More Than This

“The first moments after the boy’s death pass for him in a confused and weighty blur.”

At the beginning of the story, Seth is only referred to as “the boy,” which illustrates his sense of confusion while creating anticipation for the reader. The young boy eventually remembers his name in Chapter 5 after experiencing a vivid dream/memory, a symbolic rebirth that plays into the theme of Life and Death.

“This is the house where he used to live. The house from all those years ago. The house in England. The house his mother swore she never wanted to see again. The house they moved across an ocean and a continent to get away from.”

This quote establishes the novel’s setting and simultaneously creates suspense and wonder. This is the first time that the narrative hints at the dramatic incident that caused Seth’s guilt and the family’s move to America/the online world. Running from the house establishes how Seth’s parents deal with The Effects of Trauma.

“This is hell. A hell built exactly for him. A hell where he would be alone. Forever.”

Seth’s conclusion that he is in hell is made dramatic by the repetitive structure of the narration. Each brief sentence adds another negative layer to Seth’s predicament—personalized torture, loneliness, and eternity—to simulate the terror closing in on Seth.

“He looks out toward the darkened sitting room and wonders what he’s supposed to do here. Is there a goal? Something to solve? Or is he just supposed to stay here forever? Is that what hell is? Trapped forever, alone, in your worst memory?”

In this quote, Seth begins to question The Nature of Reality. His questions also introduce potential narrative stakes, but they remain mostly unanswered until the Open Ending. Making Seth aware of himself as a hero on a quest sets up the possibility of Subverting Narrative Tropes.

“He stops. The memory is a dangerous one. He can feel himself teetering again, an abyss of confusion and despair looking right back up at him, threatening to swallow him if he so much as glances at it.”

This quote introduces the theme of The Effects of Trauma while also creating suspense for the reader. Seth’s initial refusal to cope with his memory both hinders his personal growth and foreshadows the revelation of what happened to Owen. Ness uses the language of looking and gazing to navigate trauma; refusing to look at something, such as the horse, or prison, or a memory, is a refusal to confront trauma.

“But, he thinks, it’s possible to die before you die.”

Playing into the theme of Life and Death, Seth’s outing and subsequent social isolation was a “death.” Seth symbolically dies when his relationship with his parents was fragmented after Owen’s disappearance, then later when his relationship with Gudmund is made public. This sentence hints at the upcoming revelations about his past.

“People knew that Seth was staying over at Gudmund’s—Seth’s parents, H and Monica—but no one knew about this. As far as Seth knew, no one even suspected. And that made it feel like the most private thing that could ever happen, like a whole secret universe all on its own. A universe that Seth, as he did every time, wished he never had to leave.”

This quote illustrates the recurring motif of Worlds with Seth imagining his and Gudmund’s relationship as “a whole secret universe.” It also emphasizes the significance of that relationship to the protagonist and, in contrast, the effect that Monica’s violation of privacy later has on his mental health.

“If he follows the train tracks one way, he could walk all the way to London. Not that he’s going to. It’s bloody miles. He stops. Bloody. He actually thought ‘bloody miles.’ His parents didn’t even say bloody anymore, American slang having almost thoroughly obliterated everything but his mum’s insistence that he call her ‘mum.’ ‘Bloody,’ he says, testing it out. ‘Bloody, bloody, bloody.’ He looks up. ‘Bloody sun.’”

Seth’s linguistic slip reveals that he is unconsciously reclaiming part of his history and identity that he has forgotten—or that has been erased from his memory when he transitioned to the online world. This contributes to his character development by showing that he is beginning to want to explore his past rather than avoid it.

“He can’t see the prison itself. It’s down in a small valley and behind a row of thick trees and more barbed wire and brick. But he knows it’s there. Just the presence of it strikes a weird chord through his stomach. Like it’s watching him back. Watching to see what he’ll do. Waiting for him to come to it.”

The personification of the prison highlights its significance to Seth both in the past and in the present. The presence of the prison creates an oppressive, ominous sense that hints at the revelations of Owen’s kidnapping and the building’s role as a coffin warehouse. The last sentence also foreshadows Seth having to explore it to look for answers. The prison’s ability to look at Seth signifies that he must, inevitably, look at his trauma and confront it.

“It’s also, in a way that troubles him more than he can really say, a past event. Something caught fire, or was blown up, or whatever happened, and then that fire raged out of control before burning itself out some time later, taking most of this neighborhood with it. Which means that there was a time before the fire, a time of the fire, and a time after the fire.”

In this passage, Seth realizes that, although he seems to be in hell, the place is not eternal and immutable. This leads him to reconsider The Nature of Reality and wonder whether he may be in the real world after all.

“‘Self-contained,’ Gudmund had described him, but what that really meant was that it felt like he’d had a private burden to shoulder for as long as he could remember, and maybe not all of it even to do with what happened to Owen. Worse, it had been accompanied by an equally hard lifelong yearning, a feeling that there had to be more, more than just all this weight.”

This quote introduces Seth’s feeling of longing, of wanting “more than this.” It also hints at his later realization that people are generally driven by their own problems rather than dismissive of his, which also ties into the idea that there is “more to the story” beyond Seth’s own narrow and individualistic perception of the world.

“‘There’s more than this, Sethy,’ Gudmund said. ‘This sucks beyond belief, but there’s more. We just have to get there.’”

Echoing the previous quote, Gudmund now encourages Seth to be hopeful about the future. This is another significant interpretation of the recurring “more than this” phrase. At this point in the narrative, Seth does not see a future and that is what drives him to drown himself. However, over the course of the story, he regains a sense of hope and the motivation to act and change things around him.

“Here is the boy, running. Here was the boy, drowning.”

Chapter 28 follows the two parallel events of Seth’s suicide attempts. The chapter draws symbolic connections between the past and the present, as this quote illustrates with repeated sentence structure and tense shifts. Additionally, the Prologue and the last chapter are the only other parts narrated from an omniscient perspective, as if the reader was witnessing Seth’s death/attempted death rather than experiencing it from his point of view.

“‘But that, all that—’ Regine makes a gesture in the air, capturing in a single twist of her fingers all the dreams he’s had—‘all that is not your whole life.’ ‘What?’ ‘There’s more. There’s much, much more.’ She gets a grim set to her mouth. ‘And you’ve forgotten it.’”

In this passage, Regine adds another layer of meaning to the recurring “more to this” phrase. This is the first time the narrative suggests that Seth’s perception of his former life as entirely real and his current surroundings as hell may be skewed. This contributes to the themes of The Nature of Reality and The Effects of Trauma.

“He does not dream.”

The significance of Seth’s lack of dreams after his memory is reset in the prison is highlighted by the fact that it is framed as its own one-sentence chapter. This suggests that the dream sequences he experienced previously may have been repressed memories, or his unconscious signaling to him that The Nature of Reality is ambiguous. This reinforces the symbolism of the dreams and blurs the lines between science-fiction and allegory.

“Oh, poor little Seth, with his poor little parents who didn’t love him. You said we all want there to be more than this! Well, there’s always more than this. There’s always something you don’t know. Maybe your parents didn’t love you enough, and that sucks, yes, it does, but maybe it wasn’t because you were bad. Maybe it was just because the worst thing in the world had happened to them and they weren’t able to deal with it.”

In this passage, Regine suggests that despite Seth’s fear that he caused his family’s problems, he cannot be responsible for his parents’ behavior. This contributes to the recurring idea that everyone is too concerned with their own issues to pay attention to another, something that Seth mistook for intentional neglect. With this responsibility lifted off his shoulders, Seth’s perspective becomes more nuanced and he grows more hopeful and willing to change things, in contrast to his previous guilt and apathy.

“‘I wanted so badly for there to be more. I ached for there to be more than my crappy little life.’ He shakes his head. ‘And there was more. I just couldn’t see it.’”

This is the first time that Seth explicitly states his changing perspective. He reiterates the idea that there is “more than this” but amends it by highlighting that his feeling of longing was skewed. His character development is made evident because he now has a more nuanced and compassionate understanding of other people’s actions. This quote also echoes what Gudmund told him earlier in the book: “There’s always beauty [...]. If you know where to look” (241).

“Look, I want both. I want them and I want you. Now that I know there’s more? I want to have more. If there really is more to life, I want to live all of it. And why shouldn’t all of us? Don’t we deserve that?”

Earlier in this chapter, Seth states: “what I’ve learned is that there actually is more. There’s you guys [Regine and Tomasz]. You guys are my more” (373). Seth’s questions suggest that the only real thing that matters, whether online or in the real world, is human relationships. Seth makes it clear that he does not want to choose between his friendship with Regine and Tomasz and his relationships with Gudmund and his parents.

“Regine chuckles. ‘Are you serious? Real life is only ever just real life. Messy. What it means depends on how you look at it. The only thing you’ve got to do is find a way to live there.’”

This quote, which Regine utters in Seth’s abstract dream, sums up the novel’s central message. Regine concludes that the narrative’s debate on The Nature of Reality is moot, arguing that all that matters is one’s perception of it and the human connections that one values. This idea then builds up to the Open Ending, which leaves room for the reader’s perception of the story.

“‘Life does not have to go how you think it will,’ Tomasz says. ‘Not even when you are very sure what is going to happen.’”

Tomasz’s statement plays into the Storytelling motif and the concept of Subverted Narrative Tropes. Although he is speaking to Seth, the young boy is also breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader, hinting at plot twists and unexpected endings.

“Seth doesn’t feel like the worst will happen, though. For once.”

This quote evidences Seth’s character development, since he initially did not have any hope for his future. Now, in contrast, he feels optimistic and he is willing to see what the future holds. This idea leads up to the Open Ending, which reinforces the sense of uncertainty and unlimited potential that the protagonist has achieved.

“‘So am I, Tommy,’ Seth says, then corrects it to, ‘Tomasz.’

‘Ah,’ Tomasz smiles, ‘this is where I am supposed to say that you can call me Tommy. Except I like the way you say Tomasz and want you to keep on saying it. For many, many years.’”

Tomasz once again plays into the Storytelling motif and Subverted Narrative Tropes. He humorously twists the expectation that his and Seth’s friendship will be cemented by using nicknames, a trope often employed in popular media. In fact, Tomasz confirms their bond in a different way, by stating that he wants to hear Seth call him Tomasz “for many, many years.”

“Here is the boy, the man, here is Seth, being laid back gently into his coffin, the hands of his friends guiding him into place.”

This quote parallels the structure of Quotes #1 and #14 through its use of repetition and distant observations of Seth’s behavior. The Prologue opens with a detached view of Seth drowning, and then Chapter 28 puts that moment in parallel with Seth’s attempt to jump off a cliff, and finally the book ends with Seth going back into his coffin. Those three instances contribute to the theme of Life and Death, with Seth literally and/or symbolically dying and being reborn each time.