Islandia

by Austin Tappan Wright

Austin Tappan Wright left the world a wholly unsuspected legacy. After he died in a tragic accident, among this distinguished legal scholar's papers were found thousands of pages devoted to a staggering feat of literary creation—a detailed history of an imagined country complete with geography, genealogy, literature, language and culture. As detailed as J.R.R. Tolkien's middle-earth novels, Islandia has similarly become a classic touchstone for those concerned with the creation of imaginary world.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Classics, Literature, Utopia, Historical Fiction

1013 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Austin Tappan Wright was an American legal scholar and author. He was the son of classical scholar John Henry Wright and novelist Mary Tappan Wright, the brother of geographer John Kirtland Wright, and the grandfather of editor Tappan Wright King.

Although Wright’s professional colleagues were aware he had literary interests outside his field and some anticipated he might eventually branch out into other areas of literature, these possibilities appeared precluded by his early death. During his lifetime he published just one work of fiction, the short story "1915?" in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1915.

Few people outside Wright’s own family knew he had long been working on an extensive Utopian fantasy about an imaginary country he called Islandia, with an elaborately worked-out history, culture and geography, comparable in scope to J. R. R. Tolkien’s life-long writings of Middle-earth. In his papers he left a 2300-page manuscript of a novel exploring the country, with appendices including a glossary of the Islandian language, population tables, a historic peerage, and a gazetteer and history of each of its provinces. Another book-length manuscript purported to be a general history of the country.

After Wright’s death his widow typed and edited the manuscript for publication, and following her own death in 1937 their daughter Sylvia further edited and cut the text; the novel Islandia , shorn of Wright’s appendices, was finally published in 1942, along with a promotional pamphlet by Basil Davenport, An introduction to Islandia; its history, customs, laws, language, and geography, based on the original supplementary material.

Islandia became a cult classic and ultimately spawned three sequels by Mark Saxton.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-loved books from my past

Rating: 5 very nostalgic stars out of five

The Book Report: John Lang, Harvard '10, meets Dorn...that's all, just Dorn, a red-skinned Islandian noble, during their college years. Lang likes the quiet, self-possessed man, and Dorn likes Lang's accepting nature. Friendship blossoms, Dorn spends holidays with Lang at his tart spinster aunt's farm doing hard labor and teaching Lang Islandian.

Graduation comes, Dorn goes, and Lang has no real idea what the hell to do with himself. Lang's rich businessman uncle suggests that Lang apply to be US Consul to Islandia, since he's one of the very few non-native speakers of the language. Islandia isn't a major power, isolated on the Karain semi-continent, south of Africa and projecting towards Antarctica. Its society has been closed for generations, as Japan's was, and like Japan, Islandia is now under great pressure to open itself up for trade with the Western world. Lang's uncle thinks that, since his nephew speaks the language and is already friends with one of the isolationist leaders (Dorn), he's got the “in” to work on opening the country up to American trade first. Strings are pulled, arrangements are made, a young lady-friend is left with promises to write often, and (150pp in) our story commences.

What a story! Lang and Dorn are, from the moment they see each other again, back to being the closest possible friends, despite their wide difference of opinion on the subject of trade and intercourse between their countries. Speaking of intercourse, Dorn's sister Dorna captures Lang's virginal fancy, plays with him, and then upon realizing Lang is falling for her for real, she tells him no...she's set to be queen. And she marries Alwin, the king. This will be important later.

Lang's job brings him more and more into conflict with his heart, as he comes to know and love with a fierce and befuddled passion the good and noble people, the beautiful and bounteous land, and the startlingly unrepressed and unreligious culture of Islandia. Lang ultimately finds himself in a position where he must decide between being himself, his full, awakened self, his Islandian self, and fight the invading armies seeking to subjugate Islandia, or being the US Consul.

Even though it means the US, in fact the whole world, will be forced out of Islandia again, even though it means the other Islandian girl he's fallen in love with (and lost that pesky virginity to), Hytha, will be lost to him forever, he fights with his friends for the country he loves, and he leaves it knowing he's done the only possible honorable and honest thing.

Back in the US, Mary, the young lady-friend he's corresponded with these years, and he take up again, and get married. Lang thinks, “oh well, I've had my fun, I've done the right thing” and settles into soul-killing ennui and horribly depressing severing from the world and the people he truly loves.

Remember Alwin the king marrying Lang's buddy's sister? Alwin, knowing Lang's actions and understanding Lang's love for Dorna, Islandia, and life lived in harmony with nature, grants Lang and his wife land and citizenship as thanks for Lang's battle service and his heart-gift to Alwin's family by marriage. Off go Lang and Mary! And what an adjustment it proves to be...never easy to remake yourself, and still less easy to do so for someone else's happiness...but, as in the best stories, Lang and Marya (as she's called now, all women's names ending in an “a”) struggle and goof up and make hideous blunders, and immerse themselves into their new, and beautiful, and deeply loved home.


My Review: Wright, a lawyer by trade, wrote Islandia over the course of decades. He filled notebooks and sketchpads, created histories and historians, plays and playwrights, a religion without a god, a full and vibrant and heart-hurtingly beautiful culture, and used Lang's entry into this rich and lively...I'd say living, but clearly it's not...ethos to explore the ways in which his fantasy world was superior to the early 20th century American culture he lived in.

After Wright died in a car crash in 1931, his Islandia was dormant until an accidental discovery by Mark Saxton, a young editor at Farrar and Rinehart (we now call them Farrar Straus and Giroux), led to the publication of some 1020 pages of the trove in 1942. The marketing stuff for the book touted the fact that, since you couldn't take your European vacation this year, you should go to Islandia!

It worked. Major bestseller. It was the Infinite Jest of the 1940s...whacking great block of a book that *everyone* had to have on the coffee table, but few people read all the way through.

I found a copy in the brand new Old Quarry branch of the Austin Public Library in 1973. The dust jacket was a topographical map with the title in lower case italic type, all of it in shades of ochre and brown. I picked it up, read a few lines, and was never the same boy again.

An honest and ethical culture! No stupid gawd-stories! Free love! People who felt so real to me, a world that was so beautifully complete, that I just *knew* I'd find it all someday.

I never have, but I've never entirely lost hope that I will. (Foolish old man to dream like that.)

In the intervening forty(ish) years, I've given away a dozen copies. I've read the book all the way through only twice, but have gone back to read parts so many times that the copy I had disintegrated. I haven't replaced it because I'm pondering whether to look for a decent copy of the 1942 edition...and dreading the likelihood that I simply can't hold the book in my painful hands anymore. It is a loss so painful that I dread making the experiment, and so do nothing. Some things it's better not to know.

Islandian culture is what a truly happy planet would follow. Islandian customs make sense, because they flow organically from the logical, happiness-seeking ethos that pervades Islandia. Now that I know, thanks to the marvelous book The Swerve, what Epicureanism is, I think I know now what Wright based his world-building on: What if a genuinely Epicurean people existed, and lived their lives and governed themselves, according to Epicurean principles?

There is an Islandian custom called tanrydoon. It means that, in the course of life, there are people one meets whose essential being is so in tune with our own, whose presence in our life is so necessary, that the person becomes a kind of family. A room in one's home is prepared. The room is designed to suit the tastes of the more-than-friend, the furnishings and the colors and the items in the room all relate to the person's family and achievements. The more-than-friend is brought to their new home place, and in true Islandian fashion, the existence of this space is taken as proof that the claims of tanrydoon are in place: One can never be barred from the home-place, one can never be so lost or so alone that the certainty of welcome and acceptance is withdrawn or abrogated without the most appalling provocation.

Dorn offers Lang tanrydoon. Lang has a home-place, a family claim, a harbor and haven...despite the fact that Dorn fights everything Lang's job stands for. It doesn't matter...Dorn loves Lang in the uniquely Islandian way described by the word linamia or powerful loving friendship, needs his friendship and his companionship, and makes him understand that his place among the Dorns is always his.

I thought then, and I think now, that this is the most beautiful, the most moving, the most fulfilling passage in the book, and a cultural notion that should be encouraged in our solipsistic, anomie-ridden place and time. How much less hatred there would be if such an idea was encouraged and enacted.

This book is, to me, what Lord of the Rings is to others: A vision of a complete world that, if the Universe was properly run, would be accessible to us mere mortal humans.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is a keeper. It’s one of those books that lives on your shelf and which you gaze at lovingly from time to time, considering whether this is the time to crack it open again or not. You don’t want to do it too often for fear that you might dilute some of its power (and let’s be frank…it’s a looong book), yet you don’t want to let your immersion in its world go too long between visits. This is one of those books that I would use as primary evidence to refute the arguments of people like M. John Harrison who believe that world-building is somehow the death of good fiction. This work by Austin Tappan Wright is the only one whose breadth and depth has come close to the example set by Tolkien. Like the latter author Wright worked on his world, and the stories it contains, for the duration of his life. From the time he was a child he was creating the world of Islandia: elements of its language, geography, culture and history. Upon his death were reams of manuscript that were ultimately edited by his daughter into a unified whole (another glimmer of similarity to Tolkien) and what was born was apparently a sensation when it was first published. It was a world unlike any other and the care and attention given to its genesis by its author in no way detracted from the power of the human story he told…it actually served to make it all the more palpable. I have read that the book was first marketed as a valid alternative to travel in Europe which had been curtailed due to the war. It was not an inappropriate comparison for reading this book does immerse you into a vividly realized world and I definitely found that taking the position that I was traveling through this strange country along with John Lang helped to make what had once been a difficult read (and at the time I first tried it a failed attempt) turned into a really enjoyable adventure.

What to say about this book? It has sometimes been classified as a fantasy novel, and I suppose it is one inasmuch as it details the life of a vividly imagined country (perhaps the most vividly imagined one I have ever experienced) modeled on the utopian ideals of its author, but it is very much about the 'real-life' concerns of its very ordinary protagonist. There is no epic quest, save that which each of us makes in our own lives, especially in our youth, when we are making the decisions that will shape who we are to become. Added to that is the risk of a country upon the verge of making a decision that will either change it forever or leave it behind and surrounded by enemies. There is simultaneously a heck of a lot going on and not much to report on aside from the daily life of a stranger in a slow-paced agrarian society whose level of technology, even in the early 20th century, seems more or less equivalent to that of Europe in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Ultimately, though, there are two stories intertwined in the book: the story of Islandia itself and the political and social crisis it faces between two opposing viewpoints: whether it should embrace the world at large and open its borders to outsiders, or remain true to the old ways and follow Islandian ideals; and the story of John Lang, a young man who becomes consul for the United States in Islandia and goes through the dual processes of learning about himself and his direction in life at the same time as he learns about the strange new country around him. It proves to be a culture that he grows to deeply love, but which is utterly alien to everything he has ever known. The plot is very much a slow burn, especially for the first few hundred pages, but I actually found it picking up speed once things got beyond the set-up chapters and I found myself moving along at a fairly quick pace through the remainder of the book. The ultimate payoff is very much worth the effort.

Our story begins when John Lang encounters the strange and taciturn Islandian exchange student known simply as Dorn during his days as an undergraduate at Harvard in the early 1900’s. The two meet at a party where Lang’s own feeling of awkwardness draws him to the steady and assured Islandian and from this simple beginning a deep and lasting friendship grows. As a result of this friendship, and Lang’s fascination with Dorn (which borders on hero-worship), Lang soon develops an interest in Islandia, going so far as to learn the rudiments of its language and dip into its literature. Eventually Dorn leaves to return to his homeland and Lang is left feeling out of sorts. With no real direction after University and having lost his best friend, Lang begins to daydream about the strange country about which he had heard so many tales. Serendipity soon intervenes and an opening for the position of American consul is brought to Lang’s attention by his business tycoon uncle. It appears as though a party in Islandia is agitating for greater openness with other countries and is proposing that they cease their heretofore unbroken policy of isolationism. Lang’s uncle and his high finance cronies sees dollar signs in this opportunity and who better for them to place in the position of consul than the young and aimless John Lang (who is also one of the few Americans with a working knowledge of Islandian), a boy certain to uphold the wishes of his betters? Thus Lang goes through the formalities of applying for the job, not fully aware of the role he is meant to play, certain he is unlikely to get the position, and hoping only to see his old friend once more.

Lang’s arrival in Islandia is a shock to his system. The quiet agrarian pace, the strange social customs and expectations, the utterly different way of looking at the world are all so unlike everything that he knows that Lang experiences a distinct culture shock. Added to this is the fact that Lang’s best friend is a member of the family who is spear-heading the opposition to opening Islandia’s borders. What will Dorn think of Lang when he discovers that he is in essence ‘working for the other side’? Still, beneath Lang’s shock and worry is a growing love for, and even understanding of, the ways of this seemingly backward country. Lang eventually meets up with his old friend and finds that his fears were unwarranted. Dorn doesn’t even really understand Lang’s concern. Weren’t they friends? Didn’t they have a deep understanding of and affection for each other? Why should politics get in the way of this? This, along with other revelations, begin to open Lang’s eyes to some of the foundational differences between the ways Islandians think from what he has been raised to expect. Time goes on and Lang travels extensively and immerses himself in the culture, becoming more and more enamoured of this new and strange land. Despite numerous warnings he falls in love not once, but twice with different Islandian women (one of them Dorn’s sister Dorna) though he soon discovers that his position as a foreigner could make his ability to attain anything so lasting as a lifetime relationship with an Islandian woman near impossible…unless the party opposed to his friend wins the political debate. Lang finds himself divided, a part of him struggling to be a good consul, loyal to his home and profession with the ulterior motive that his success at winning his country's desires will also bring him his own personal ones, though at the cost of all that his closest Islandian friends hold dear; and so an even stronger part of himself fights against his own 'better' judgement and all concepts of what is realistic or pragmatic in the name of a beautiful ideal that will mean the end of his own personal hopes and dreams.

In a nutshell that is the story of Wright’s novel. We are following the adventures of Lang, a stranger in a strange land, and through his eyes we learn all about the Islandian way of life just as he does. This is where Wright is able to build the utopian elements of his story. He is always contrasting the placid, certain and ultimately satisfying way of life in Islandia with the hectic, confusing and often anxiety-ridden life of the “civilized West”. Despite his obvious belief that a world built according to Islandia’s customs would be an eminently better one, Wright does somewhat leaven his love for Islandia by making clear how strange a world it is to us. It is in fact so strange that many of the foreigners we see there cannot abide the place. They seem to suffer an almost physical aversion to all things Islandian: "Islandia is hell to me" one character, Jennings, confesses and Lang notes that this man’s modern American sensibilities and desires were his undoing: "Islandia was too much for him." Despite his own inclination, really a near all-consuming desire, towards all things Islandian Lang also finds his own road of assimilation a long and painful one. Dorn tells him"...but you aren't one of us" and Lang feels that there "…was the old torture in this. Islandia again turned upon me its alien, stony face. In my heart I rebelled." Islandia and its customs are a force that seem almost insurmountable and they are almost never really questioned by those raised under them. When faced with the possibility that Jennings' paramour Mannera may have decided to contravene Islandian ways and adopt those of America there is no sense that this might be a valid personal choice for her to make. Islandia knows best. The people and their country truly are one in a way that we will likely find it hard to fathom. (Or if we do, we’d likely find it a bit scary.)

Just what are these strange ways? At one point Dorn notes that a foreign philosopher once described Islandian philosophy as “Hedonism with a kind heart.” Emotions and feeling, and one's 'tunefulness' to them and their urgings, are the foundation of Islandian life; with the central importance of the three concepts invented by Wright: alia, ania, and apia with the allied concept of tanrydoon. Simply put alia (which is probably the most significant element of Islandian thought) is one’s love of place, but also of family as they are related to that place. There is an absence of selfishness or purely personal interest in this aspect of Islandian thought. One is always looking to the long view of one's place and family across generations. The cultivation of one’s land thus becomes the project of generations, as though each Islandian family are building their own equivalent to a great cathedral, building up year upon year the beauty, productivity, and ultimate fulfilment of their home:

[Lang] sensed the absorbing interest of the immediate task that also is integrated with all other tasks of one’s life into a rounded whole, because one’s land and one’s farm is larger than oneself, reaching from a past long before one began into a future long after one is dead – but all of it one’s own.

Ania is deeply tied to this and represents one’s love for one’s spouse, one’s “alia-sharing lover”. This is the person with whom one feels so strong a connection that both are willing to take on the same alia, the same place as their own and express their combined love through the children they produce. Apia is purely sexual (as well as what we would call ‘romantic’) desire. It may, and should, be a part of one’s ania, but the latter is not defined by it and can even survive the loss of it. The concept of tanrydoon is also closely allied to alia and represents the fact that one has given a portion (usually a specific room) of one’s home to another. It is the highest honour one can bestow on another, since one’s home is an integral part of one’s identity and it in effect makes them a real part of your family. No matter what happens in the future that person will always have a place there and will be welcome.

Another significant aspect of Islandian thought is the concept of “tunefulness” to one’s life. One is contented by what is, not constantly striving for what is not. The Islandians posit that modern American ways which directly contravene this produce a case where "…the father and the son are of different civilizations and are strangers to each other. They move too fast to see more than the surface glitter of a life too swift to be real." This isn’t an altogether invalid criticism, but sometimes Wright seems to be rather excessive in his championing of the slow and sure way of life that spans generations. He admits that the flipside to this may hold the possibility of stagnation and an apparent lack of opportunity for one to truly excel, but he does not really give this argument the credit it perhaps deserves. In the end though, I think that Wright is not as naive as he may sometimes appear and his ultimate point may be that this is the price of utopia...to give up one good for another that is, perhaps, better. Is it better to continually progress in a world that may become more and more alienating, leaving us less and less satisfied, or to delve completely into the fullness of a simpler life that may bear the risk of stagnation? In which does a human (both the individual and the group) find greater peace, fulfillment, and security? Is Wright successful at building Utopia? Well, as much as anyone else has been I suppose. There are aspects of Islandia that are compelling and seductive (not to mention convincing), but also others that I know would drive me batty if I lived there (not to mention that seem somewhat problematic). As with any Utopia, Wright’s Islandia would, I think, require human beings to behave in ways somewhat different from what I would consider ‘normal’ human nature in order to succeed. It would only take a tiny group of dissidents to destroy Islandia completely, and it is a bit hard to believe that such a thing has never occurred in all of its history. In the final analysis I think that Wright was aware of the problems inherent in utopianism and used it as a tool for criticism and the suggestion of alternatives, not an attempt to say “I have figured it out, now go live exactly like this!”

Despite all of this depth I never found Wright to be too heavy-handed in his project to build a utopia. He isn’t simply detailing a life-like world, for he never loses sight of Lang and his own personal story. This really is a novel about growth and change and the decisions we must make in order for those things to occur. Lang’s personal road to learn about, and love, Islandia as both a country and a set of ideals on which he can base his life is a hard one. Especially hard for Lang is the realization that his great love for Dorna will never be returned; that his hope for happiness founded on her is rejected. What follows is a fairly accurate and moving description of the effects of depression on Lang.

There were steps on the stair. Ears heard them, but they were a sound from another world and were no concern of the frozen existence that was myself. But a man turns to face those who at unexpected moments are heard approaching from behind. Reason said that the tall figure with the sunburned face and tired, but brilliant dark eyes, carrying a saddlebag and coming forward, was a friend – was Dorn. It also said that men do not usually sit at a desk doing nothing. Reason was aware that such idleness lays one open to curious questions and, to what is worse – sympathy. My heart was beating, and therefore, I knew that his sudden coming was a shock, and to feel so little of the old warmth and gladness – to feel nothing at all – brought a vague regret…At the mention of Dorna my blood stopped and then ran swiftly. She was real again. A fire burned in the cold deadness and pain came once more.

This episode particularly rang true to me. I have felt that. The book is built upon many such episodes of ‘real life’ and the psychological realism of Wright’s story is part and parcel of the whole.

The final segment of the book describing Lang’s tenure back in the States, courtship of his American friend and correspondent Gladys, and ultimate return to Islandia with his bride-to-be is perhaps the most problematic. Lang’s love for Gladys, at least in the earlier parts of it, did not ring as true to me as did his love/desire for Dorna and Nattana in the earlier sections of the book. Gladys’ difficulty in adjusting to her new life, however, was portrayed very realistically. Often in these episodes I found myself thinking Lang was being a real dink. He seems to forget that his own assimilation to Islandia took almost two years and was fraught with complications, and yet he seems to react as though he thinks Gladys should come to it in a matter of weeks. While Lang may be certain that he has found his ultimate happiness in the prospect of an alia on a remote farm in a foreign country with only thoughts of a contented day-to-day life in which there

…would be the smell of burning leaves in autumn, rain that meant more than the need of overshoes and an umbrella, sun enjoyed not merely because it brightened the world and made me warm, wind and clouds watched with daily interest, and the earth that was more than the foundation for my house and the place where my feet rested

and the prospect of children to continue it, it is a bit much to expect the same immediate response from Gladys. For here there“…would be no theatres, no opera, no illustrated magazines, no developed sophisticated art, none of the highly flavoured pleasures of the Western world.” To me that’s an awful lot to swallow at one gulp and despite Lang’s admitted attempts to describe such things to her Gladys can certainly be forgiven for finding the reality harder to accept than the idea. In many ways in his relations to her he is “more Islandian than the Islandians” as it were. There were also uncomfortable parts in Gladys’ struggle to “become Islandian” which perhaps were true enough representations of the attitudes of Wright’s time, but still felt a bit squicky to me. In them Gladys herself willingly desires to be ruled, in some sense even owned, by Lang in order to give her life meaning and it was Lang who had to be the one to break her of this habit, to free her to be truly Islandian. In essence he had to make their love not be the only thing to which she could cling or rely on for her own happiness. It’s a sentiment I can agree with, but somewhat difficult in its achievement.

In the final analysis I think that _Islandia_ is a book that you will either love or hate (with the understanding that “hate” probably means you just aren’t compelled to read it beyond the first few chapters); it’s not likely to be one that you have lukewarm feelings about. It is definitely an experience, or at least it was for me, and one that I will look forward to having again.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure if there's much I can add to my original spoilerific review of Austin Tappan Wright's _Islandia_, but I can confirm on a re-read that this behemoth is well worth the effort. This is one of those books that really is an experience. It manages to be incredibly immersive due to the detailed world building done by the author, along with his ability to paint a vivid picture of his imagined country through beautiful prose. Despite this the story and experiences of our protagonist, John Lang, still remain central to everything as we experience first hand not only his immersion into a new world with customs and beliefs far outside his normal purview, but also witness his growth from relatively callow youth with little to no direction in his life to a man who has weathered many storms in order to find the road to his heart's desire.

Highly recommended for those who wish to see things in a new and intriguing way and are willing to put up with a slow pace and introspective narrator in order to visit a new world.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my third reading of this rather large tome in four years and I can honestly say that it is still one of my all-time favourites. Despite its high page count that more than earns it the designation ‘kitten-squisher’ I don’t find this book to be a slog at all and always find myself fully immersed in the vibrant world that Wright created. It’s one of those books that I find myself eagerly looking forward to opening again when I’ve had to set it down in order to attend to some of the more mundane chores of life. The story of John Lang in the foreign (and imaginary) nation of Islandia is, for me at least, a compelling one even though on the face of it one could argue that ‘not much happens’ and the plot is not exactly action packed. To give a mere plot synopsis would not likely compel one to read the book, but I think for me the fascination comes from the very real world that Wright creates in _Islandia_ tied to the fact that he populates it with characters that are very real and complex. In addition to this its label as ‘utopian literature’ points out the fact that Wright is not simply telling a traveller’s tale to expound on the wonders of some imaginary place, but is using this as a means to explore political and philosophical issues which, while he may not ‘solve’ them, lead the reader to ask meaningful questions and certainly adds even more depth to the world and story he has created.

I’ve certainly noticed it on previous readings of this book, but one of the things I saw the importance of again was Wright’s creation of the Islandian notion of ‘tunefulness’. In many ways I think this gets to the root of the Islandian philosophy that Wright wanted to communicate through his use of the various Islandian concepts of love (apia, alia, and ania) and is what fundamentally makes their society so different from the North American one to which he obviously wanted to contrast them. This tunefulness would seem on face value to simply be an individual’s ability to ‘find their place’ in the world, and while it certainly does involve that it’s much more complex than that definition would imply. To us this would likely mean an individual has found what it is they most want and is pursuing their desires to the utmost. For Islandians it is not this simple. What one wants in life is by no means unimportant, but their concept of love of family and place (wrapped up in the word alia) means that they take a much longer view to what ultimately gives meaning to one’s life and to which one is contributing. It is the ability to combine one’s personal desires with one’s familial and social obligations that create true tunefulness and give ultimate purpose to one’s life. For an Islandian to live simply for oneself would be an aberration whose ultimate end would be a lack of true fulfillment and happiness due to the ultimately selfish nature of the pursuit. This would seem to imply that Islandians are not as individualistic as members of our society, but in many ways this is not true, and throughout the book Islandians see themselves as much more individualistic when compared to us despite the strong traditional ties they have of their agrarian society. This likely comes from the fact that the ‘basic unit’ of Islandian life is the family strongly centred around the farm/homestead, and so since the individual identifies his own desires and good within the context of this unit he sees fulfilling a role that we might see as ‘communal’ as ultimately an individualistic choice.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I do not think that Wright in any way ‘solves’ the problems he poses through his creation of the Islandian ‘utopia’ or leaves us with the picture of a purely perfect society. There are still many problems and issues with the world he creates. I for one have a hard time believing that Islandia, as presented, could ever really exist in our world due to the basic assumptions it makes about how humans can realistically live and organize themselves, but it is still a world that I love to enter into and fully enjoy, regretting each time that I must leave it again. I’ll be more than happy to journey back when the time comes again and my Islandian passport can once more be validated.

[Otis Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

An epic book - loved it, and wish I had found it before now. It does start a bit slow, but then really picks up. It's the story of a young man in 1905ish who graduates from Harvard and then is sent by his rich uncle to be the consul to the made up country of Islandia, which is closed to trade with the outside world.

Islandia is described so clearly you could almost believe it wasn't a made up country. You can feel it's beauty, it's pureness, and it's culure, coming through the pages.

Many of us went through idealistic phases in our 20's, and John Lang is no exception. He is trying to decide what will make him happy: Islandia, or a life in New York as a businessman. He is also searching for love, and seems to have a crush on every Islandian woman he meets!

Wright does an amazing job of describing what the Islandian culture is like. They are largely farmers: they work in the field all day, and their land provides what they need to eat and money to buy the rest. They don't have to work super hard, and have plenty of time for leisure. Their society closed and smaller, so people are very decent to each other. There aren't very many towns or central social hubs, so socializing is often accomplished by staying as a guest in someones farm house as you are traveling through the country, and you can do that totally unannounced.

Islandia is a utopia of sorts - they believe that progress in their culture will not lead to improving their lives. It is an interesting question - does technological progress actually end up making our lives better? Technology is supposed to improve the quality of our lives. We have better medicines, cleaner cities, we can communicate instantly around the world, and travel on cars and trains and planes.

But we lack the notion of a "home" that spans across generations or even multiple family units. Cousins and uncles and grandparents are only seen several times a year during family parties and holidays. In a sense, our society has shifted from being family centric to friend centric, as friends are the people we hang out with socially in the cities, where most of us live. This gives us often a richer variety of people and ideas to interact with, but the the connections are often not as close, and that is sad.

[Arwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a slow book, Islandia, but it is such a fiercely imagined world, with so many insights into human nature, that you feel like you're learning secrets about life as you read. My dad bugged me to read it for years, and I finally did on a rickety train crossing mountains in Corsica, which looked not terribly different from my picture of Islandia.

It's a utopian novel written for private use in the early part of the last century. After the author died, his daughter pared it down from the thousands of pages her father had written to mere hundreds and had it published. It has had a cult following for the better half of a century, and with good reason. Though Islandia doesn't really exist, you feel as though it does, if you could only get a visa to go. Watching this unspoiled, largely agrarian country with complex rituals relating to love and family and land struggle with accepting the outside world is a painful and beautiful experience. If only the rest of us could take lessons from it.

[Joe Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Islandia

As a young man, recently married, an older friend recommended that I read Magister Ludi by Hermann Hesse along with Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright. I asked him which book was most "fun" to read and he said that Islandia is the most fun, so I read it first. That was nearly 40 years ago. I reread Islandia less than a decade later and have just recently reread it for a third time. I won’t take the trouble to write a synopsis of Islandia and thereby turn this review into a spoiler but will instead give some impressions of the book that came to mind upon this recent rereading.

Immersing myself in the rich world of Islandia after all these years has been an emotional experience for me. For one thing, I realize now that this novel, which in memory I have tended to idealize and hold dear, is flawed in a variety of ways. Foremost, perhaps, is Wright's regretable racism. The sinister, nefarious enemies of the Islandian people are, of course, black. No effort is made by Wright to flesh out the hostile Bants, to explain their grievences with the Islandians. They are completely one dimensional baddies. How the Caucasoid Islandians got past the black inhabitants of this Southern Hemisphere continent, to settle its southern end facing Antarctica, Wright never does explain.

Likewise, how a distinctly Northern Hemisphere fauna ended up there is left to the readers' imagination. A Gondwanan or Austral-Oceanic fauna would have been more realistic and interesting. Alas, Wright was no biologist and neither was he an organic farmer. Some of the agricultural practices described aren't realistic to the nature of the multi-generational Islandian permaculture Wright seeks to portray. Islandians would have composted leaves not burnt them, for instance.

Since Wright was a lawyer and law professor rather than naturalist, and a child of his times, these defects are explicable and must be overlooked in order to enjoy the book. An egalitarian rather than the class divided society Wright imposes might have been more in the Islandian spirit, too. His prose has its moments but Wright was no great literary stylist. How good or poor a job his wife and daughter did of editing the original text is hard to tell but, long as the book is, some sections do appear to be abruptly truncated. These are among the shortcomings I find with Wright’s Islandia.

When I first read Islandia these issues didn't occur to me, or I had forgotten them, so the realization that this beloved book is imperfect mildly saddened me. What to a certain degree offset these imperfections, this time around, was the realization that the final chapters about Lang and Gladys are integral to the scope of the novel and not merely tacked on to make Islandia longer. I seemed to have it in my head from previous reading that the book should end shortly following the vote of the counsel, Lang and Nattana’s splitup, and the Vaba Pass incident, with Lang either staying in Islandia or going home to America, as Wright saw fit -- the end. I may have even skipped these chapters on my second reading. I certainly didn’t remember them with the same vividness I remembered other sections of the book. With this recent rereading I see that Lang and his bride gaining alia on the Lay River Farm completes the story Wright was inspired to tell. Readers should continue to the end.

What really brought on the nostalgia though, was that descriptions of Hytha Nattana, the protagonist Lang's second great Islandian love interest, revived memories of my deceased wife. When I first read Islandia, Nattana reminded me so much of my young wife that I began calling her Nattana, soon shortened to Tana, by which name she was known to friends and to our children henceforth. In my imagination Nattana's red-golden locks were the same as my wife's beautiful hair. They were both seamstresses and while my wife didn't weave she did embroider and quilt much as her fictional namesake worked her loom. Both ended up with a beloved old treadle sewing machine, with which they lovingly constructed clothing for their families. Rereading Wright's depictions of Hytha Nattana flooded my mind with memories of times long past and of my own lost Tana, and brought many tears to my eyes.

I detect two major themes in Wright's great work of fiction, the first concerning environmental ethics. Reading Islandia years ago I was thrilled to find that my own seemingly instinctive respect and love for nature, for animals, for the land and sense of place thereupon with continuity down the generations (alia) … all were so obviously shared by this author. Wright affirmed for me that I wasn't alone, wasn't the total tree-hugging hippie weirdo my culture regarded me as being. Or, rather, that a tree-hugging hippie weirdo was an alright thing to be. Along with Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Annie Dillard and others, Wright reinforced in me the values and aesthetics that had come to me so naturally and which my own upbringing failed to nurture. For this I owe him a debt of thanks. Today the differences between the United States and Islandia are even more stark than Wright depicted them as being a century ago, with the US coming out glaringly deficient to his vision of what a sane and benevolant social order could be. If only we today could learn to live sustainably within the carrying capacity of the biosphere as Wright imagined the Islandians doing. As things stand instead, the environmental situation continues to worsen as our population explodes.

The other major theme is that of young men and women first discovering the mysteries of one another, with all the hesitancies, conflicting emotions and insecurities that go along with sexual exploration, with unrequited (Dorna) and requited (Nattana, sort of) love. I was about Lang's same age when I first read Islandia and while not quite so naive and inexperienced about girls, I would like to tell myself anyway, perhaps Wright's treatment of these issues helped me sort out my own feelings toward my wife and towards the opposite sex in general. I knew that I loved my wife but just maybe Wright helped me understand her better. His description of the scenes between Lang and Dorna, and the way they each later explain what they were feeling when they responded to one another as they did, shows that Wright shared with his readers life events growing up that are universal between the sexes, and this sense of experiential commonality lends authenticity to his narrative. This theme of attraction and tension between young women and men, of the intensity of obsession with and dread of rejection by one’s beloved, certainly brought back memories, some bitter and others exceedingly sweet.

This will probably be the last time in my life that I read Islandia. It’s a book you reread after decades, not over and over. I’m sad to be putting Dorn and Nekka, Dorna and Tor, Nattana, Nettera and Stellina, Lang and Gladys, and their wonderful land of Islandia, back on the shelf. I do not want the memory of these characters, who Wright made come so alive in my mind, to slip from my memory any more than I want the memory of my wife to fade. Someday I am going to fall asleep and wake up in Islandia and there will be my Nattana waiting for me by a warm wood fire, sewing, or so I like to believe.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was in high school, and have read it again many times since. It has entranced me each time.

It was written in the 30's by Austin Tappan Wright, a Boston lawyer, purely for his own entertainment. After his untimely death, it was turned into a publishable novel by his daughter, and became a bestseller in the mid-40s.

It describes the adventures of John Lang, who befriended a foreigner from a strange land while an undergraduate at Harvard, and later became the American consul charged with opening up that country to modern industry and trade. But Lang is conflicted, because he finds much to admire in Islandian values, rooted in a deeply agrarian way of life.

It's a lovely story, full of excitement and texture. Like Lord of the Rings, it has enormous backstory, so that people feel they know the place, and there is so much more than appears in the novel.

It is a book that is part of the texture of my life and thought.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

200911: i do not know if this is a book to rate, as it is unique, very different, very much written as a private fantasy/pleasure. it makes me question not only the aspects of my home society- as any good utopia or anti-utopia does- but also the ingrained expectations i have of what a novel is. this is not a novel but a romance, and though it does offer recognizable plots, this is never the most important concern of author, and should not be that of the reader...

it is long. it takes a while to enter into the story. the characters, the plot, the themes, are slowly revealed, and no the pace never picks up. but this is part of the charm of this utopia, and if you want explosive, propulsive, involving action, this is not a book for you. the charm is in this finely detailed rendering of an entirely different way of life. this way is revealed through adventures of your young american narrator through the bucolic agrarian fantasy, through which he comes to know the 'natural' aristocrats of islandia. a major factor in their confidence rests on their historical place, farms that are home for many generations...

this is a utopia. in our era, we are more familiar with anti-utopias such as 1984, and like thinking about heaven any utopia can spur too many caveats and suggest impossibilities in humans if not the world. this utopia is such for only the right people, who happen to resemble the author's native heritage, in this case: white, intelligent, straight, healthy, moral, rational even in irrational moments, given more to dialog to solve conflicts rather than violence. in a way, this is a fantasy of what america could be/have been, though one innovative part is when our narrator attempts to return to the usa and discovers instead he is a true islandian...

this is a utopia. as such, the people seem mainly utopian ideals, and even the questionable westerners such as the germans, do not launch military campaigns to further their goals. that a country could deliberately isolate itself may seem implausible but then there is the case of Japan only eighty years before this book. the country itself seems to have no likelihood of internal rupture, even when there is some dispute over wiseness of opening to the western world. and the people interact in a utopian manner re. sex, friendship, commitment. this makes for a bloodless, perhaps boring, plot. but you are here to live imaginatively in islandia, not to contemplate conflicts etc...

this is a utopia. confession: i think this is a self-selecting book, as far as liking it. if you like to read immersive long books with little plot, if you like the utopian ideas and portrayals, if the romance of better humans in a better world intrigues, if imaginative escape appeals... you will like this book. if you have expectations of a usual novel, no, you will be bored and frustrated and wondering who could rate this so highly. i liked it...

note: well, this is one that stays in mind, such that, even with some dislike of eugenic-sort population control, with everyone of consequence being white, straight etc, this has become a favorite. i have not read this again, just thought of, it becomes extended comfort food...

[Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mark me down as one of the few readers out there that gives this very big book a very big {shrug} and "No thanks".

Yes, Islandia is idyllic little Utopian fantasy island nation "somewhere in the South Pacific near Antarctica". That geographic placement annoys me. It's not like maps in the 1920s had a big blank placeholder patch for the South Pacific annotated "Here there be dragons". Did the author really need to place Islandia to be the geographic and therefore diametrical opposite of Europe, in a ham-fisted way to show "Europe in the early 1900's = bad; Islandia on the other side of the world = good"? This was written during The Great War, which I'm sure was a factor in what the author intended for this tome. Far far away from old bad Europe must be just swell in comparison, apparently.

The Islandians seem to be a snapshot of the author's own personality. To me the Islandians come off as an expansive mix of sexually agnostic Scandinavians, xenophobic American Puritans, and emotions-are-illogical Vulcans..., with the technical curiosity of closeted Amish. "Oooh, a sewing machine!", in a famous passage described -- like everything else in this book -- in entirely too much detail and length. Ugh.

I never cared about the "fish not really out of water after all" overly horny narrator/protagonist, and the Islandians are generally cold, reticent, and hard to love. The romance angle between the protagonist and the rather under-aged Dorna (who is apparently the only female in all of Islandia that isn't a robot)? About as interesting as stale bread.

I'm sorry, but the insane amount of encyclopedic minutiae that author has provided ultimately doesn't make the Islandians any more interesting. Yes, even if they have multiple words for love. That may have been avant garde at the time this was written. But in my mind, what is Islandian for "So what?".

Yes, the overall effort and detail put into this is very impressive. But after plowing through it, with vast passages leaving me thinking "Something but actually nothing is happening so why am I expected to care?"..., and the author sending me down deep diving to explore the esoteric culture that doesn't even strive to be especially interesting..., and plot lines that are both opaque and turgid..., for me, finishing this book was like running a marathon. "Glad I tried that, and even happier that I finished. But let's never do that again, ever".

[Linda Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Austin Tappan Wright was killed in a car crash in 1931 at 47 years old. He was a Harvard and Oxford educated lawyer, professor. Subjects he taught (from wikipedia): Agency, Common Law Procedure, Partnership, Corporations, Damages, Persons, Admiralty, Mortgages, Municipal Corporation, Military Law, and in Torts - Corporation Law and Admiralty. He worked as assistant counsel to the U.S. Shipping Board. They're all in Islandia. Wright produced a complete geology of Islandia (including some maps viewed in the book), a history of the literature, families, properties, population tables, peerage, and book length history. He died with the 2300 page manuscript for this novel unpublished. His family edited, sorted, pulled together and published the book in 1942. Islandia is a fictional utopia. I want to live there. I thought I wanted to live in Ankh Morpork on Discworld, but now I want to live in Islandia. Utopias have never appealed to me because bliss with a central government and a credit system doesn't make any sense. That's how Discworld got the Patrician, Lord Havelock Vetinari. Governance and rules and all the stuff that makes our world crazy and confusing would unavoidably make the population of a fictional Nirvanaland the same. Cannot be helped, no matter how skillful the writer: there is too much disbelief to be suspended. Wright created a world that works. I fought it just as intensely as his foreign American and European characters. I writhed, frowned, gritted teeth, ran away, came back, connived, twisted, shook my head, and when the last page was turned, I wished there was a version written by an Islandian to help me adjust. The extraordinary beauty of these 1000+ pages is that the tenets that make life the sublime simple joy on Islandia can be replicated within ourselves. I think. We'll see if I can knead my assimilation of the madness of modern life into something much more profound, much more peaceful. I wish you all the same.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily one of the best books I have read this year, even after a thousand plus pages of text. Although he is no stylist, Austin Tappan Wright was brilliantly imaginative in his creation of the southern hemisphere land he called Islandia. His book Islandia is full of memorable characters -- especially the women, particularly Dorna, Nattana, Stellina, and Gladys -- and a Ciceronian study of how to live a good, simple life filled with hard work; love of country and family; and friendship.

Rarely do I take the time out to read such a long book, but Islandia made me enthusiastic to continue the next day. The story tells of an American named John Lang who is appointed as consul to the isolated nation, where no more than 100 non-consular foreigners is allowed to live at one time. He falls in love with two Islandian women and eventually marries a fellow American named Gladys Hunter, whom he brings to Islandia to live on a farm with him.

When John and Gladys come together in Islandia, there is none of that "and they lived happily ever after" claptrap that destroys so many stories: Gladys does not immediately take to her new adopted country, and John must patiently ensure that her needs are being met before she is wholly at ease in her new situation. This type of extended dénouement is rare in fiction, so I was greatly surprised to find it here.

This is a one-of-a-kind book that deserves a place on the shelf (and in the heart of) any literate reader.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

No one is going to say that the world building exercise in this book isn't monumental and impressive--it is. Islandia developed with Wright over the course of decades and it shows in the casual details and vividness of his descriptions. But ultimately it's still a book that was written in the first half of the 20th century with the kind of attitudes about race, sex, marriage, and women that were typical. For example, in the north of Islandia is a dark-skinned race of "savages" who were driven out by the caucasian and "advanced" race of the south. They occasionally appear to pillage and rape, but besides that have no role in the novel whatsoever.

I found Lang's attitudes towards women (which have been praised as ahead of their time) frustrating. It also bothered me that every woman Lang met became a romantic interest and reciprocated in one way or another. No way all of these interesting, accomplished women would be falling all over themselves to take walks with him in the wilderness constantly. To me he seemed domineering, unsympathetic, and also bland. Not to mention that women and men are supposed to be held as equals in this utopia, but constant sexualization of women and normative gender roles are present throughout.

Ultimately, I think Wright had some interesting ideas about colonialism and the constraints of Western life, but Islandia fell flat for me. This is definitely due in part to the lack of any real conflict in the novel. Things happen, but everything seems to roll off of the characters. Someone dies in front of Lang, but it doesn't seem to leave any lasting effect. And I think the book left me with much the same feeling.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I long for Islandia! Beautifully written, and so well created I almost think this must be real. This book will stay with me for the rest of my life.

[Wreade1872 · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know.. i think I’m going to give it 4-stars, yeah. Bit of a double victory for it really, as i sometimes deduct a star if the entertainment feels like its spread over too vast a surface, and this is a long one.
So no points deduction and giving it 4-stars, which even on its own is an achievement, especially since this is by no means an energetic novel.

Premise, a bit of a Ruritanian Romance, but rather than central europe, set on a fictional minor continent somewhere near the Antarctic. That doesn’t really give the weather you might expect, although New Zealand is pretty far down there, so maybe about that latitude.
Most of the continent was inhabited by black people and has therefore already been summarily annexed by germany. Over the mountains lies the title land of Islandia inhabited by a more scandinavian looking race and therefore not invaded just yet.
Green privilege is better than white however and the country is now under heavy international pressure to open its borders and let its natural resources be exploited.

So.. given that premise you’d think that this would be a highly political/military work.. and there is a bit of that in here. However, most of the actual plot involves following our protagonists various relationships romantic or otherwise.
I think ‘coming of age’ story would be the closest category, despite other elements and the fact our hero is in his late 20’s.

As things progressed i did notice that it wasn’t actually the worst P.O.V. there are quite a few difference in Islandian society from familiar ones and many of those do effect women. Its a bit utopian in nature but i really liked that its not homogenous. There are varying perspectives and its by no means presented as a perfect system.

The utopian aspects feel like they come into it more in the latter sections. Anyway as i mentioned, it is not exactly exciting stuff but i did find myself invested, if not in the protagonist then in some of the female characters. And later in the utopian and social commentary elements.
In addition, even at its slowest it still has a great sense of place.

Now some of that is because its very easy to picture. This is.. i was going to say primitive land, but minimalist would be a better descriptor. So its a minimalist society, mountains, marsh, forest, stone and wood buildings, easy to imagine.
Except for the boats.. i had a hard time picturing the boats, not my thing ;) .

Well this has gone long enough, part utopian, part social commentary (that’s probably covered under utopian anyway), part coming of age story.

Note, this was never intended to be a published work and edited into its present form by someone other than the writer. I would say some elements felt quite daring for the time, but since it was not intended for publication that was never really a factor for the author.
In addition some of the editing, the change of scenes can be abrupt and diary-esque at times, little matter of fact entries split over hours, but this aspect might also be due to the editor who had to cut down quite a bit of rambling apparently.

I was overall quite surprised at how much i got into it and enjoyed my visit to Islandia. I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about this one and found it hard to get out of my head.

Made available by the Merril Collection.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to DNF this at 63% because it's been over a year since I've read any and I have no motivation to ever pick it up again. I'm just being honest. I'm never reading that final 400 pages.

I started reading because Anne McCaffrey cited this book as foundational for her in her journey into writing fantasy literature.

Make no mistake: this is not fantasy.

Technically, it is, but only technically. It's about an Earth that is exactly like ours, except there's another continent on it. Nothing even a little supernatural going on.

There's not nothing of value in this book. Wright did The Worldbuilding in a way that would make Tolkein proud. Islandia is fully realized and detailed. I will not deny that. There are also really interesting critiques of colonialism, nuances of love and lust, investigations of home and belonging and family. There are some good and interesting points made by and in this book for sure.

But the narrator is insufferable. John Lang is at once a Nice Guy, a softboy, and a fuckboy. These interesting and progressive ideas almost never come from him, but are rebutted and argued by him. His narrative arc is that he wants to have sex (which by the way is a bad motivation for a book), and he does that ~60% through, so what is supposed to keep me as a reader going? And while The Worldbuilding is impressive, it's incredibly dull. It's overdone, and I just wanted it to be over.

I had to give up on it. Its merits were bogged down and suffocated by its annoying aspects, and I'm finally ready to admit that I'm done. A study of how to and not to create a fantastical world, all in one.

[William Nielsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

While cleaning out bookshelves, i.e. "weeding the collection," i came across this book. I had read this for the first time many years ago at at time when I had recently read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. At some point I reread the book, but could remember nothing definite except for having a certain fondness. So I reread again despite the fact that at almost a 1000 yellowing, thin pages with small print was not something I really wanted to do. But I couldn't weed it without finding what it was I liked about it.

So i did. And I liked it. Particularly the parts of the story that had some action and were related to descriptions of things and characters present in the book. But the man could go on and on about relationships and his social philosophy until it made me want to say enough already. So there may have been some skimming. Not much.

Nothing mystical about this book despite the fact that he wrote around the same time as Tolkien. It was definitely a product of the 19th century and some of the prejudices were a bit shocking. I understand it was condensed from many 1000's of pages...If they could do more editing and eliminate about 450 more pages of internal dialogue about feelings it would get another star.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

@TheHugoAwards 1943 Retro Hugo Finalist for Best Novel

At the one-third mark, I blogged my "Field Notes from My Retro Utopian Adventure"

At the two-thirds mark, I sent a few vintage postcards.

4-4.5 stars (finished reading 7/1/2018)

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know about Islandia. Both my brothers, for example, have read it. But that was back in their hippie days when I’m certain that the Islandian agrarian ways, the idealized simple life, the personal, nearly libertarian freedom of the Islandian concept had great appeal to people living in teepees and growing organic gardens. The blurb I read referred to the book as the “best utopian novel ever written.” I’m not sure I consider Islandia a utopia but it is a fascinating, attractive place—a complete fiction from the mind of an New England attorney who left a 2000 plus page typescript manuscript behind for his daughter to edit to around 1000 pages. Apparently, Wright’s father and grandfather also created fictional worlds so perhaps this kind of thing is genetic.

Here’s the gist. (This has never been a film or mini-series). A young American befriends an Islandian student at Harvard in the early 1900’s and learns the language while on a summer sailing trip with him. The Islandian fellow returns home and later our American, John Lang, is appointed consul to Islandia, a country as xenophobic as Japan before Perry. (Foreigners can stay one year only if they pass the physical and have legitimate business). Islandians are xenophobic but almost neurotically hospitable. Lang arrives in the middle of a controversy and is welcomed by his old friend’s family who establish a room for him in their home to use whenever he might decide to drop by. The controversy involves the Islandian prime minister trying to talk the national council into ratifying a treaty he had signed with Germany which would open up Islandia to development. Lang’s friend Dorn is on the opposing side and the plot of the first part of the book involves the politics between the first families of Islandia as to whether or not it would be good for the country to have choo choo trains, telephones and combustion engines or whether the Islandians would continue to travel by horse and wagon. The xenophobes fear not only foreigners but foreign inventions. In the midst of this geopolitical intrigue is the concern that the northern farms might be raided by the quaintly named “Mountain Negroes” who live across the border. (The Islandians seem to be of a Caucasian persuasion though their skins are coppery from all of their outdoor time). There’s really not much to the plot. The book is more concerned with Lang’s interaction with Islandia, its geography, culture and people, especially its ladies.

Lang has an adventure with Dorn, and a legendary mountaineer named Don, and the lone wolf King (are utopias monarchical?) of Islandia (the King of Islandia apparently has no court or castle but roams the country dropping in on people) when they come across what appears to be a German border incursion. This is somewhat of a diplomatic embarrassment for Lang as counsel and because of his friendship with the Dorns and others who oppose opening the borders, and his failure to help American business corrupt the country, he is dumped from his job. In his remaining time in Islandia, Lang travels about visiting various families, working on a farm and then volunteers for the border patrol in a sort of ad hoc militia and circumstantially becomes a national hero by surviving a sneak attack of the ...MN word...and warning the closest farms saving many, including the queen. Subsequently the treaty is defeated after a long, interesting and dramatic debate at the council. Islandia is saved from the pollution of foreign interests and Lang is rewarded with an invitation to remain in the country. He is also given permission to import a sewing machine as a gift—an exception to the Islandian preference to do every single thing the hard but natural way.

When his year is up he returns to New York to see if Islandia is what he really wants, goes to work with his uncle who got him the counsel’s job in the first place, and makes his best effort to be a successful businessman. He begins to call on a young woman who had corresponded with him during the time he had been away. In his absence she had read the book on US History which he wrote for the Islandians in Islandian. By this exercise she learned the language, and, conveniently, had become an orphan, allowing her to make decisions with no parental input and leaving her without financial resource. After a drawn out romance they decide to marry and return to Islandia where the Dorns have agreed to sell Lang one of their three farms. The rest of the book involves the rocky integration of the new wife into Islandian life, culture and society.

The real story of Islandia, however, involves the romances Lang has with two Islandian ladies and then, thus Islandized, his relationship with the American woman who will be his wife. It’s a Victorian sexual fantasy. Lang, a virgin in his late twenties, first falls in love with Dorna, Dorn’s sister. Wright brings this moody, ambitious, dark-haired, earthy beauty completely to life. It is obvious that ATW was a true admirer of females. For Lang, falling in love with an Islandian is no easy matter because they have three different kinds of love and American men have trouble with one kind of love. But Lang is up to the challenge and tries to get all three kinds lined up so that Dorna will be his. She is unlike any woman he has known. Wild and independent she goes barefoot on her little sailing craft after picking him up for a visit and they spend the night getting back to the farm and sleep in the same cabin! Unheard of in Lang’s day. Later she strips for a skinny dip as will any Islandian lass. Lang is smitten beyond description having seen no more than an ankle before landing on Islandia. But Dorna and Dorn and Nattana (we’ll get to her in a moment) all warn Lang against marrying an Islandian woman. Why this would be a bad idea we are not quite certain. But they are very clear that he shouldn’t do it. It involves the intricacies of the three kinds of love. In the end, Dorna opts to marry the gorgeous young king who has, apparantly dropped by her farm a few times. This decision also involves the three kinds of love, only one kind of which involves lust. Islandian girls are quick to admit their physical passion.

Lang, unrequited, ends up at the another farm that has quite a few daughters and becomes lovers with Hytha Nattana, the complicated, hot-to-knot weaver he had met in the early part of the book. Nattana refuses to marry him but weaves him a wardrobe (Islandians wear loose-fitting natural fabrics and comfortable, sensible shoes like sandals). The clothes are all she is able to save when the you-know-who’s attack and trash the farm. (Later on she gets that sewing machine as her handsome reward). And, then, romance number three—the wife—who after a couple hundred pages succumbs to the charms of utopia and the ardor of John Lang. We leave them on the farm, harvest completed, winter coming on, prepared to travel the country, visit Lang’s old friends while working on three kinds of love.

I wonder if the editors of Islandia were fair to the author. I wonder if they should have edited a word. Even at 1000 pages (the edition I read was 900) there seems to be much missing, or rather, much more the engaged reader would like to know about Islandia no matter how tedious it might be. There are endless descriptions of the natural beauty of Islandia, and enough about social customs to make you believe it is another culture. And, there is an attractiveness about the place. If it were to exist now we would want to travel there and ride horseback through the countryside and visit a farm or two and stay at an inn and revel at the backwardness of a 2000 year old civilization. (Lang introduced ice skating to the country!)

If you make it through page 250 you will no doubt finish the book. It would be a great summer hammock read and I wish I had saved it for those lazy days of summer.

“The sun shone hot and and the air was full of the warm fragrance of earth and of vegetation. It was a fertile region. Leaves of vegetables and grass in the meadows were lush and green; sprouting maize and grains held up strong stalks and full heads; and flowers in gardens glowed as though just watered. Even the road itself was invaded, and sometimes our horses' hooves thudded in the grass.”

It’s quite an achievement to create a world and write it down and make it coherent, consistent and enticing. One ends up yearning for a more simple, open, physical life and where skinny-dipping is as natural as water. It’s no wonder that Islandia is a cult classic with many diehard supporters. A Google search will lead you to Islandia websites and more information about ATW, Islandia and the lost manuscript (the typescript survives).

[Terry Cornell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up a tattered paperback copy of Islandia years ago at a secondhand bookstore. I don’t remember why I purchased it, not knowing anything about it. Perhaps it was the title, seeming to promise adventures in some far-off exotic locale. Nevertheless, a month ago, it beckoned to me from its dusty niche on the bookshelf.

At first, the 900+ yellowed pages of small print intimidated me. It started a bit slow but captured my interest within the first 100 pages. Austin Tappan Wright’s amazing work about a mythical, utopian society has become one of my most beloved novels of all time. I will never forget it.

Islandia opens in 1905 with American John Lang meeting an Islandian fellow-student named Dorn at Harvard. As classmates, they strike up a friendship, as each man learns about the other’s culture. Upon graduation, through his new knowledge of the Islandian language and some assistance from an uncle, Lang is posted to Islandia as a United States consul.

The story that follows is more complex than what it initially seems. The basic plot chronicles Lang’s adventures while discovering the beauty of Islandia and its people, as he matures from a young man and discovers his true self. During his journey, Lang experiences romance, political intrigue, and many philosophical conversations ranging from the concept of love, family, and male/female equality to the environment and each person’s station in life.

Lang has escaped the hustle of industrial America and must adjust to the much slower-paced Islandia. In general, Islandia is an agrarian society. Electricity does not exist, land transportation is via horseback or wagon and, with exception of the steam-powered Islandian Navy, water transport is by sail.

Much like pre-1854 Japan, Islandia is closed to trade with other nations. A large portion of the book is devoted to the political maneuvering of Islandians wanting to open their country to trade and modern conveniences, and those who want to maintain their country and culture status quo. The pro-trade group is loosely aligned with American and European business interests which not only want to sell products to Islandians but want to take advantage of their resource-rich country. Lang, as U.S. Consul, must represent the pro-trade group, even though Islandian friends and perhaps his own heart feel otherwise. Lang and the reader share his dilemmas about relationships and where to spend the rest of his life – in the U.S. or Islandia, if given the chance.

The author himself graduated from Harvard in 1905, then attended Harvard Law School. Unlike Lang, he became a renowned legal scholar, teaching at some of the finest law schools in the country, including Stanford and USC. At the time of his 1931 death in a car accident, he only had one short story published, which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.

Development of the utopian country of Islandia started as Wright’s childhood hobby. When he died, he left thousands of pages detailing its history, culture, and geography. Included with his papers was a 2,300-page manuscript that eventually became the published novel. His wife and then his daughter typed and edited the manuscript into its posthumously published form.

Although Islandia was first published in 1942, many of its concepts are just as applicable today. Besides being an enjoyable read, this book is thought-provoking. If you’re looking for a fast-paced, action-packed, fast-food kind of read, this isn’t for you. Islandia is a seven-course meal you will remember the rest of your life.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, and while I know people like to compare it to Tolkien, what with it being "an alternate, made-up world" I thought it had some weaknesses. First I'll gripe about that then say what's good about it if I can.
The map included in the book is truly elementary and includes only several of the places which are germane to the story and skips over others. I found myself returning to it time after time, not finding the place named, and shrugging.
There is sex in the book, yes, but of course this all being "pre-Chatterly" it's all Victorian and couched in metaphor. This might be a blessing to draw a breath of air apart from today's graphic/pornographic frankness, but it is also lacking a Utopian base for which "polyandry" might acquire advocates. Wright's invented language, while dealing with three distinct types of love ("ania", "apia", and "alia") doesn't quite take a revolutionary viewpoint at all, but that of a serial monogamist. I suppose that is a virtue, and apropos for its time, but it does somewhat date things considerably. The protagonist lurches from woman to woman as though the only reason he came to Islandia is to get laid, which is a typical modern American tourist approach, granted, but most of the book is spent in his dealing with these three distinct definitions of love and wrestling with his monogamist inner guilt, which he eventually sheds, only to shift that same problem to the American woman he brings back to settle with him and lets her endure it all herself.
Nevertheless I did promise to say what I liked about it. It is Utopian, that is, one could easily imagine oneself in the protagonist's shoes, leaving the US to enjoy a slower, simpler, less complicated way of life. The Islandians do not have technology to the extent of the modern man at the time of Wright's writing (and considering all the convenient things modern man has burdened himself with since those days, they seem absolutely blessed for it!) They are basically agrarian and ecologically conscious, they do not hunt, unless food is required, they don't dedicate their forests to the timber industry, the wonder of a sewing machine is an amazement to them. They are isolationists and the job of Lang is to bring modern American goodness gracious know-how to their shores with the missionary zeal of the reformer. But Lang is charmed and taken in and finds his role as the US Consul highly at odds with the ideals of the women he loves and the friends he makes.
In a way this book is a great deal like Huxley's Island (one can wonder if Huxley had actually read this, or not,before creating his own Utopia) in that it's about the conflict of an idyllic paradise nation hanging on to its traditions against an onslaught of foreign capitalist greed, although Huxley being more modern had more armament to bring to the stew, such as psychedelic drugs. Nonetheless it was impossible not to make the comparison having had Huxley's book in memory previously. I manage to get through it in around a week, so it did flow quite well, and kept my attention. None of it was improbable, either, which I guess is one of the best things you can say about a fantasy story.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Utopian fiction is incredibly hard to write. By its very nature, the society, technology, setting, nor supernatural elements can fuel any kind of conflict, making it nearly impossible to make any story, let alone a 1000+ page doorstopper work on a significant level.

Wright gets around this restriction by proposing a very specific scenario, while asking very specific questions: What if world history was the same, except that there is a small extra continent with a small Utopian county on it that is thinking of opening itself up to foreigners in the early 1900s? What if this county had huge amounts of natural resources? What if it were just as nationalistic as the rest of Europe leading into WW1? What if the treaty to open up the country was being hashed out by a conservative isolationist movement and a more liberal ruling faction?

The reader sees all of this drama from the POV of a young American named John Lang who is appointed consul to this imaginary country Islandia with the hopes of getting American business interests in the door before an official treaty is passed. He is given this position mostly because he was one of the few people in the entire world who can speak Islandian (his friend from Harvard was Islandian), and less because he has any talent whatsoever as a diplomat.

It's not much of a spoiler to say that most of the novel is John Lang traveling around Islandia as a consul, correspondent, author, and simple visitor and taking it all in. A huge amount of time is spent describing the scenery, Islandian philosophy, and the minute differences between Western and Islandian customs--I would recommend breaking this one up with other books just to allow oneself to finish this marathon.

That's not to say that this is just a guidebook to an imaginary land with no real story; plenty of stuff happens. BUT, everything that happens is much more interesting when one considers the outside influences on the novel. It was written between the 1910s and 1930s, and published posthumously in the 1940s when the manuscript was found after the author's unexpected death. It's about a utopian race with many of the qualities that popped up in European nationalist stories in the 1910s, and in the German propagada of the 1930s. The author was a legal scholar of maritime law who watched his county explode onto the world stage and shift firmly from an agrarian society to one of technology, much like John Lang watched Islandia debate whether to go through the same transition. With that background in mind both the book and its ruminations on progress and the nature of isolationism become much more urgent.

I'm not sure I agree with everything the author said. In fact, I know I don't agree with everything the author said; aside from period-typical racism, his vision of Utopia would not be mine.. However, he does make a strong case about the nature of happiness, whether you are in Utopia or not: You don't have to be in Utopia to be happy, but finding the happiness to exist anywhere usually comes from knowing what you want, a sentiment that lands even now.

[Alan Freed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Islandia is a book I discovered during my hippie days and remains one of most influential works affecting my life and my ambivalent feelings about humanity's obsessive and arguably unthoughtful and largely uncontrolled embrace and development of an overly complex and technologically dependent world. I am getting ready to reread it again to see if it still affects me in such profound and unsettling ways.

Austin Tappan Wright perceived the inherent downsides of such an obsession by the "developed" world - pollution, personal disconnection with the natural world, greed, sensory dilution, and personal disconnection between individuals and within small groups, from lovers and extended family units to the village. Another way of describing this effect is that he perceived how a blind love for technological development for its own sake worked to water down the time we used take to connect to each other and our external world, and how rapid, uncontrolled technological development seems to speed up time and prevents us from reconnecting to the deep mysteries of the non-technological world. It also inures us to the ongoing destruction of our planet's ecosystems.

The world that Wright created in Islandia seemed so real (or was to me as a young man with oppositionally defiant tendencies) and so different from the world I had grown up in and was facing for the rest of my life, it made me nostalgic for a slower, more deeply emotional world we could've had, had we chosen to put the brakes on our love affair with all things technological.

I recommend this book to anyone who is worried about where we're headed as a species and who is concerned about where we have evolved as individuals who have become so dependent on "high" technology to survive. If some theoretical physicists are correct that we live in a multiverse where anything that can be imagined can be real, then you might come away from reading Islandia feeling as though something that feels so real must exist somewhere on some other earth simulacrum in some other universe. I just wish it were more accessible.

[Chip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was highly recommended this tome by my good friends at my favorite sci-fi/fantasy bookstore, Dark Carnival in Claremont. I had been lugging around a massive stack of apparently "difficult" work, so they had an idea of what I was looking for in my so-called Speculative Fiction reading.

I will usually give big books at least a couple hundred pages to get going. This is the case with most Russian literature, and this is the case with Islandia. Be prepared for NOTHING TO HAPPEN for a good I don't know....800 pages? I think the major "conflict" of the book was whether or not the protagonist was going to get into the pants of one of the local girls (SPOILER ALERT: he succeeds, but not in the manner you'd expect).
This is real world building on the level of Tolkein sans magic, Elves, Wizards, and Faeries. For the longest time I had no idea why I was still reading it. I'd stop for a week, read some other crap, and come back to it, finding I was sucked in once again.

So while it won't dazzle you with wordplay and invention in the manner of Pynchon or David Foster Wallace (yes, I've read Gravity's Rainbow twice, and am preparing to read Infinite Jest a second time), what it will do is make you marvel at the sheer scope of ambition and alternate-civilization building that Wright managed all while toiling away at his day job of being a successful East Coast lawyer and professor. As some other reviewers have pointed out, after living with this book for a while you will start to question your life in the Rat Race. I call that a success.

Recommended reading for those with day jobs and daydreaming tendencies.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3008508.html

It's set in the first decade of the last century. Our protagonist has a bromance at Harvard with a scion of the ruling elite of Islandia, a mysterious country on a mysterious continent in the southern hemisphere (more likely the Atlantic than the Pacific, from the hints we are given). After graduation, he pulls some family political strings and gets sent there as the American Consul. And he falls in love, with several of the young women of Islandia, but most of all with the country itself, whose relaxed social and sexual attitudes are a stark contrast with the rather repressed American culture of the Gilded Age. It's a great work of world-building, with a series of romantic plots overlaid (and some politics, but really not all that much). The pace is fairly gentle, but I did find myself caught up in the story, especially the awkwardness of the narrator's relationships with the women of both Islandia and the USA. It's a long read, but worth it.

[Skallagrimsen]

Islandia is said to have been a work of "outsider art," written for the sheer joy of creation. It was conceived before imaginary countries with detailed pseudo-histories and pseudo-geographies were yet commonplace: back when there was still a certain charm and novelty to the idea: back before it was streamlined into cliché by wave after mind-numbing wave of Tolkien imitators. Everything I've ever read about the subcontinent of the South Atlantic called Kerain, in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places and elsewhere, has been inspiring and delightful. And Ursula Le Guin, a writer for whom I have the utmost respect, sang the praises of Islandia.

So I expected to like it. And I wanted to. But I didn't. Perhaps I finally got around to it too late in life, long after the novel became a difficult form for me to digest. In any event, I gave up after about 100 pages in which next to nothing seemed to happen.

I guess it's fair to say I like the idea of Islandia, just not so much its actuality.

[Maura · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read this book in high school - have re-read it numerous times since. Each time I get something different from it, noticing other details or paying more attention to particular parts of the story. It's a wonderful visit to a place that I wish was real. The questions facing Islandians over how to co-exist with modern nations but still maintain their own identity and way of life are still pertinent as the world shrinks ever smaller.

Re-reading again in 2018: several things are resonating this time around. 1) The isolationist policies - and how impossible it would be to live that way in today's world. 2) How eco-conscious the society is. Pretty advanced thinking from an author writing in the early 20th century. 3) The lyricism of the prose. In the past I read through descriptions in a hurry. This time I have been much more conscious of the actual writing - and as a result I think I am delving deeper into each character than I have in past readings.

[Lawrence Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece, plain and simple -- but it's not for everyone. This is a sedate, thoughtful novel of radical ideas and subtle characterization delivered in the stately prose that writers still used as the nineteenth century turned to the twentieth. If it is occasionally tarnished by sensibilities of the time, we should overlook that in favor of the considered utopian perspective Wright espouses. He looks at our own world from the outside; it is an exploration of culture shock. I first read this book as a teenager, and it is one of the few novels I've ever read that had a profound influence on my world view and internal value system.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read Islandia in 1972, during the the Vietnam war, and I have re-read it at least 10 times. It is one of my favorite books of all time. I would like it to be on the required reading list for all high school students. For that matter, I would like it to be required reading for everyone in the Congress and the White House. I think Austin Tappan Wright was a genius, and I would love to own a first edition of this book. I highly recommend it, especially at this time of America's involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my top ten all-time favorite books. I was transported to another world and I don't think I've ever really left it. Suggested to me by a salesman in a small bookstore near my college dorm...years and years ago. I don't know that salesman's name but I will always be grateful for his suggestions.