No Place Like Home

When I was a kid, I absolutely loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. Through reading, I could take on a role - detective, mountain climber, spy, or another exciting profession - and embark on a thrilling expedition. I might journey under the sea, travel through time, meet an abominable snowman, go to space and, depending on the path I chose, the novels would lead me to safety or peril. I loved the idea of creating my own story and the ability to re-read these books over and over with a different adventure each time. 

Decades later I have just had an adult version of this experience, through reading Intan Paramaditha's The Wandering (2020), translated by Stephen J Epstein. Longlisted for the Stella Prize, I was intrigued by the premise of the story in which the Devil offers a twenty-something Indonesian teacher, a pair of red shoes that will allow her to travel the world. The deal with the Devil will mean that she can wander, but may never find a home. 

She accepts the deal and wakes in New York City where the adventure begins. Along the way, the reader makes choices - do you go to Zagreb or Amsterdam? Do you give someone the shoes or take them with you? Some sections have headings - cafe, market, airport, wigs, hotel - and various story paths may lead the reader to the same spot. But as with all choices, there are consequences for the decisions you make. Some choices lead to positive adventures while other paths lead you to an ill-fated ending. 

What I liked about Paramaditha's book is the risk she took in crafting such a complex tale. She has woven in to the story a number of Indonesian legends, mythology and fairytales, while exploring important themes of privilege, freedom of movement, borderlands, statelessness and colonialism. The Wizard of Oz theme runs throughout the book, sometime overtly but often in a subtle way. 

I really wanted to love this book but I found that it did not work entirely well for me. After my first adventure had me staying in New York way too long, I tried again with other paths chosen and found that some versions of the tale lacked coherence. Perhaps the missing link for me was that I could not totally immerse myself in the story because I was removed from the narrator. What pleased me most about my childhood adventure choosing was that the narrator was undefined so I could become the main character in the story. In The Wandering, the narrator is defined and I never felt entirely as though I was in her shoes. 

Ultimately, the red shoes didn't quite fit me but I am glad I tried them on and wandered around for a while.