“The motto of Vanderland is 'There is a world elsewhere.' It's taken from Shakespeare's Coriolanus.”I love me some Newfie storytellers and Wayne Johnston is among the best of the lot. A World Elsewhere opens at the turn of the twentieth century with us meeting Landish Druken living in a drafty two room garret apartment, late of not quite graduating Princeton, disinherited by his sealing skipper father (in whose boots Landish refused to follow); a young man determined to listen to his own heart and become an author. I will write a book that will put in their places everyone who has ever lived. It may take me as long as a month, but I will not falter. After five years of daily writing – and daily destroying – his magnum opus, Landish lives a life of squalor and dissipation; the only laudable thing he has ever achieved being the adoption of the infant son of a man whose death his own father caused. When Landish's poverty threatens the health of young Deacon – and when it seems that the authorities might swoop in to take the boy away at any moment – Landish writes to his old friend from school – Padgett (Van) Vanderluyden; youngest son of the wealthiest man in America – asking for employment at Van's palatial home in the mountains of North Carolina (yes, modelled on the Vanderbilts and the sensational Biltmore; erected as the largest private residence in America by a lesser heir of the family). I was enjoying everything about the story to this point – the hills and snowstorms and busybodies of St. John's – but once Landon and Deacon moved to Vanderland, the book became something else, no longer quite a Newfie story, and I'm left divided in my opinion of it.
“It seems an ironic motto,” Landish said, “given that it's the complaint of everyone at Vanderland that the entire world is elsewhere.”
Van sought out Landish's friendship at Princeton because he admired the Newfie's punning wit and wicked turns of phrase. While the pair had formerly both been friendless outsiders, once they rented a house together and began to hold weekly salons – with meals that outdid the famous Princeton dinner clubs – other students began to flock to them; wanting Landish to give them a clever nickname; hoping to hear one of Van's famous bon mots (which had been scripted beforehand for him by Landish). It became Van's dream that Landish would join him at the home – Vanderland – that he was planning to build as soon as he gained his inheritance upon graduation. The punning here is very clever and pretty much relentless, but in the context of college kids stretching their imaginations, it raises more smiles than cringes. In the present of the cold and meager attic, there is something charming and roguish about the way that Landish uses wordplay to explain the ways of the world to the growing Deacon.
Landish told him that on this ship, the men in charge of engines had what were known as “engine ears”, which meant that they were deaf from the noise the engines made. Also, there were pursers who made sure that no one’s purse was stolen. There were men called stewards who were in charge of serving stew. And other men called porters who were in charge of serving port. “I’ll give you my stew if you give me your port,” Landish said, but Deacon shook his head.And in that context, I still found the wordplay charming. But when they get to Vanderland and Landish is still speaking in puns, and getting drunk daily, and threatening the stability of his employment there, I found him a lot less sympathetic; when will Landish grow up, at least for Deacon's sake? When Van takes a shining to the boy and expresses an interest in adopting him, despite the fact that the zillionaire is a bit of a sociopath, and also despite knowing that Deacon is totally bonded to the man who keeps failing him, I had to wonder (just a little) if the sickly and undersized boy wouldn't be better off a rich man's son. It made me think back to the squalor of the attic room and Landish getting drunk on the rent money, needing to bring the boy along as he picked up work shovelling snow, living off Church charity and food vouchers, and just why would I have been worried that the authorities might come in and take Deacon away?
In a foreword, Johnston explains that he was inspired to write A World Elsewhere after a series of extended visits to the actual Biltmore, and it might have been an interesting fish-out-of-water story to send a wide-eyed Newfie there (à la A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court), but Landish isn't exactly awestruck by what he sees (he didn't grow up poor and he quite easily walked away from his own inheritance), and after having been betrayed by Van in the past, Landish feels morally superior in his presence; he nearly feels sorry for Van's life in opulent self-imposed exile. Johnston also explains that he derived the name “Vanderluyden” from characters in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, and as both Wharton and Henry James were known to have visited Biltmore, Johnston inserts their presence into this book; arranging a meeting between the celebrated writers and the wannabe. After the briefest of introductions, James declares that Landish will never be a successful author because 1) He gave up his inheritance, and 2) Encumbered himself with the boy; thereby denigrating the only two morally commendable choices that Landish had ever made. I really didn't like or see the importance of this scene.
Much is made of fatherhood in this book – who wears the cuckhold's hat, who has disappointed their father, the deeper meanings of inheritance – and it irked me that Landish never referred to himself as Deacon's father (the boy called him Landish). Even when he was very young and Landish explained to the boy the “hoods” in life that he would go through (from childhood to oldhood), when Deacon asked him what stage Landish was then in, he considered answering “fatherhood” but decided on “manhood”. Although there is so much obvious love between Landish and Deacon, I never got a handle on their relationship. Was the boy an encumbrance to Landish's writing? If he really cared about supporting Deacon, why did Landish think his only two options were to stay in St. John's (where his father apparently had the power to block full time employment in the one field – teaching – that Landish would consider) or putting himself in Van's hands (who had the power and reach to destroy Landish's prospects anywhere in the world)? I was waiting for Landish to grow up and begin to act like the father in his relationship with Deacon, and meanwhile Van is having some Daddy issues of his own, and the whole thing comes to an unsatisfying, incredible, and pat climax.
I really enjoyed the parts set in Newfoundland, but it all fell apart for me when Landish and Deacon left for Vanderland. Landish spends most of his time in the mansion observing instead of reacting, so he didn't necessarily come off as a Newfoundlander anymore; he could have been from anywhere. I probably wouldn't even have questioned the suitability of Landish acting as Deacon's guardian if they had stayed in the attic – they were only barely more poor than their neighbours on home turf. Meh. Johnston is still one of my favourite Newfie storytellers, this just isn't one of my favourite stories.
