THE STARLESS SEA - Erin Morgenstern

5 stars

This is a masterpiece. This is flawless. This is the kind of book that comes along once in a decade. This cracks the foundations.

Imagery: ★★★★★
Concepts: ★★★★★
Writing: ★★★★★
Pacing: ★★★★

Erin Morgenstern is not for everyone. Her writing is for those who love the story for the sake of the story. The lyrical, meandering, and existential prose is not the standard format, and it takes no prisoners. If it's not for you, it's not for you.

Normally, I try to make some sort of sense in my review. Talk about the characters, the plot, the atmosphere. The Starless Sea is too close to my heart to describe accurately. (What more can I say about it than what it says about itself?)

It's about a subterranean library living labyrinthine space where the stories are often books, but not always.

Time and Fate are characters with an eternal love affair, but Fate was cursed to unravel over and over. Sometimes, Fate can put itself back together again. Time is always waiting.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is the son of a fortune teller, and he discovers that his story has been fated since the moment he saw his door to the Starless Sea years ago. He didn't open the door then, but your story has a way of finding you even when you're not aware of its presence.

The Starless Sea is about metaphorical pirates, the Moon and her lover, Fate and Time, the power of the story, the cycle of beginnings and endings, owls, and bees. It has stories within stories, and perspectives that shift within the construct of time.

I loved it. I can't wait to read it again. As Morgenstern said in a recent interview, if The Night Circus embodied the concept of fall, The Starless Sea embodies the concept of winter. She says she's going to conceptualize spring for her next one...and I'm dying to read it.

Morgenstern, tell me a tale.