Around and around the world

"It seems," said the woman, "that the world you travel through is not the same world we travel through."

Douglas Westerbeke, A Short Walk Through a Wide World

Can you imagine a woman who cannot stay in one place for more than three days without becoming seriously ill and so spends her life traveling, mostly on foot, around the world again and again? Well, Douglas Westerbeke can, and the result is his engaging fantasy, A Short Walk Through a Wide World (2024).

It is 1895 in Paris when this strange affliction first strikes nine-year-old Aubry Tourvel. Eventually she must abandon her mother and keep walking. She fashions a spear, disguised as a walking stick, with which she learns to kill her own food. She explores different cultures and gets to know countless people, however briefly. Lovers come and go. Friends come and go. Or rather, they come and she goes. She must keep moving to stay alive.

Marta, a journalist who wants to write about Aubry, keeps up with her the longest. She becomes a close friend, but eventually she also must be left behind.

Aubry not only sees the world like no other person, she also experiences a world no other person gets to see. Often she finds shortcuts, such as through the Himalayas, in the form of libraries full of books that consist of drawings, not words. Eventually she adds her own story in pictures.

Fantasies often take us to other worlds. Westerbeke takes us through this world in surprising ways.