During this pandemic, a big source of joy has been things arriving via the postal service. I’m lucky to have many lovely friends who have sent letters, cards, or the Christmas gifts they couldn’t give me in person (because “in person” was illegal). I’ve also had entirely unexpected parcels - books that people had finished that they thought I might like to read; a shiny new 1000-piece jigsaw; a selection of unusual-flavour biscuits. On one occasion, I received a box that contained an empty gin bottle and half a red cabbage, which just goes to show you need to be careful what you say late at night around someone with easy access to a franking machine.
A few weeks ago, I unwrapped a copy of Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea. I had completely forgotten the Zoom call in which someone offered it round a group of people. (In the spirit of fair reporting, I feel I should mention that the someone was actually the same someone who posted me the cabbage. Her parcels are not always deranged - and besides, I was really pleased about the cabbage.)
Anyway, the book arrived with instructions on who it was to be sent to next once I’d finished it, which made sure it didn’t just go to join the giant to-be-read pile. I’d had a busy week, and the weather was somewhat unfriendly, so I spent most of the weekend under a blanket with The Starless Sea.
I liked it. I loved parts of it. But do you know what it reminded me of, more than anything else?
The sex-and-shopping novels that dominated bestseller lists through the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Stick with me, here.
Judith Krantz is usually credited with inventing the sex-and-shopping novel (also known by the utterly unlovely term “bonkbuster”) when she published Scruples in 1978. Many authors - Shirley Conran, Jilly Cooper, Jackie Collins - picked up the baton and ran with it, and the world was inundated with doorstep-thick novels. The settings varied, the plots varied, but they were all underpinned by two things: frequent sex scenes, described in detail, and a lot of high-end, wordly goods. The characters moved in a world where five-star hotels, designer clothes, and gourmet meals were commonplace; brand names were bandied about freely, and the whole atmosphere was one of continuous, decadent luxury.
Now, before someone notifies Morgenstern’s lawyers, I should clarify: The Starless Sea doesn’t contain much in the way of designer shopping malls, and absolutely no red-carpet events. Some of the characters do hang out in a cocktail bar which is considerably more upmarket than I would have been able to afford as a graduate student, but that is to some extent explained. No one has very much sex with anyone (or at least not on-page).
However, the sex-and-shopping novel was never about the detail, or even about the plot, it was about the wish-fulfilment. You can read it, and pretend you are living this beautiful, glittering, glamorous and incredibly expensive life. You can enjoy, vicariously, the bubbles of the champagne, the swoosh of the silk sheets, and the touch of this chapter’s generically handsome gentleman.
And The Starless Sea provides exactly the same experience… for the sort of person who loves spending a weekend under a blanket with a novel. If your wishes were shaped not by the yuppie hustle of 1980’s materialism but by a love of reading and mystery, if you would take Narnia over Hollywood any day, if a magical library is more appealing than the Met Ball, then this book is right here for you.
The Harbour - an area in which the central character spends a lot of his time - is strange, and quirky, and fabulous in all senses of the word. It creates the same luxury vibe - so long as your idea of luxury is an infinite supply of books, words, puzzles piled on mysteries, intriguing strangers, impossible worlds and cake-on-demand. Oh, and cats. Lots of cats.
And the book does it really, really well. I spent my weekend cocooned in the lovely, baffling embrace of The Starless Sea and enjoyed every minute of it. Some books you read for the story, and some you read for the sheer experience. I was, to be honest, a little disappointed by some aspects of the plot and the metaphysics. But the lush, easy escapism of the Harbour was an absolute joy and I was deeply disappointed to reach the end.
I would read it again for the fun of it. Except, of course, I have to post it on to the next person.