Plotted: A Literary Atlas Read online

  should always be visible.

  e other outlier is the second spread of Frederick Douglass’s

  Narrative

  .

  As the only autobiography in

  Plotted

  (and only work of nonction, in fact),

  it gave rise to a map that owed more to reality but which also diverted sub

  -

  stantially from its source. Frederick Douglass was such a monumental gure

  that we thought it would further illustrate his context in historyto show some

  highlights from his life after his narrative as well. His book was the story of his

  life, after all, and his life went o in several new directions after the

  Narrative

  was published. Ittherefore seemed important to show Douglass’slife as well as

  his life story as it was contained within his original book.

  12.

  If this project reveals anything to you about me, it should be that I am

  rmly in the camp that values the journey over the destination. (Itshould

  also be said that I am an unrepentant spoiler of plots — so buyer beware.) I

  think these maps tend to be best viewed by someone who has actually read the

  books, but that may be because that’s the only way I see them. Still, my hope

  is that they can also entice people who haven’tread these books into pick

  -

  ing them up. Short of that, I think the maps can serve as visual placeholders

  for people who haven’tyet been introduced to these books. When

  Watership

  Down

  is mentioned, you’ll know that it’sabout rabbits in the English country-

  side, and not about a ship lost at sea. In that way I hope to place some

  images in your contextual framework, for both the books you’veread and the

  ones you haven’t.

  is introduction notwithstanding, I tried not to overthink these maps

  as

  maps

  before I began sketching them. I tried to remain as true as possible

  to the works while also oering something that felt new — or at least excit

  -

  ing enough to try.e fact that we had to leave so much out in the transi

  -

  tion from words to images was liberating, and I hopethe end result will have

  something to oer to casual readers and devoted bookworms alike. And for

  readers who may be too young for some of the books in question (as I am too

  young for “e Lottery” — as everyone is), I hope the maps will serve as an

  invitation. Like most readers, I knowwhat it is to be seduced by a cover; and

  like any number of great book covers, the

  Plotted

  maps are intended to be

  simultaneously literal and metaphorical. One way or the other, they seek to

  draw you in.

  One last thing about maps. ere’sno escaping the fact that maps today

  are used primarily as a means for locating ourselves and our destinations. But

  those are the kinds of maps that we also discard upon arrival. ese maps are

  dierent, I hope. ese are maps for people who seek to travel beyond the lives

  and places that they already know(or think they know). e goal hereisn’t

  to become found, but only to become more lost.

  Like a poorly informed but over-condent urbanite, I seek to help you get

  more lost.

  13.

  “

  Thewriter

  is anexplorer.

  Every step

  is an advance

  into new land.

  ”

  — RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  TheVoyage

  of Odysseus

  From the

  Odyssey

  By Homer

  ca. 800

  bce

  T

  here’sno place like home. You can’tgo

  home again. Home is where the heart is

  — and home is also, obviously,a very meta

  -

  phorical concept. at’sas true now as it was

  in ancient Greece, when Homer was compos

  -

  ing his epic poetry.Odysseus is a character

  who is born at odds with domestic life. Homer

  describes him in the opening lines as “the

  wanderer,”and that term is both a fate and a

  calling. His cunning allows him to seek cre

  -

  ative solutions to the unique problems that he

  faces (threatened by six-headed monsters! held

  captive by a Cyclops! seduced by a witch!),

  but it also drives him from one adventure to

  the next. Odysseus’s“home,” therefore, is

  just as much the wider Mediterranean as it

  is the island of Ithaca. Reunion is in Ithaca,

  that much is true; but Odysseus is at home

  wherever he goes.

  is map — containing spirits below

  ground, gods above, and monsters in between

  — shows Odysseus’sworld as a place that

  is both recognizable and yet deeply foreign.

  e landscape remains much the same; these

  places often truly existed; and yet, this world

  blends realistic elements with fantasy in a way

  that gives us pause. Homer’swork pushes be

  -

  yond the world as most people knew it then,

  and like many early world maps it seems that

  the human imagination has picked up where

  human knowledge left o. Distant seas become

  home to serpents, and foreign lands give rise

  to monstrous new species of animals. is is

  a map of the world as it might be, rather than

  the world as it is. And it’sexciting to return to

  a time when so much was still unknown, when

  the margins of our maps were so spacious.

  But the

  Odyssey

  hasn’tmanaged to remain

  vital simply because of its monstrous imagin

  -

  ings (although that didn’thurt). It’salso a very

  human drama: a lovestory,a tale of familial

  reconciliation, a revenge mission, and, of

  course, an epic journey. We get the sense that

  we are evading peril and courting adventure

  along with Odysseus. ere aren’t many readers

  who can still read the

  Odyssey

  in its original lan

  -

  guage or hear its original poetry,but everyone

  — children and adults alike — can still revel

  in this journey through the years and across

  the seas towarda xed goal: toward Penelope,

  Telemachus, Argos, and home.

  e poem ends when Odysseus takes his

  rightful place as husband and father (and dog

  owner) back at home. And it’simportant that it

  ends there. Because Odysseusat rest is Odysseus

  no longer. But the book is immortal because,

  for us readers at least, Odysseus is always on

  the move.

  •

  17.

  Elsinore

  From

  The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

  By William Shakespeare

  1603

  H

  amlet

  is one of the great masterpieces of

  world literature, but it

  is also a play that

  has been done to death. Even before we read

  it, we know its characters (Hamlet, Ophelia,

  e Ghost),
use its words and phrases (“slings

  and arrows,” “what dreams may come”), and

  recite its most famous lines (“to be or not to

  be,” “to thine own self be true,” and on and

  on). e degree to which the play has perme

  -

  ated into our culture speaks to its power, and

  the fact that we can still enjoy it is a testament

  to the play’s depth — but depth and power

  aren’talways enough to keep the play feeling

  fresh. Itcan often feel like we’veseen the play a

  thousand times before we’ve seen it once.

  Luckily for us, Shakespeare’splay is built

  out of words, and these images herecannot be.

  Weare forced to take out what is, in a way,

  the play’sbeating heart, but the result oers a

  fresh perspective on some things that wemight

  normally miss — for instance, the way the

  play uses an increase in pace to ratchet up the

  drama, and its ability to light up what we

  might otherwise dimly imagine (a castle in

  sixteenth-century Denmark). It also reminds

  us that Shakespeare’splays are pretty simple

  things, really.ey don’trequire much in the

  way of special eects, and with a little imagina

  -

  tion and ingenuity all of the action can t upon

  a single stage and end in around three hours.

  But there is no getting to the bottom of

  Hamlet

  because, well, there is no getting to the bottom

  of Hamlet. (“What a piece of work is man!”)

  Madness — Hamlet’smadness in particular

  — is central to the play’sdeep meditation on

  the theme of doubt. All good plays have their

  share of ambiguity, but

  Hamlet

  is fairly unique

  in making that essential facet of drama the sub

  -

  ject of the work. ere is always an argument

  to be made for or against any given interpreta

  -

  tion (to the point that the wisdom of the fool

  Polonius — “tothine own self be true,” — is

  now printed on T-shirts and given as advice),

  but the two-sidedness of

  Hamlet is so fun

  -

  damental as to be his primary characteristic.

  Hamlet is both deeply sane and insane, but in

  these maps we also get a chance to see the ex

  -

  tent to which his madness infects the rest of the

  castle. He spreads like a virus, and in the end

  he is everywhere. (Death is everywhere as well.)

  His is a consuming madness.

  Shakespeare’splay is vivid enough on the

  page. ese maps are an attempt to return

  some luster to certain aspects of the play that

  are hard to see from our current distance; but

  they can never do justice to the play’svitality,

  which lies entirely within its words. It’shard

  to believe, but there is no castle. ere is no

  Hamlet. ere is no tragedy here. It’sall make-

  believe. But then again, Hamlet says as much

  himself. Ina way,he restores order to the

  world when he commits himself to nothing

  -

  ness, to “the undiscovered country.”And yet

  the irony is that through his death he achieves

  a real immortality.He haunts us as his father

  haunted him.

  •

  21.

  No Man Is an Island

  From

  Robinson Crusoe

  By Daniel Defoe

  1719

  R

  obinson Crusoe

  is everywhere. It’sthe in

  -

  spiration behind space-age art lms (

  2001:

  A Space Odyssey

  ), young-adult dystopian hits

  (

  Lord of the Flies

  ),

  reality TVshows (

  Survivor

  ),

  radio programs (“Desert Island Discs”), prime-

  time dramas (

  Lost

  ),

  and countless other adap

  -

  tations and reimaginings (

  Robinson Crusoe on

  Mars

  ,

  Cast Away

  ,

  e Swiss Family Robinson

  ,

  et cetera). It’sas relevant at literarysymposia as

  it is at cocktail parties — and it oers some great

  tips in case you do ever nd yourself stranded in

  nature. It’san enduring classic and an authentic,

  global phenomenon; and in some ways, it could

  hardly have come from a less likely source.

  Daniel Defoe was a Puritan — and although

  Puritans are known for manythings, thrilling

  entertainments are not among them. Defoe was

  fortunate even to be alive by the time he wrote

  Robinson Crusoe

  . When Defoe had turned ten

  years old, he’dalready survived three incred

  -

  ible disasters: the Great Plague of London, the

  Great Fire of London, and the Dutch raid on

  the Medway. (He also spent time in the notori

  -

  ous Newgate Prison as an adult.) But survive he

  did, and before long he was thriving as an au

  -

  thor of essays, poems, political tracts, religious

  pamphlets, reportage, satires, conduct manuals,

  and, of course, novels.

  Robinson Crusoe

  is often cited as the rst

  English novel, and it remains remarkable for its

  realism; yet despite that,

  Crusoe

  is rooted in an

  enduring fantasy.Desert islands are the stu of

  childhood dreams, and seen vaguely from a great

  distance, it’s easy to understand the enduring

  appeal of this vision: a pacic, pristine envi

  -

  ronment where one can tend to one’sgarden

  and proceed by one’sown lights. But when

  that dream becomes a reality and self-reliance

  becomes a necessity for survival (Crusoe even

  -

  tually becomes his own accountant, his own

  doctor, his own priest), the dream loses much

  of its luster. e island that Crusoe actually

  nds himself on is an island lled with fears

  and wild imaginings: beasts, cannibals, dark

  -

  ness, loneliness, and death. Ittruly is the Island

  of Despair.

  is despair is only vanquished through

  Crusoe’s improved knowledge — knowledge

  of the island, of the tactics of survival, and

  of himself. ese maps reect the manner

  in which the landscape changes according to

  Crusoe’s own works and words (the power to

  name things is a real power, after all). As a re

  -

  sult, they wind up revealing how similar the

  paradise that Crusoe creates is to the biblical

  paradise of Eden, how it even also resembles,

  in broad outlines, the political structures of

  Defoe’stime (with Crusoe aspiring to the

  status “king”). But this is a story that is much

  more concerned with questions of howthan it

  is with questions of why, a
nd it will always be

  able to wriggle out of rm interpretations. It

  is a book that could hardly be morelimited in

  scope (one man, one island, and one problem

  at a time), but it is endlessly revealing. No man

  is an island, but on his little island, Robinson

  Crusoe managed to recreate his world.

  •

  33.

  TheCourse

  of TrueLove

  From

  Pride and Prejudice

  By Jane Austen

  1813

  A

  ll of the books and stories included in

  this collection have a share of timeless

  -

  ness. But situated herebetween

  Robinson

  Crusoe

  () and

  A Christmas Carol

  (),

  Pride and Prejudice

  () seems almost shock

  -

  ingly contemporary.is is partly owing to

  the fact that so many lms still take place in

  Victorian and Regency-era England (so we’re

  used to living in this world, abiding by these

  customs, speaking in these tones); but it’s the

  book’sarchitecture — its form as a suspenseful

  love story— that makes it so eternally young.

  is is a story that always holds us in suspense,

  long after we know how it is going to end.

  But the suspense of Austen’sbook is two-

  fold. We care about what happens to Elizabeth

  not just because we care about Elizabeth, but

  also because we care about the entireBennet

  family — and theirs is a house that does not

  stand upon a very rm foundation. We know

  about their imperiled estate almost as soon

  as we meet them. Wealth is status and status

  is integral to romance, as the book’sfamous

  opening line makes clear. And this is not just

  metaphor. Forso long as they are romantically

  engaged, the characters within the novel are

  always navigating status as they pursue their