Islandia [Paperback]

Austin Tappan Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2001

On his death, Austin Tappan Wright left the world a wholly unsuspected legacy. Among this distinguished legal scholar's papers were thousands of pages devoted to a staggering feat of literary creation - a detailed history of an imagined country complete with geography, genealogy, representations from its literature, language and culture. In a monumental labor of love Wright's wife and daughter culled from this material a thousand page novel, as detailed as J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Islandia has similarly become a classic touchstone for those concerned with the creation of imaginary worlds.

Islandia occupies the southern portion of the Karain Continent, which lies in the Southern Hemisphere. Its civilization is an ancient one, protected from outside intervention by a natural fortress of towering mountains. To this isolated country - this alien, compelling and totally fascinating world - comes John Lang, the American consul. As the reader lives with Lang in Islandia, as he comes to know this magnetic land, its unique people, its strange customs, he may find himself experiencing a feeling of envy, a wish that he, like Lang, be permitted, at the book's end, to return once more and spend the rest of his days in Islandia.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

Fabulous . . . there has never been anything like it.

Review

"'Fabulous... There has never been anything like it.' The New Yorker 'The product of modern time, Islandia is vivid chiefly with the desire for complete escape from the actual world. It tries to make that escape so detailed, so palpable, that it will outrealise the reality' Time" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1016 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585671487
• ISBN-13: 978-1585671489
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #983,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A life-changing book for some, September 17, 2004

By 

Marc E. Nicholson (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Islandia (Paperback)

In browsing Amazon.com I was delighted to find "Islandia" back in print after years when one could only acquire it in second-hand book stores. That print history is a shame, because the book is among the great Utopian novels of the 20th century. And, as you will note from the remarkable consistency of the comments by earlier reviewers on this site, it has spoken deeply to a good many people.

I first encountered it in a freshman lit course at Dartmouth College in 1967, and I since have read it again twice--and each time it spoke to one's life. Because while in one sense it is a Utopian novel advocating a set of values for the ideal society, it also speaks directly to the choices individuals face in how to live their own lives and in that respect it echoes Henry David Thoreau.

Islandia at the surface level is an adventure/romantic story and a good one, though not without flaws and a few too many emotional twists and turns in its 1000 pages, as it describes the adventures (both in events and romance) of young American John Lang assigned as US consul in the early 20th century to Islandia, a distant and exotic but essentially Western agrarian nation with some very progressive views (esp. at the time Wright was writing the book over 60 years ago) on sexual freedom, female equality, and sensitivity to aesthetics and the environment; yet also with a deep respect for tradition. Wright in creating this society for his novel was trying to transcend modern "left and right" political values to combine some of the best features of both as a prescription for how to create a humane and satisfying society.

But I said the novel was also about individual choice, and ultimately John Lang has to choose between return to the high-stress, high sensory input industrial society from which he came, and a commitment to Islandia as an agrarian culture of deep and rich values but less "motion" in life--a quieter, if in some ways very satisfying, existence. And Wright does not pull punches about the difficulties of the choice. That is a choice many of us face now in the modern world--between a more inner directed life of values and contemplation, or the outward directed life of events and action in a high-stress environment. This book is brilliant in drawing the distinctions, in framing the choice, and I suspect that is one reason why it has appealed so deeply to many of those who have read it.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A life altering read, August 4, 2004

By 

R. Comer "Bibliophile" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Islandia (Library Binding)

I first read this book in 1946 at the age of 19. I read it through in one sitting and came out of the experience speaking Islandan better than English. I found in the book a minor character upon whom I wished to model my behavior and hoped to achieve the same position in my relationships.
Structurally this in not a good novel but then it was never intended to be a novel. The mood of the book parallels the emotions of the protagonist. When he is up--the book is up. When he is going through his disappointment in his thwarted love affair the book drags. When he is doing his "buckling and swashiling" toward the end of the book it is a great book of action. There are too many antclimaxes.
I have re-read this book several times a decade and each time leave it with a deep sense of satisfaction that Austin Wright had this dream and we are allowed to share it.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most underated classic ever., December 13, 2003

By 

"brad10771" (Redlands, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Islandia (Paperback)

I found this book after reading about it in a essay by Ursula Le Guin. (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed) You will not hear about it from your local bookstore, or from school, and until recently you would have had an extremely hard time even buying it. I found my copy 1942 HB (Tan) in a used bookstore for three dollars years ago and it never leaves my nightstand. I understand that there will be some who simply don't understand the allure of the uptopian book, and they would probally find it boring. The reviewer who found the author long winded would be amazed that only half the book acutually got published, over 1,000 pages were edited before the first printing.

It is one of the last elegant books, and the flavor of the early 20th century runs through it. It is a book that you can read to your children before bed, and too yourself anytime. It deserves shelf space next to Dickens and Tolkien. I cannot reccomend this book enough. Everyone should have a copy.