The fantastical space in the novel The Starless Sea by E. bMorgenstern and the specific features of its functioning

The works by E.bMorgenstern belong to the contemporary intellectual fantastic literature that re-defines the traditions of its genre. The Starless Sea (2019) includes elements of both urban and portal fantasy with the prevalence of the second one. In portal fantasy it is typical for the hero to go through a portal into a different world that is used as a mostly static picturesque background for his adventures. In Morgenstern’s novel the nature of this fantastical space eludes any clear definition: its location, structure, size, principles of its existence, connections to the mundane world remain a mystery for the hero and the reader for the most part of the story, and information given in books or by other characters proves to be untrustworthy. Throughout the novel, the Harbor on the Starless Sea can be understood as a utopia, a lost paradise, a dream landscape, or a withering land expecting regeneration, traditional for a fantasy. The changing and unstable nature if this image, its inherent opacity becomes one of the main challenges that the text dares both the hero and the reader to accept. Without solving the mystery of the Harbor it is impossible to understand what is the goal of the hero’s quest that is linked to the central for the novel subject of telling stories. The fantastical space grows indefinitely, and it reflects the never-ending growth of a too complicated and too long plot. The objective of the quest is the end of the narrative and the destruction of the Harbor. But the destruction here is not a catastrophe, but a happy ending, leading to a new birth. The article analyses how the interactions between the hero and the fantastical space become one of the main driving forces of the plot.