Ten Thousand Doors of January is the tale of January Scaller, an all-but-orphaned girl living in the mansion of her father’s quirky but kindly employer. It’s set - appropriately, for a book about doors and borders - in turn-of-the-century Vermont, and it’s imbued with a pretty thick layer of New England intellectual fussiness, at least at the outset.

The story takes a sharp turn from there, and soon enough we realize that it’s a fantastical fiction which imagines many worlds, operating in parallel, connected by a series of Doors - with a capital D - that allow people, inventions, and ideas to leak from one world to the next. Our chief concern is with two worlds in particular: the familiar world of Vermont at the turn of the century; and another world, a seafaring one where the written word manifests in reality, literally.

This notion, that there is a world in which the act of writing can literally change reality, is a remarkable concept. It seemed both remarkable and, in a certain way, entirely fitting at the same time. I recall reading that part of the story and thinking to myself - well, how else could such a world be organized? The central metaphor of the book is that stories are doors to another world, after all. The consequence of that idea is that “leakage” may happen from one world to another - that things from behind the door can make their way to the other side, and that seems natural enough given that fiction, as we know it, really does introduce a certain spark of the unpredictable into our world.

The narrative is meant to be a bit recursive and circular - the image of the ouroboros appears at some point, although I found it a little tiring. Indeed, I think the first few chapters are a little disorienting and it’s not a terrible idea to go back and re-read them after finishing. There is something clever about the recursive device - without giving too much away, let us say that this book is about a person reading about … a book called The Ten Thousand Doors, and that book itself is rather self-referential. That was rather fascinating and enjoyable, a kind of puzzle to turn around and around.

Unfortunately, the book is also shot through with supernatural creatures which are annoying and unnecessary; there are characters with supernatural powers, worlds that are entirely unrecognizable, and so on. I found those bits to be more distracting than interesting - a focus on the two worlds that are already the focus of this story would have been so wonderful by itself.

I’m glad I read this book, even though it was uneven in parts. Its foundations are really fascinating and worth some thought.