There Is No Such Place As America
Are you sure its real? Have you checked? Or is it all just stories?
The Facts Text: There Is No Such Place As America Author: Peter Bichsel Genre: Modern Fantasy Year: 1970 Available: There is No Such Place As America Anthology,
Fantastic Worlds Myths, Tales and Stories Anthology
The Fiction
As with many modern fiction/modern fantasy stories this week's tale is a weird one! But I still quite like it. There Is No Such Place As America was written by Peter Bichsel as part of an anthology of modern German fairytales, which is why, well, it feels like a fairytale when you read it. A bored king, a few fools, a child protagonist, all of these are familiar. This fairytale has a bit of a twist however, it is not the story of a princess, or a witch but instead the story of America. Or a story about the story of America might be a better way to put it.
There Is No Such Place As America starts with the narrator telling us of a man who tells him stories that he doesn't believe, but he promised he would write one of them, the story of America, down. The narration then goes on to tell this story/fairytale. It takes place five hundred years ago in the court of Spain. We earn about the wealth but also the boredom of the King of this court. To alleviate that boredom the King has a fool, but inevitably the fool will bore him and he will have them executed and replaced.
His newest fool, Johnny, has an awful laugh that disturbs everyone but the King. The King orders Johnny executed so he can hear him laugh in front of the gallows, but no one else in the Kingdom shows up, fearing Johnny's ugly laugh. The King orders soldiers to search until they find a young boy--Columbine. The King speaks with the boy who is "an idiot not a fool" and grows fond of him, bringing him to court.
Everyone else at court or in the kingdom has a job or position except Columbine. The King asks him what he wants to be and eventually Columbine swears to King he will become a navigator and discover a country for him. The court laughs, and Columbine leaves. Instead of going over the sea Columbine hides in the forest for weeks. He comes back and claims to have discovered a country. The court, feeling bad for laughing at him, plays along.
Navigator Amerigo Vespucci goes out to find the country Columbine discovered. He returns after weeks, and Columbine fears his lie will be discovered. But Amerigo Vespucci winks at him and tells the court he found the country over the sea. The storyteller doesn't know if Vespucci also hid in a forest, if he wandered the sea, or if he actually found something. He says that he suspects people who claim to go and visit America are all told the story of Columbine (named Columbus by the King when his 'discovery' proves he is a man) and they lie about their travels to protect the secret like Amerigo Vespucci.
And that is the story of America.
The Feeling I just find this story charming. I love fairytales so the fairytales vibes of this story are great for me. The blending of history (the discovery of America) with these fairytale structures and conventions is fascinating, and perhaps says something about the thin line between fable and fact in how we remember history.
The description of the King's court, his fools, and the innocent idiotic Columbine are all fantastical and evocative in the fairytale sense. The general premise feels like a fable: a court all pretending to believe a lying boy when he 'discovers' a country. The blurring of the lines of the story and the real world also adds more layers to this story. There Is No Such Place As America is something of a frame narrative with the bookends of the story being the narrator writing about the storyteller who originally told him this story, and the story itself being sandwiched in the middle. The storyteller suspecting that people in the real world who claim to have been to America are lying; that they get told the story of Columbine on the plane and are sworn into the secret is an example of this blurring of the fairytale and real world.
I love meta-narratives, which is probably why I am charmed by this story. It is a story about telling stories. There is the narrator talking about the the storyteller he doesn't believe, the storyteller's story of Columbine and the King, and inside that story Columbine's lie or story about America. This story asks us about the stories we hear and tell each other. Do we believe what other people tell us? When do we willingly believe in things even if they are lies? When do we lie or tell stories or other people? If you don't have a way to verify the truth how can you tell which of two stories is true?
I for one have been to America. Or so I'm telling you. Maybe I'm just covering for poor Columbine. How would you know? (wink).
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