Recommend: literary places

In many stories, place is so important that it is almost a character: think of the number of science fiction or fantasy novels where the name of the city is in the title of the book itself (even leaving aside City of Illusions, The City and the City, City of Brass…). In this month’s installment of our recommendation post series, we’re asking readers to tell us about their favorite literary place—fictional, fantastic, or a real place given new life in literature, what place do you wish existed (or are you glad doesn’t); what place feels more real than home? To prime the pump, we’ve asked a few authors, editors and other friends the same question, and their suggestions are below. If any of these inspire you—or you’re disappointed your favorite isn’t mentioned—please leave a comment telling us about a literary place you think is worth visiting.

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Vanessa Fogg (blog, twitter)

Sofia Samatar’s debut novel, A Stranger in Olondria, was a revelation to me. This rich, strange, gorgeously written book introduces readers to a secondary fantasy world which is not based on medieval Europe, but which draws, instead, from Africa and the Middle East. The main character, Jevick, is a naïve young man who falls in love from afar with the Empire of Olondria and then journeys through it, getting into plenty of trouble along the way.

Yet despite the wonders of Olondria, it’s Jevick’s homeland of the Tea Islands which affects me most deeply. The Tea Islands, a tropical land of heavy rains and blue hills, of rivers and jungles and “shimmering deltas, the dank-smelling lagoons, a landscape flat and liquid and loved by birds.” A world rendered with such naturalistic detail that it feels utterly real. The Tea islands was my first encounter with a fantasy world set in the tropics. And that has a special resonance for me because my parents came from a tropical country, although in Southeast Asia (Thailand), not Africa. Samatar’s book made me think, “I want to do this, too. I also want to create secondary world fantasy set in a non-European world.” Her book is one of the few that has truly changed my approach to writing.

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Subodhana Wijeyeratne (Hulks; Stone Lotus)

Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. So goes Mervyn Peake's description of one of the most fascinating and compelling creations in modern fantasy: the endless and darkened reaches of the city-castle of Gormenghast. The story of his trilogy's protagonist, Titus Groan, unfolds amidst its ancient and dreary halls. Teeming with a sort of madness that seems to inhabit the walls of the place, as well as the characters themselves, it is a creation that for sheer aesthetic power should, in my opinion, be up there with Middle Earth.

Peake was raised in China for a while, and was heavily influenced by the monuments erected by an ancient kingdom in the vicinity of his childhood home. The central conceit of Gormenghast derives from the feelings these buildings evoked. Timeless, ancient, and melancholy, they were on one hand magnificent. Yet on the other they also seemed to chain the present to a lost past by their very presence, to crush the now with the knowledge of the vast reaches of the then. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm, writes Peake, of Titus Groan's birth—but it could be of anyone's.

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Urša Vidic (Dalmatian elves)

The city of Armilla is composed entirely of water pipes. Young people might think of a computer game or an old screensaver, but the town itself is much more emotional than that, it has all the colours of metal and a fresh wind whistling and piping on the pipes that are filled with very tangible water. It is not clear if the city is something that remained from the past or a place that was built for the future, but now it is inhabited by water creatures, by nymphs and naiads. They always knew very well how to travel along underground veins and so they feel quite at home in these pipelines that are so full of living water and surprising inventions. Before they moved here, they might have been offended, since people misused water so terribly, so it is possible that the city was built for them as a sculpture to apologize and express a newly-found veneration for them, or they were the ones who have simply driven out all the people. We learn of this place from one of the stories that Marco Polo told Kublai Khan and of course he was lying, but you never know with Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

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Damien Krsteski (blog; Faster Tomorrow)

Aurora, a moon in the Tau Ceti planetary system, humanity's second attempt at a home from Kim Stanley Robinson’s brilliant novel, ended up being more than a science-fictional escape for me; when the book came out, I’d just moved to another country, and lying on the mattress in the middle of my empty, freshly-painted apartment—my suitcase in a corner, waiting to be unpacked—I had only Freya and her Ship for company.

And Aurora didn’t turn out to be their promised land. It bristled, and it made the humans sick, and ultimately it shook them off. Freya decided to return home. Because, she realized, there is no such thing as a home away from home: there is only home, and away from home.

When Freya ended her journey back on Earth, I closed the book and left my apartment to walk this foreign city, and I couldn’t help seeing daubs and smears of Aurora everywhere around me: the strange, the new, scaring me off. In time I began pining for Freya’s imagined Earth, too, safe and inviting, but as I adapted to my new surroundings, Aurora and Earth merged and winked out, and I started appreciating—liking, even—where I was, and soon I realized there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

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Hella Grichi (blog; twitter)

A place which would be really cool to visit nowadays is Gilead. There would be something so fascinating and empowering to see the boatless rivers and the bloodstains on the walls being scrubbed by handmaids from yesterday’s executions, something so haunting about the dangling corpses and the limited stock at the supermarket. Maybe it would feel so good to know that, now, going home means facing the spouse you chose who will rock you softly to sleep to your favorite movie or curl up with you and two books that you recently bought at the bookshop with the octagonal window covered in evergreens. How enchanting to know you can visit a doctor that shakes your hand, wear the dress with the fox patterns and kiss the girl you like, sitting next to her at school and doing your homework together. Gilead is a dystopian world that is unfathomable for us but if we do not stay alert and raise our fists in anger, maybe we’ll soon enough don green, red and blue robes and remember days at the beach and trips to the doctor as a remote memory of days impossible to retrieve in a world as sterile as the uterus of a commander’s wife.

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Valeria Vitale (TFF bio; City of a Thousand Names)

The city of Prague described by Czech writer Leo Perutz in By Night, under the Stone Bridge probably has a lot in common with the actual capital of Czechia, but they are not the same thing. Perutz’s Prague is a place where, especially at night, the boundaries between past and present, reality and dreams become softer, and as easy to cross as one of the city’s streets or bridges. The buildings are still impregnated with the memories of things that (may have) happened centuries ago, especially during the few years when the melancholic and bizarre Emperor Rudolph had moved the capital of the Holy Roman Empire to Prague. In this Prague it wouldn’t be strange to meet angels, golems, powerful rabbis, or dodgy astrologers, still roaming the streets of their city. Perutz’s book is a collection of interconnected stories, all revolving around a city that, in my imagination, is surrounded by an aura of mystery and magic. I have never been to Prague, the real one, but somehow I feel like I have already met the statues on the Carlo Bridge, and that I could navigate the narrow streets of the Jewish Quarter without getting lost. Sometimes I even think that I should never actually go to Prague, and keep enjoying only her ghostly and enchanted literary reflection.

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Now we want to hear from you! Please tell us about your favorite literary place in the comments.

Interview with Subodhana Wijeyeratne

We are delighted to welcome on our blog Subodhana Wijeyeratne (author of the haunting story The Hulks in TFF #41), and to ask him about his Tales from the Stone Lotus (Writingale Publishing), a collection of short stories and novellas set on both our world, and others. The book follows the loves and lives of a variety of creatures, from the downtrodden underclass of humans forced to slave on a distant moon, to the fleeting insect-like inhabitants of a planet on an extreme orbit.

Born in the UK to Sri Lankan parents, and raised there and in Russia, Subo Wijeyeratne has been writing speculative fiction for nearly twenty years. His favourite writers and biggest influences are Cormac McCarthy, Ernest Hemingway, James Tiptree Jr, and Isaac Asimov. He currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.

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TFF: The title of your collection, Tales from the Stone Lotus, sounds fascinating, maybe even slightly mysterious. Where does it come from?

Subodhana Wijeyeratne: It comes from a couple of things. In the collection is a story called 'The Stone Lotus', about this peculiar object that appears in a city on the north, and the one of the men who researches it. My incredibly talented artist friend Sara Gothard (who's provided all the illustrations in the book) did a painting based on the story, which serves as the cover image. In it, there's a bunch of people gathered around it, as if listening for something. If you read the story, you'll see that one of the characters talks about only seeing things if you look for them. It occurred to me that maybe that's what the Stone Lotus does - go looking for stories, from all over the universe, for the people waiting for it back home. Hence the title!

TFF: Who would be the perfect candidate to direct a movie adaptation of Tales from the Stone Lotus, and why?

SW: Seeing as its a collection of shorts, I think I'd like to see what a few different directors make of it. I think The Best of All Seasons would look great in Terrence Malick's hands (a boy can dream). The Opal Gates would be a nice Christopher Nolan piece, and I'd love to see what Darren Aaronofsky does with As Kazanuhr Falls.

TFF: Ideally, next to what other books would you place Tales from the Stone Lotus in a bookshop (or library)?

SW: I'd love to see it between Ted Chiang's Tales of Your Life and Others and Jorge Luis Borges' Ficciones. They're two people I strive to emulate - particularly Borges - and I reckon the book can only be lifted by the association!

TFF: Can you tell us about a little-known author you think everyone should read?

SW: She's not necessarily little-known in a certain circle, but I think everyone should read the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. She was an 11th century Japanese courtier, and Pillow Book is basically her diary. Her writing is so fresh, and her personality so vivacious, it just blazes off the page, even after a thousand years. It's heartbreaking and hilarious in turns and I really, really recommend it.

TFF: If you were an aerospace engineer, what would you name your first spaceship?

SW: Tough one! Probably Hedonismbot because he is my spirit guide and Futurama is my Bible.

TFF: Do you think there is a theme or some sort of fil rouge that connects the stories in Stone Lotus?

SW: I think underlying all the stories is the idea of impermanence. I was raised Buddhist (though I've drifted a bit), and nothing strikes me as being truer than the idea that all things change. I'm constantly amazed by how this is true on every level of existence, but in such drastically different ways. I've often wondered how they're related. Is there something about the way energy moves in the universe that means that humans are constantly changing what their definition of 'good' or 'love' is?

TFF: And what is your current definition of "good"?

SW: I think I've had the same definition for a long time - which is to, as much as possible, avoid causing other things or people to suffer. Obviously sometimes this is unavoidable, but I often find that being unkind and not caring about how much pain you inflict on other people is a much easier road to take than being respectful and considerate -- which goes a long way towards explaining a lot about the world, I think.

TFF: If you could ask any author, living or dead, to help you brainstorm a story, who would you ask?

SW: I adore Greg Egan's imagination - his work blows me away every time I read it. I'd love to brainstorm a story with him, or with Ted Chiang.

TFF: You have spent many years living in different cultural contexts, often belonging to a minority. Do you see this experience as a continuous challenge or as something that has enriched you?

SW: It's a bit of both. Moving around constantly means its hard to hang on to friends; it's really amazing how many people just slip away and disappear when you're not looking. But I think the enrichment has been overwhelmingly the stronger experience. Other people's subjectivities - even if they can be infuriating - are fascinating to me, especially when they are far away from mine. The distinctive histories of places are also really compelling. Every time I go somewhere I learn something about that place that explains something else half a world away to me, which is the best feeling.

TFF: What is the most incredible thing you have learnt studying the history of the Japanese space program?

SW: That the Japanese developed a death ray during the Second World War! It was actually a highly powered microwave designed to blow up engine blocks. They tested it on a dog and a rabbit, but it didn't do much harm to non-organic material.

TFF: You have travelled extensively since you were a child. What is your absolutely favourite place?

SW: Japan is hands down my favourite country in the world. I love living here, am fascinated by the culture, and my body is 56.4% sushi by mass.

TFF: Has exposure to many different languages changed your literary style? In what ways?

SW: I'm so high-strung about my own writing that I've not really stopped to think about it. My pleasure reading is mostly, if not entirely, in English. But I did study medieval history at university, and have an abiding love of Middle English. As such I try to avoid overly modern turns of phrase - there's something transient and inexpressive about the way so many people speak today, it drives me mad. I'm particularly against the rise of 'of' instead of 'have' (e.g., people saying 'I should of done X'). But I also get that when it comes to stuff like this I'm mostly like Canute in the sea.

Illustration of "The Hulks" by Miguel Santos

TFF: What is your next project?

SW: I'm working on my third novel, Triangulum, which is a sci-fi piece influenced by ancient Indian texts. Yes, it is precisely as pretentious as it sounds, but I've always wanted to combine the cryptic metaphysics of texts like the Rig Veda with a sort of dark sci-fi aesthetic: huge statues on empty world, layers of history piled upon the characters like invisible chains. We'll see how it goes!

TFF: This sounds fascinating! Who would be the main characters in the story?

SW: The main characters include a criminal who gets sentenced to death, but ends up being castrated by his cellmates (for a variety of reasons). His main love interest is a 'snake-girl', whose bodily fluids are venomous, and who hence cannot be touched. Beyond that there are two characters who are male and female manifestations of the same person, and who often speak and walk in tandem. Rounding up the group of five is the central protagonist, Izme Gulthara, an otherworldly presence with an agenda that could either be transcendentally good, or utterly evil.

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Thank you Subo for chatting with us, and best of luck with your projects!

New Issue: 2017.41

“We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.”

—Lynda Barry

Issue 2017.41

Flash fiction

• ‘Spindle Talk’, Sean R. Robinson (illustrated by Toeken)

Short stories

• ‘Burning the Sinners with Lamplight’, Michelle Denham (illustrated by Eric Asaris)
• ‘Gurge’, Jason Baltazar (illustrated by Jason Baltazar)

Novelettes

• ‘Shadows in the Water’, Selena Martens (illustrated by Katharine A. Viola)
• ‘The Hulks’, Subodhana Wijeyeratne (illustrated by Miguel Santos)

Poetry

• ‘New Moon’, T.D. Walker (illustrated by Christina Cartwright)

Full issue and editorial

Download e-book version: EPUB | Mobi