The Cartographers

These chapters focus primarily on the themes of Obsession and Fantasy Versus Reality. The symbols of the Agloe Map as Obsession, Phantom Settlements as Secrets, and the Haberson Map as Control are the most emphasized here, though Camera as Isolation and Photographs as Community are briefly discussed.

Through the Cartographers’ flashbacks, the reader realizes how quickly the friends succumb to their obsessions. Wally’s obsession is the most obvious, as his fixation upon keeping Agloe a secret would naturally lead him to hoard all the other copies of 1930 maps showing Agloe by any means necessary, and it is not such a stretch of the imagination to believe that he will eventually become capable of committing robbery and even murder in pursuit of his goal. Thus, his shadowy role as the villain of the story comes to the fore, and whether he appears in flashbacks or in the main plotline of the novel, he always represents a figure consumed by obsession and dedicated to keeping his own goals secret even from those closest to him. However, Wally is not the only one who becomes consumed by this incredible secret; all of the Cartographers are, to varying degrees. The mystery of Agloe quickly replaces the original Dreamer’s Atlas, and Agloe becomes a veritable repository of secrets both concrete and abstract, for it serves as both a vault for Wally’s stolen maps and as a rendezvous point for Francis and Eve’s illicit affair.

The theme of Fantasy Versus Reality is also emphasized from multiple perspectives. Within the Cartographers, Francis and Eve’s affair stems from Eve’s fantasy of kissing Francis at a party, which clashes with the reality that he is dating Romi at the time. While Francis and Eve originally try to use Agloe itself to help them maintain a strict boundary between the reality of Francis’s relationship with Romi and the fantasy of his affair with Eve, this boundary inevitably becomes blurred. By pursuing their affair only when they are in Agloe—which is itself a fantastical location—they maintain a semblance of this divide for a time; however, when Agloe itself increasingly becomes their reality, this self-control becomes gradually blurred and leads to Wally’s discovery of their transgressions. On a wider scale, the various love triangles in the Cartographers’ collective history (Tam/Daniel/Wally and Romi/Francis/Eve) also reflect the distinctions between fantasy and reality. Tam and Daniel’s relationship represents the ideal (and therefore unrealistic) romance: speedily burgeoning love, a surprise proposal, a happy marriage, and a child. While Wally desires Tam in his own quiet ways, he tries to repress his feelings in order to support Tam’s happiness; however, his suppressed emotions end up festering and ultimately lead to his drastic and selfish behavior after discovering Agloe. In a stark contrast to Daniel and Tam’s wholesome and steady relationship, Romi and Francis’s relationship wasn’t nearly so stable, thus representing a more common and realistic scenario of romance. This dynamic is evidenced by the fact that Francis hesitates to ask Romi out; and even after being involved for years, they still do not become engaged after they graduate; instead, Francis betrays Romi with Eve. However, by consummating the affair in Agloe, Francis and Eve debatably salvage what remains of their friendship, for although their illicit actions ruin Francis’s relationship with Romi, they acknowledge what happened and are able to move past it effectively enough to work together to protect Nell and oppose Wally decades later.

Nell, who plays a less prominent role in this section of the novel, also comes to terms with her own revelations about fantasy and reality. She finally accepts the truth of the secret that she demanded from Francis: that phantom settlements and trap rooms can manifest into physical spaces. Although she remains fixated on Agloe, her character begins to change as she lowers her previous resistance to imagination and fantasy (and thereby decreases her shame over her current job at Classic). Her revelations and the Cartographers’ flashbacks also deepen the connection between Phantom Settlements and Secrets, for each secret that Nell learns is always revealed in conjunction with a phantom settlement or trap room map. For example, the fictitious entry of Agloe on the Junk Box map is revealed to be a real place, Eve and Romi’s first flashbacks are associated with the Sanborn map, and Humphrey’s true identity as “Bear” is revealed while Nell is actually within a trap room. Thus, each successive revelation proves the existence of the maps’ real-world manifestations and intensifies Nell’s participation in these secrets by pulling her even closer to these secret spaces.

Nell is not the only character on a journey of discovery, for Felix also has similar revelations. When he first begins to wonder about Agloe, he begins his own shift from a solidly logical outlook to a willingness to consider fantastical possibilities. Likewise, he also begins to acknowledge the unrealistic nature of his own fantasies, namely his hopes of rekindling his romance with Nell and pushing her back into an NYPL career. Thus, his insistence that Nell follow his logical and conventional path brings him closer to the Haberson Map, a device meant to Control. Felix’s own reaction to the idea of creating a “perfect map” (207) therefore parallels Nell’s own quest, but in a different direction, for unlike the more widely accessible nature of the Sanborn and Junk Box maps, the technologically focused map that he is hired to create is not meant to be shared. Instead, it is meant to dominate and leave nothing to chance. By contrast, Nell’s quest is often entirely dependent on chance events and impulsive decisions, neither of which are ideas that Felix is trained to embrace; his decisions—asking Nell out, bringing her dinner—are made only after careful consideration and calculated risk-taking, revealing his preference for controlled experiments rather than rash impulses.

Finally, the symbolism of Camera as Isolation and Photographs as Community are also addressed in these chapters. Wally, recognizable to Rockland locals by his omnipresent camera, is nonetheless thoroughly isolated from those around him even as he takes it upon himself to document the actions of the Cartographers. Thus, his very act of serving as cameraman prevents him from actually taking part in the activities he photographs, and every photo of his that surfaces throughout the novel contains a sense of his simultaneous absence and presence in the proceedings depicted. In contrast, Nell, surrounded by her honorary family in the Sanborn trap room, finds a photograph of the Cartographers (except Wally, who took the picture) in Swann’s letter from Daniel. The photograph is the final revelation of the remaining Cartographers, as it reveals that Humphrey is Bear. This revelation further connects past and present, but more importantly, it reminds Nell of all the people who support and care about her. All of the remaining Cartographers abandon their goal of catching Wally during his escape from the NYPL and instead stop to ensure that Nell is safe, thus emphasizing their respect for safeguarding even peripheral members of a community rather than single-mindedly pursuing vengeance. In this way, despite Nell’s growing obsession with the magical power of Agloe, she is not alone in her pursuits; those who care about her can and will stop her from going too far and succumbing to her own version of Wally’s downward-spiraling trajectory.