This week’s topic has been troubling me. Not because I don’t have favorite places or things that make a place wonderful to me, but because I already wrote on a similar topic on my personal blog, and I feel compelled to come up with something original.
But in that entry, I wrote about my favorite real-life places, and one of the things that I love most about books is their ability to transport you somewhere. In The Weird Sisters, one of my goals was to create a living, breathing town, a place that you felt you had seen before, or might be able to stumble upon, and I hope I’ve done that in the town of Barnwell, Ohio.
There are a lot of books that do that for me – the beach in Alex Garland’s The Beach, Camden in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Seattle in Judith Ryan Hendricks’ Bread Alone – and even one TV show – Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls.
But if there’s one place I could go? One single fictional place that could come alive for me?
Maeve Binchy’s Dublin.
In any of Maeve Binchy’s books, she creates Dublin as an enormous city that nonetheless feels like a small town. Her ability to craft coincidence is one of the things I love most about her writing, and the way the characters intermesh is the key to that small-town feel.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in England, but have never made it to Ireland. Nonetheless, I feel like I’ve been there already. I’m nigh-convinced that I could wander into Quentins restaurant, or run into some of the people who live on Tara Road, or stop by for tea in one of the houses on St. Jarlath’s Crescent (from Scarlet Feather and Minding Frankie) or encounter any one of the characters from my favorite book of hers, Evening Class.
I’m a bit of a Maeve Binchy superfan, and it makes me a wee bit nervous to actually go to Dublin, for fear that I wouldn’t see it with the same love and tenderness she does. Clearly, the only solution for this is to have her act as my tour guide. Call me, Maeve!
What about you? What fictional, or fictionalized, place would you love to visit?
“The Tricking of Freya” by Christina Sunley does a really great job with Iceland and is an absolutely fabulous book too. I had a hard time reading anything after that, really.
Going straight into my to-be-read pile. Thanks for the recommendation!
Oh yay! Let me know how you like it. It was just beautifully done with fantastic characterizations and fabulous sense of place and it filled my heart with love for the printed word. I can’t see how it wouldn’t make my ‘best of’ list for 2010. I wish it had gotten more press. Ah, well, all the more reason to mention it everywhere possible on the internet!
Visit the Guinness factory first – problem solved! 🙂
Good point – but I still want Maeve to come with me!
Great post. I’ve only been to Dublin once, but it was everything I’d hoped and expected it would be. Lots of people singing songs, accompanied by a penny whistle, etc. I was there on tour with my band and we were playing pub gigs every night. One night some wag poured Guinness down my saxophone, but other than that people were charming, funny, and, well, very Irish. We were doing a soundcheck one afternoon, saying the traditional “one, two, one, two,” into the microphones. There was a group of old guys by the bar, sniggering to themselves. Finally one of them came over, grinning broadly, with a request scrawled on a scrap of paper. What did they want to hear? “Three, four.”
You had a band, too? Is there a career you *haven’t* explored?
Yay for Stars Hollow, especially at Christmas…or any other holiday!
Or just on a regular Tuesday. Oh, Gilmore Girls, how I miss you.
E, it’s in perpetual rerun cable heaven BUT a new episode would be bliss!
Were you happy with the ending?
Oooh, great topic! I’ve always wanted to see Scotland, and if I travel back to the setting of Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER, maybe I could meet Jamie. That’s my vote!
Tawna
I will totally fight you for Jamie, Tawna.
Yeah, I think there would be a Jamie line.
Oh my goodness, I LOVE Maeve. Huge fan, right along with you Eleanor. How I’d love to dine at Quentin’s tonight. xo
My UK editors were generous enough to send me a copy of her newest that doesn’t come out in the US until February – it’s so lovely. I’m only envious that you still have the newest to look forward to!
Deb Dinner at Quentins! Let’s do it!