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The place the place the misplaced issues go isn’t one of essentially the most frequently-occurring story tropes, nevertheless it’s actually one of the extra compelling. In the Wizard of Oz universe, L. Frank Baum created the Valley of Lost Things, a location in Merryland the place something misplaced in the actual world will ultimately flip up. Danielle Page expanded on Baum’s idea in her Dorothy Must Die collection, giving us the Island of Lost Things, a spot that travellers can solely discover in the event that they get completely misplaced on their journeys. There are modern spins on the idea — Stephen King’s Finders Keepers focuses on a misplaced assortment of notebooks — and variations tied to explicit areas or varieties of misplaced object, comparable to Un Lun Dun by China Miéville, residence to every little thing misplaced in the town of London.
What is it about locations the place the misplaced issues go that carry us again repeatedly? Part of the reason being that, undoubtedly, that is one thing we are able to all relate to on a private stage. We’ve all misplaced one thing in the previous that we actually regretted, and in many circumstances, nonetheless miss — significantly beloved childhood toys, which are sometimes the primary issues discovered by heroes who attain the locations the place the misplaced issues go. When characters in tales discover their very own misplaced issues, it takes us again to possessions — and folks — that we could have misplaced in the previous, and makes us marvel if, someway, they’re nonetheless round someplace. But our fascination with lands of misplaced issues doesn’t cease there. Like the possessions discovered in them, there’s far more to lands of misplaced objects than meets the attention.
Lost and Found
Lands of misplaced issues serve an fascinating objective in tales, serving each the plot and the characters. Humans tend to anthropomorphise our belongings, and imagining a spot the place our beloved outdated associates are being stored protected till we are able to discover them once more is a method of coping with the disappointment, guilt and generally grief we really feel at dropping them. Lands of misplaced issues, no matter kind they take, all have an identical objective — they provide the characters, and by proxy the reader, the chance to search out some type of catharsis over misplaced issues from their childhood. They also can give us the hope — typically in useless, however generally not — that we would discover our personal misplaced issues once more.
There’s additionally the truth that the motion of travelling to a land of misplaced issues, whether or not it’s the actual vacation spot or a cease alongside the best way, is a basic story hook. Many tales are constructed round a journey to hunt for treasure — and what could possibly be a extra essential treasure than one thing you really liked once you have been younger, or one thing that you just nonetheless miss regardless of what number of years have handed because you misplaced it? Authors also can heighten the peril of a narrative by exploring different, extra harmful misplaced objects — or generally creatures — which have discovered their method to the place the place misplaced issues go. Finding misplaced issues is the central plot of Garden of Lost Socks by Esi Edugyan and Amélie Dubois, a narrative a couple of younger lady, Akosua, an ‘Exquirologist’ who devotes her time to discovering misplaced issues in her group along with her new buddy.
The Different Lost Lands
While lands of misplaced issues are all constructed alongside the identical varieties of rules — misplaced objects, creatures and folks being mysteriously transported to a spot the place they’re collected collectively, able to be rediscovered — the best way these locations are constructed can typically fluctuate drastically. Some lands of misplaced issues are full of a miscellany of on a regular basis objects, just like the Valley of Lost Things in Baum’s ebook, which is generally crammed with pins, buttons, thimbles, and different easily-lost small objects. Un Lun Dun, as I already talked about, is a twisted reflection of the real-world London, full of the residents and objects that the actual metropolis has let fall by the wayside. Others are much more particular — for instance, in A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern, the heroine finds herself in a spot the place all of the misplaced folks go, one thing that provides her an opportunity to reconcile emotions about folks she has parted methods with in the previous. Some of the locations full of misplaced issues are benign, whereas others are extra sinister. The pleasure of discovering misplaced issues may be tempered by the realisation that the hero, or heroes, are misplaced themselves, and should struggle to search out their method residence.
Searching for misplaced family members in a land of misplaced objects is a basic twist on the premise, and one that may make for a bittersweet story. While not a conventional land of misplaced objects, the fairy story world in The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly is impressed by the idea — it’s a spot the place the protagonist, David, hopes that he’ll be capable to discover his lifeless mom, though journeying by way of the harmful fantasy world makes him realise that life is unfortunately not that straightforward. Similarly, in The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan, protagonist Anthony is curating his personal land of misplaced issues by accumulating and labelling every little thing he finds, as half of his lingering grief over his late fiancée. We typically maintain our deceased family members shut by holding onto objects that belonged to them, and lands of misplaced issues can typically serve an identical objective in tales, by offering one thing tangible that the protagonists can sift by way of and spark recollections of their pasts.
Lands of misplaced objects can be utilized as a metaphor for grief or to discover materials loss, however they may also be a method of extra nebulous human circumstances. In Perduo: Obadiah Emerson in The Place Where Lost Things Go by Robert E. Berge, Obie, an grownup in his 30s who has no concept the place his life goes, finds himself in the land of Perduo, a land of misplaced objects that has been warped by the work of a dastardly company. Obie’s journey to Perduo occurs in giant half as a result of his personal lack of path in life, however whereas many tales use lands of misplaced issues to assist characters discover themselves, Perduo takes a darker and extra satirical take a look at why so many of us really feel misplaced in the primary place. This could be a flip aspect of lands of misplaced objects — whereas we might be able to discover our misplaced books, toys or companions, it’s not really easy to search out emotions, pursuits or motivations that we’ve misplaced through the years.
However lands of misplaced objects manifest themselves in fiction, they all the time present a compelling thriller that retains the protagonists and the plot transferring, and attracts the reader additional into the fictional world.
For extra tales that stroll the boundaries between fantasy and thriller, strive 8 Magical Mystery Books to Get Lost In. If you need to learn extra concerning the world of Oz, strive The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: What the Movie Got Wrong.
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