A Novel Love Story

Eloraton is not only the setting for the majority of A Novel Love Story but also symbolizes Elsy and Anders’s love of fiction and desire to escape from their lives in the real world. When Elsy stumbles upon Eloraton, she is lost and wants to escape from her life where she suffers heartbreak and loss. She describes arriving in Eloraton by saying, “I knew I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay in a world where the plots are predictable and the endings are happy. Somewhere just as frozen as I am” (230). Throughout the novel, Elsy describes escaping to Eloraton more metaphorically when she reads the Quixotic Falls novels over and over, thinking, “I just needed a story—or maybe a few hundred stories of happily ever after—to escape mine” (86). Yet, when she is physically in Eloraton, Elsy begins to learn even more about herself and what she needs to move forward with her life.

Eloraton also provides an escape for Anders. Though, in the novel, he has lost his ability to enjoy books, Anders is able to escape to the town and immerse himself in its story. He does so as a way to escape from his real life, where the