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A review by midici
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
5.0
**Spoilers ahead***
Before I get into the story I just want to point out that the hard copy version of this book is beautiful. Not just the jacket (which I love), but the cover pages, and the pages that announce the start of each book, and the little intricate designs next to the page numbers and under each chapter heading - it's just a gorgeous book.
So then, onto the story. Which is not a story, but a multitude of stories which all combine to create the story, about this Harbour on the Starless Sea.
A moment with meaning. A moment that changes all moments that follow.
Zachary is the character I identify with the most - who doesn't want to find a magic door an enter a fantastical never-ending library? That's my dream right there. He doesn't come in at the start of the story - he comes in at the end of someone else's story, which just happens to be the start of his.
Zach reads a mysterious book called Sweet Sorrows and we read it with him - because we too, have to fall in love with Harbour at its heyday, when it was beloved and full of life and tradition and stories of all kinds. When Zach finally arrives, the Harbour is still amazing and wondrous - but it's also decaying and empty, almost, and long past it's prime.
There's a lot of other important information in the book too of course; how Time and Fate fell in love and the owls and the stars conspired to keep them apart; about a man lost in time; about a girl who fell through a door in the woods and never stopped exploring. These are all pieces.
Dorian is a man who used to have conviction. He thought he was protecting something precious, only to discover he was inadvertently destroying it. He has his own tale to read, Fortunes and Fables. Stories about the man and the moon; about the mouse who asked a story sculptor to hide Fate's heart; about three swords, only one of which can kill the owl king.
Dorian and Zach both have pieces to a puzzle but neither of them have a full answer, and Mirabel and the Keeper don't seem keen to explain it to them. There's other parts of the story as well: The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor, the star shaped nightmares Eleanor scattered throughout the Harbour, the paintings of the future Allegra painted and then left behind.
*****
I'm used to stories so I thought I knew where this quest was going: Dorian would take the sword to kill the Owl King. Zach would find Simon, lost in time, and reunite him with Eleanor (who isn't-really Eleanor). They would reunite and present Fate with the heart that had been hidden for safe-keeping. Neat fairy-tale sort of ending.
But Mirabel had been conspiring to write a new ending. This particular story had gone on long enough. I might have this wrong, but in a way I think the of the bees as little gods - they make the honey of the Starless Sea, the stuff that stories come from and flow back into. They create them the way they create beehives, and when the story is over they leave and start again. Except this time they were prevented from doing that, they were locked away instead, until Mirabel sent them a key - until she sent them Zach. Dorian didn't need to slay the Owl King (who heralded the change) - he needed to be tricked into killing the story itself.
*****
When we got to Kat's notebooks I was worried. Worried about Zach and Dorian, mostly. And like Kat I wasn't sure I could trust that a happy ending was coming. But Kat - clever, observant, a story sculptor in her own right even if just here in the regular world - Kat keeps looking. And then Kat finds a door, to a brand new Harbour on the Starless Sea, waiting to be found. And when she gets there - or maybe after she has been there for a while - a ship is going to sail in from the sea. And on it is going to be two men who saved each other (one of whom Kat has been looking for), an explorer with no name, and the lost man who has been reunited with her.
****
I loved how all of the stories within this story worked together to tell the whole. I loved the references to other stories, video games, poets, and literary critics. I loved how vivid everything was when described - I felt like I could paint whole scenes from this book, I pictured them so strongly.
I was entranced with all the different "types" of stories, the ephemeral ones, the stone carved ones, the performative ones, all of them just as lovely and important as the ones in books.
I LOVE the bees, they were excellent, but like Zach I was so upset that everything was ending. It almost felt like a betrayal, to arrive so late and have everything undone before he (and us along with him) got to experience it. Also it felt a bit like the book was mocking me, I identified so strongly with Zach at that moment.
There's more I could say about this book but it's already a very long recap/review. I am going to re-read it at some point when I'm no longer sad that it's over, and I'm going to fall in love with it all over again.
Before I get into the story I just want to point out that the hard copy version of this book is beautiful. Not just the jacket (which I love), but the cover pages, and the pages that announce the start of each book, and the little intricate designs next to the page numbers and under each chapter heading - it's just a gorgeous book.
So then, onto the story. Which is not a story, but a multitude of stories which all combine to create the story, about this Harbour on the Starless Sea.
A moment with meaning. A moment that changes all moments that follow.
Zachary is the character I identify with the most - who doesn't want to find a magic door an enter a fantastical never-ending library? That's my dream right there. He doesn't come in at the start of the story - he comes in at the end of someone else's story, which just happens to be the start of his.
Zach reads a mysterious book called Sweet Sorrows and we read it with him - because we too, have to fall in love with Harbour at its heyday, when it was beloved and full of life and tradition and stories of all kinds. When Zach finally arrives, the Harbour is still amazing and wondrous - but it's also decaying and empty, almost, and long past it's prime.
There's a lot of other important information in the book too of course; how Time and Fate fell in love and the owls and the stars conspired to keep them apart; about a man lost in time; about a girl who fell through a door in the woods and never stopped exploring. These are all pieces.
Dorian is a man who used to have conviction. He thought he was protecting something precious, only to discover he was inadvertently destroying it. He has his own tale to read, Fortunes and Fables. Stories about the man and the moon; about the mouse who asked a story sculptor to hide Fate's heart; about three swords, only one of which can kill the owl king.
Dorian and Zach both have pieces to a puzzle but neither of them have a full answer, and Mirabel and the Keeper don't seem keen to explain it to them. There's other parts of the story as well: The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor, the star shaped nightmares Eleanor scattered throughout the Harbour, the paintings of the future Allegra painted and then left behind.
*****
I'm used to stories so I thought I knew where this quest was going: Dorian would take the sword to kill the Owl King. Zach would find Simon, lost in time, and reunite him with Eleanor (who isn't-really Eleanor). They would reunite and present Fate with the heart that had been hidden for safe-keeping. Neat fairy-tale sort of ending.
But Mirabel had been conspiring to write a new ending. This particular story had gone on long enough. I might have this wrong, but in a way I think the of the bees as little gods - they make the honey of the Starless Sea, the stuff that stories come from and flow back into. They create them the way they create beehives, and when the story is over they leave and start again. Except this time they were prevented from doing that, they were locked away instead, until Mirabel sent them a key - until she sent them Zach. Dorian didn't need to slay the Owl King (who heralded the change) - he needed to be tricked into killing the story itself.
*****
When we got to Kat's notebooks I was worried. Worried about Zach and Dorian, mostly. And like Kat I wasn't sure I could trust that a happy ending was coming. But Kat - clever, observant, a story sculptor in her own right even if just here in the regular world - Kat keeps looking. And then Kat finds a door, to a brand new Harbour on the Starless Sea, waiting to be found. And when she gets there - or maybe after she has been there for a while - a ship is going to sail in from the sea. And on it is going to be two men who saved each other (one of whom Kat has been looking for), an explorer with no name, and the lost man who has been reunited with her.
****
I loved how all of the stories within this story worked together to tell the whole. I loved the references to other stories, video games, poets, and literary critics. I loved how vivid everything was when described - I felt like I could paint whole scenes from this book, I pictured them so strongly.
I was entranced with all the different "types" of stories, the ephemeral ones, the stone carved ones, the performative ones, all of them just as lovely and important as the ones in books.
I LOVE the bees, they were excellent, but like Zach I was so upset that everything was ending. It almost felt like a betrayal, to arrive so late and have everything undone before he (and us along with him) got to experience it. Also it felt a bit like the book was mocking me, I identified so strongly with Zach at that moment.
There's more I could say about this book but it's already a very long recap/review. I am going to re-read it at some point when I'm no longer sad that it's over, and I'm going to fall in love with it all over again.