REVIEW: I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land by Connie Willis

cover of Traveller in a Foreign Land. Review by Markus McDowell

Connie Willis is one of my favorite modern authors. I first read The Doomsday Book and fell in love, following that with Passage, To Say Nothing of the Dog, All Clear, and Blackout. Beautiful writing, intriguing ideas, and some quirkiness.

I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land is a novella (88 pages in hardback). If you love books, you will enjoy this story—because it is about books. Real books, in bookstores, with a little magic thrown in, perhaps. If you love technology, you might be a bit chastened. And if you love both, you’ll love this story.

It is a (perhaps) thinly-veiled warning about the plethora of modern works replacing older works. Writing a book before advanced technology required a lot of work and skill. The ones that survived were all good books in their subject matter. But today, anyone can write a book and publish it. It doesn’t have to be well-written, or literary, or even particularly useful. Even some that because “best-sellers,” while many find them entertaining, all probably not stand the test of time—in popularity. But they all survive forever because of technology.

Not so with older books. Sure, Amazon is trying to digitize every book that exists, and the Gutenberg Project continues to preserve notable classics and other pre-digital books. But surely they will miss some. Or not think they are worth it.

That’s the basis for this story. And Willis’ storytelling shines as she proposes both the problem (as she sees it) and the solution (in that fictional world).

Jim is in New York City at Christmastime shopping a book based on his blog…Gone for Good…premised on the fact that “being nostalgic for things that have disappeared is ridiculous.” Progress decides for people what they need and what’s obsolete. It’s that simple. Of course, not everyone agrees. After Jim bombs a contentious interview with a radio host who defends the sacred technology of the printed, tangible book, he gets caught in a rainstorm only to find himself with no place to take refuge other than a quaint, old-fashioned bookshop.
Ozymandias Books is not just any store. Jim wanders intrigued through stacks of tomes he doesn’t quite recognize the titles of, none with prices. Here he discovers a mysteriously pristine, seemingly endless wonderland of books…where even he gets nostalgic for his childhood favorite. And, yes, the overwhelmed and busy clerk showing him around says they have a copy. But it’s only after Jim leaves that he understands the true nature of Ozymandias and how tragic it is that some things may be gone forever…
Amazon

This is an easy read. If you love books, read it. If you want to understand how book-lovers think about books, read it.