Modcult

Until I was about ten years old, I thought that New York was an imaginary city. I remember seeing it everywhere, of course: on TV, in movies, on posters and postcards, and even hearing about it in songs — apparently, it was my kind of town, and it never slept. It really didn’t occur to me that the city was real: even to my young brain, it seemed too mysterious, too complicated, too fantastic, a way-station on the road between Camelot and Oz.

Now that I count myself a resident, I can safely report that New York exists, its magical sense of unreality worn thin by countless morning commutes, irrational parking tickets, and unfathomable cabaret laws. And yet, every once in a while I catch a glimpse of something I can only describe as sublime: a moment that trembles on the brink of mystery and then vanishes, carried away on an unexpected scent, or folded between skyscrapers by the flat, grey light of an approaching storm. In these moments, I see in my fallen metropolis the magic long ago transferred to the invisible cities of literature, and in the crush of her crowds and monuments, a numinous shock of recognition opens a brief window: I sight Lankhmar in her sprawling alleys, Arkham in her sudden bookstores, Minas Tirith in the ruin of her smoking towers. In these flashes, the truth is revealed. The great cities of our imagination exist to help us see our own homes more clearly; they are not windows but mirrors, not doorways to escape but portals of recognition. As Melville said of Queequeg’s home, “It is not down in any map; true places never are.”

City of Saints and Madmen review