my, admittedly high expectations. I wanted nothing more than to love this book. The book that so accurately aligned with one of my childhood’s secret wishes, but I ended up disillusioned. Feeling the conflicted sense of hope and despair normally reserved for abusive-partners. Slivers of affection, just enough to keep you going, to overlook the glaringly obvious.
The book certainly is a love letter to stories, to myths and legends, to sagas and fairy-tales. A celebration of creation in its purest form. Morgenstern is one of those once in a generation wordsmiths. The kind who can coax the strongest of metals into intricate, lace-like structures, the kind of jewellery the rests lightly against the skin as if it has always been there. An author who can weave together sentences that sing from their pages aching to break free from their paper-prisons.
The short stories dotted throughout the book are expertly written and create a sense of an expansive history, a culture, to this magical location. Drenched with imagery and symbolism it easy to get lost. But short stories do not make a book – unless the book is about short stories, which this is not.
No matter how beautiful, a book requires substance, a thought-out plot and interesting characters. The main story-line of the Starless Sea does not necessarily lack a plot, the opposite in fact. There seems to be so much going on, it’s downright impossible to summarize it in a sentence or two. Morgenstern insists on cloaking her stories in the abstract, the obscure, the unsaid and the unread, to the point where the plot falls short of its promise.
The main character, Zachary, although promising at first starts to feel more and more one-dimensional as the story progresses. Leaving me with a sense of dread at experiencing his inner-thoughts. The so-called romance forced, blooming out of sheer proximity if anything. The other characters lacking history and connections that would have made them feel real.
As time develops these stories, which are enticing in their own right, are meant to knit together and form a picture that has been right in front of you this whole time. Except it doesn’t. The stories are held together by loose threads, pieces of string, a drop of candle wax and a drizzle of honey. A slight breeze and they disintegrate into their respective parts. The story is 80% exposition, followed by a rushed conclusion that fails to deliver.
While most fantasy trilogies seem to have been drawn out, for the sake of creating a trilogy. This is one of those books who could have benefitted from being split into a duology or trilogy. The pacing could have been adjusted, characters further developed and plotholes carefully filled.
Overall, the language and scenes are breath-taking, but the plot was overcomplicated and hampered by the underdeveloped cast of characters.
