Two Novels About Doorways to Other Worlds

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

I’ve been working on a novella that is a “portal story.” That is, it’s about someone from this world finding a magical doorway into a fantastical “other” world. Multiple other worlds, actually. I’ve always loved those kinds of stories. One of the first books I ever read was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, which captured my imagination and never let go.

Then there was Narnia, which broke my heart and I don’t want to talk about. Then there was the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, which I do want to talk about, but not right now. And Sliders! And eventually The Magicians, which I loved.

In this latest dive back into portal fiction (or Isekai, the Japanese brand of these stories), I’ve looked all over for recommendations and found these two books popping up again and again.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke was subtle and claustrophobic and beautifully written. The main character was sweet and fragile, and I felt immediately protective of him. The book is told from his perspective through his thorough journals.

Piranesi is a man living in a labyrinth of sorts. Hundreds of stone chambers, many of which are filled with statues, and which occasionally flood. He believes he is only one of two people who exist. The story unfolds from there and unfolds again and again.

I was lukewarm on Clarke’s first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which I know is beloved by many. I enjoyed it, but I found it just a bit too long to get comfortable with. Piranesi, on the other hand, I binged in a weekend and felt completely immersed in.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is vast and sprawling, though also partly told in journal and research paper form. Similarly, it had some mysterious identities, but where Piranesi seemed to have one portal, TTTDoJ, somewhat expectedly, had many.

Also similar to Piranesi, TTTDoJ was beautifully, often poetically written with a very different but equally intriguing main character.

Where Piranesi gave me a very complete picture, with every inch of the world seemingly explored and explained, TTTDoJ left so much unexplored. I wanted more. I wanted to know about every world and every door and every character.

I’m still grappling with whether that lack of information is a good thing or a bad thing. Or maybe just a thing. There was a story to be told and it was told well. There were often huge sub-stories waved away with a line or two, and I wanted desperately to know more about those mini-adventures.

I can’t wait to dive into Harrow’s other work, which all looks right up my alley.

As for my own portal story, it leans more toward Harrow’s novel, though the mystery is far less complex and the other worlds are the things I want to explore the most. We’ll see how I do.