An Atlas of the Novel

I was riding Mr. Nice Guy this afternoon and I started thinking about a certain thing that is characteristic of the novel as a form, and that is that it is usually geographical in conception. It takes place in a specific spot. It portrays that spot. Quite often, the characters go on journeys from particular spots to other particular spots, and the reader’s interest is partly piqued by the specificity of that journey--how the character moves about, what he sees, what he finds at his destination, what he is leaving behind. I imagined a Google map of the world of the novel, and I wondered how grand and particular it would be, especially if it was simply a map of all novels rather than a map of great novels, or well-known novels, etc. So immediately I was in wiki territory, and this is what I propose, that we join in making a map of the world of the novel. We will start small--lists of up ten novels contributed by readers of this site (contribute by email to jane.smiley@sbcglobal.net). Each list should contain the following:

Author, Title, date of publication, locale of action. If the action moves around, put locale of origin, locale of destination, and up to five way stations. Then put your name or pseudonym, the date, and your locale. The novels should not repeat other lists, which I will post on this site. The goal is to map the whole world of the novel--this means obscure novels are appropriate if they have been published and are known to be in print somewhere (in a used bookstore, for example). For really obscure novels, you might include a link to a source fora copy of that novel. Please use the form I have established for tje lists, because it is too confusing if the lists are not in standard form, and I can’t really tell, as I move forward in the project, what I have and what I don’t have. When I get the first hundred novels, I will reorganize them by continent.

Why bother? Well, I see this project as another way for novels to find readers. One of the reasons readers pick novels us that they want to visit a spot without getting on a plane. There are plenty of novels that I haven’t heard of that visit those spots, and I want to know about them--I suspect other readers, do, too.

Eventually, I will find a way to put these locations on a readable map.

First things first. Here is my first list, composed from novels chosen at random on the shelf pictured above:

1. Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils, 1987. Dinedor, Wales

2. Daniel Defoe, Roxana, 1724. Poitiers, France to Holland, but most of the novel is set in London with sojourns in France and Holland.

3. Jeanette Haien, The All of It, 1986. Roonatellin, Co. Mayo, Ireland

4. Sheri Holman, The Mammoth Cheese, 2003. Three Chimneys, Virginia, USA.

5. A.L. Kennedy, Everything You Need, 1999. Foal Island, off the coast of Scotland

6. Paul Rudnick, Social Disease, 1986. Manhattan, New York, USA

7. Jose Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, 1991. Nazareth, Galilee, Roman Empire.

8. Carol Shields, Unless, 2002. One hour north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

9. Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 1760-67. Shandy Hall, Yorkshire, England.

10. Edmund White, A Boy’s Own Story, 1982. Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, and environs.

Now we have started! In the future, we can annotate the novels as we read them or remember them, but for now, the map is already beginning to take shape.

What do you have to offer?

Further contributions:

Contributed by Lita Smith-Mines:

1. John Jay Osborn,Jr., The Paper Chase, 1970, Cambridge, MA, USA

2. Laura Esquivel, Like Water For Chocolate, 1992, Mexico

3. JD Salinger, Franny and Zooey, 1961, Wellesley, MA (?) & New York City, USA

4. Herman Wouk, Don’t Stop The Carnival (1971), Amerigo, Caribbean

Contributed by Lucy Silag:

1. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood, pub 2003, unidentifiable post-apocalypse North America

2. Almost A Crime, Penny Vincenzi, pub 2006, London, UK

3. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, Julia Alvarez, pub 1991, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Long Island, NY, as well as Queens, NY, and Michigan, USA

4. In America, Susan Sontag, pub 2001, Warsaw, Poland, Anaheim, CA, with stops in Hoboken, NJ, NYC, San Francisco and Chicago

5. Ghostwalk, Rebecca Stott, pub 2007, Cambridge, UK

6. The Epicure's Lament, Kate Christensen, pub 2003, rural Massachusetts, USA

7. In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez, pub 1994, Salcedo, Dominican Republic and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, with stops in Santiago, DR, and San Francisco de Marcoris, DR

8. In the Drink, by Kate Christensen, pub 1999, NYC , USA

9. The Four Temperaments, Yona Zeldis McDonough, pub 2003, NYC with stops in San Francisco, CA, and Tijuana, Mexico

10. Forever, Judy Blume, pub 1975, New Jersey, USA

Contributed by Stephen Elliot:

1. Elliott, Stephen, Happy Baby, 2004. Chicago to San Francisco, USA

2. Orner, Peter, The Second Coming Of Mavala Shikongo, 2006, Goas (fictional place?) Namibia

3. Paul, Caroline, East Wind, Rain, 2006, Hawaii, USA

4. Eggers, Dave, What Is The What, 2006, Sudan mostly but also Ethiopia, Kenya, and Atlanta, GA, USA

5. Hemingway, Ernest, The Sun Also Rises, 1926, Barcelona Spain

6. Elliott, Stephen, A Life Without Consequences, 2001, Chicago, USA

Two more from me:

1. Emile Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise, 1883, Paris, France

2. Elmore Leonard, The Hot Kid, 2005, Eastern Oklahoma, USA

From Barking Kitten:

1. Nicole Mones: Lost in Translation, 1998, Beijing, then out to Yinchuan, China

2. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife, 2003, Chicago, Il., USA

3. Janet Fitch: White Oleander, 1999, Southern California: Venice Beach, Tujunga, Van Nuys, Hollywood, West

Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, USA. Berlin, Germany.

4. Wallace Stegner: Angle of Repose, 1971. Grass Valley, California, New Almaden, CA, Santa Cruz, CA, Leadville,

CA, Michoacan, Mexico, Boise City, ID, Grass Valley, CA, USA

5. Susan Straight. Aquaboogie, 1990, Riverside and Los Angeles, CA, USA

Contributed by Jack Canning:

1. Frank Schaeffer, Portofino, 1992. Portofino & Paraggi, Italy

2. Frank Schaeffer, Saving Grandma, 1997. Switzerland

3. Frank Schaeffer, Zermatt, 2003. Switzerland

4. Jane Smiley, Horse Heaven, 2000. Southern California, Maryland, and New York City, USA

5. Jane Smiley, Good Faith, 2003. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, USA

6. Jane Smiley, Ten Days in the Hills, 2007. Pacific Palisades, Bel Air,

California, USA

7. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1860. East Anglia, London, UK

8. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859. Paris, France & London, UK

Contributed by Phoebe Silag:

1. Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920. Essex, England.

2. P.G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning, 1946. London and Hampshire, England.

3. Diane Johnson, Burning, 1971. Los Angeles.

4. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, 1980. Mountainous region in Northern Italy.

5. Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin, 1994. Cephallonia, an island in the Ionian Sea, Greece.

6. Ian McEwan, Enduring Love, 1997. The Chiltern Hills and London, England.

7. Francesca Marciano, Rules of the Wild, 1998. Langata, at the foot of the Ngong hills, Kenya.

8. Joanne Harris, Five Quarters of the Orange, 2001. About 15 km from Angers, on the Loire, France.

9. Bharati Mukherjee, Desirable Daughters, 2002. San Francisco and Mumbai (though called Bombay in the book).

10. Gary Shteyngart, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, 2002. New York City; Miami; and perhaps Prague.

Virginia Mollenkott:

1.Mary Rakow, The Memory Room. 2002. Los Angeles, Santa Barbara; final, triumphant trip to Philadelphia.

2.Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness. 1928. Near Upton-on-Severn, England; Paris.

3.John Grisham, A Painted House. 2000. A farm in Arkansas.

4.Starhawk. The Fifth Sacred Thing. 1993. San Francisco Bay area.

5.Virginia Woolf, Mrs, Dalloway. 1925. Central London.

6.James Joyce, Ulysses.1922. Dublin.

7. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights. 1847. The moors of England.

8. D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover. 1928. Midlands, England.

9. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. 1851. The sea off New Bedford and Nantucket.

10. William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! 1936. Jefferson, in Yoknapatawpha County (Oxford, Mississippi).

Jon Varese:

1. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861. Rochester, Kent, U.K.

London, U.K. Cairo, Egypt.

2. Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, 1857. Marseilles, France. London,

U.K. Geneva, Switzerland. Martigny, Switzerland. Venice, Italy. Genoa, Italy. Florence, Italy. Rome, Italy. London, U.K.

3. Thomas Mann, Death in Venice, 1912. Germany. Venice, Italy.

4. Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire, 1976. San Francisco, CA. New Orleans, LA. Paris, France. New Orleans, LA.

5. James Agee, A Death in the Family, 1957. Knoxville, TN.

6. William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, 1929. Yokanapatawpha County (Oxford, MS).

7. Stephen King, The Shining, 1977. New England, U.S.A. Colorodo,

U.S.A.

8. Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, 1881. Albany, NY. England. Florence, Italy. Rome, Italy. England.

9. Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated, 2002. The Ukraine.

10. David Gutterson, Snow Falling on Cedars, 1995. Puget Sound,

Washington, U.S.A.

Lucy Silag again:

1. Kevin Shay, The End As I Know It, 2006. San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, rural East Texas, Brooklyn, NY, and Denver, Co, among other places.

2. Yael Goldstein, Overture, 2007. Cambridge, Mass, NYC, and major stops in Vienna, Austria, and Krakow, Poland

3. Kevin Patterson, Consumption, 2007. Rankin Inlet, Quebec, Canada, Yonkers, NY, and Newark, NJ

4. Katharine McMahon, The Alchemist's Daughter, 2006, Buckinghamshire, England, and London, England

5. Penny Vincenzi, No Angel, 2003, London, England, NYC, and Southhampton, NY

6. Penny Vincenzi, Sheer Abandon, 2007, London, England, with a major stop in Byron Bay, Australia

7. Tom Perotta, Little Children, 2004, suburban Boston, Mass.

8. Kazuo Ishirguro, Never Let Me Go, 2005, rural England (fictional)

9. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake, 2004, Cambridge, Mass, New Haven, CT, Delhi, India and NYC

10. Sarah Dunant, The Birth of Venus, 2004, Florence, Italy

From Rita Roberta:

1. Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night, 1936, Shrewsbury College, Oxford, England

2. Ian Fleming, Goldfinger, 1959, Fort Knox, Kentucky, USA

Ernest Lowe:

1.Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers (4 volumes), 1933-1947. Harran, Hebron, Beersheba, Gaza, Memphe, and Thebes

2. David Malouf 1991 The Great World, Australia Sydney & rural, and Thailand,

3. Richard Powers. 2000. Plowing the Dark, Seattle, Beirut,

4. Andrea Barrett 1991. Middle Kingdom, Washington Square Press. North Dakota, Beijing

David Francis:

1. Marguerite Duras, The Lover, 1975, (English translation), French Indochina

2. J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace, 2000, Cape Town to Eastern Cape, South Africa

3. Colm Toibin, The Story of the Night, 1996, Buenos Aires, Argentina

4. Julia Blackurn, Daisy Bates in the Desert, 1994, Nullarbor Plain to Adelaide, Australia.

5. Michael Oondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter, 1976, New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana