The Ten Thousand Doors of January Summary and Analysis

Section Two Summary: Brattleboro: A Door to Madness

January wakes the day after the annual party, her head reeling from the champagne. Jane, pleased by January’s nerve, insists that her father is missing, not dead. Spotting The Ten Thousand Doors, Jane reacts unexpectedly by grabbing the book and asking January if it mentions the irimu. Before their conversation can go further, Jane is called to Mr. Locke’s office and leaves with the book. Alone, January decides she is going to abandon Locke House in search of her father.

As she leaves, January encounters Mr. Locke and Mr. Theodore Havemeyer in the hallway. Mr. Locke demands that she return to her room, but she refuses. Mr. Havemeyer asserts once again that her father is deceased. Incensed, January expresses her desire to escape by traveling through a Door to another world. The two freeze, surprised about her knowledge of what they call “aberrations.” Mr. Havemeyer calls upon his men to lock January in her room. Bad attacks the men, but they separate him from her, and January can hear them beat her dog into submission.

Frenzied, January grabs her foreign coin and, fully believing in the power of her words, writes on a scrap of paper that her bedroom door opens. Her door unlocks, and January causes considerable alarm when she appears downstairs. Both Bad and Jane are missing. An exasperated Mr. Locke explains to January that she will have to leave Locke House until recent events are forgotten and commits her to Brattleboro Asylum. Attendants arrive at that moment, drug January, and remove her from her guardian. When she awakens, she is cuffed to her bed, but once she shows good behavior, the nurses allow her to sleep unshackled. At night, she goes to her window, where Samuel appears and tosses January’s copy of The Ten Thousand Doors to her at Jane’s request. She reads more that evening.

The book turns to the story of Yule Ian, a boy from the world of The Written in the Amarico Sea in another world. Here, words have power, and all that is significant is written down. Yule Ian grew up in the island city of Nin in a large family. Lacking the skill to be a Wordworker (those who can influence reality through the written word) like his mother, Yule shows a predilection for languages and scholarship. He attends a university but is almost asked to abandon his studies because he cannot find a particular research project. However, he meets Ade as he wanders through the Door to her world. When he finds the Door no longer provides passage to her world, he devotes his life to the study of portals and the search for the striking girl who kissed him. In The Written year of 6920 (our 1893), rumors in the city of Plumm reach Yule; they speak of a pale woman with yellowish hair who is sailing in a strange ship. Yule rushes to the coast and watches as Ade sails in on The Key. The two are reunited after 12 years apart, and their love is rekindled.

In Brattleboro, January forgets herself and leaves The Ten Thousand Doors out, and the nurses confiscate it. Desperate to have it back, January meets with Doctor Palmer of the asylum. He does not let her have the book back and cannot tell her when she will be able to leave. She reacts violently, is subdued, and then drugged. Addled, she is unclear how many days pass in her stupor. When she is lucid, she receives word that her uncle has come to visit her, but it is Mr. Havemeyer. He interrogates her about Doors, telling her that Bad has been drowned and revealing that he has a vampiric touch that icily drains people’s warmth. Interrupted by the nurses, Mr. Havemeyer vows to return the next day. January pleads with the nurse to have her book back; taking pity on her, one of the nurses returns it. January escapes into the pages of the book.

Yule Ian (Ade calls him Julian) and Ade learn about and express their love for one another. Together they travel throughout The Written on The Key. After some time, Ade reveals that she is pregnant. The two return to the city of Nin, where Yule’s mother marries them, tattooing their vows on their arms. A daughter is born, whom they name after the ancient Roman god of doors Janus, but change it to January.

With this newfound understanding of who she is, January is determined to escape Brattleboro before Mr. Havemeyer returns. In her room, she sharpens the coin into a makeshift knife. With it, she writes on her arm for her cell door to open; it does. She attempts her escape, but she finds Mr. Havemeyer at the door leading out of Brattleboro. She runs, escaping to a janitor’s closet, and carves another sentence into her arm, this time writing a Door of blood and silver into existence. An opening in the closet appears, and she escapes through it, just as Mr. Havemeyer’s thin, spider-like fingers curl around the Door to the closet. She exits the Threshold and arrives in the Zappia family cabin on Lake Champlain, where she finds Jane and a wounded Bad. Jane asks if January was followed. January alters the sentence, closing the Door on Mr. Havemeyer; only three of his fingers arrive at the other side of January’s Door. Jane assures a worried January that she will not leave her and reads her another chapter of the book.

Two years after the birth of their daughter, Ade is restless. Yule buys a boat and the family sails off. Ade admits that she would like to return to her family farm, at least to let her family know that she is safe. They sail for the Door leading to Colorado; however, as they move through it, something happens. The ship breaks, and their small family is separated. Ade is lost, while the infant January and Yule fall onto the rocky ground of Mount Silverheel. A man is there, and Yule is knocked unconscious.

Back at the cabin, January asks Jane how she met Julian, and Jane reveals her story. After their mother abandoned them, Jane and her sister were raised at a ministry school. She kept trying to run away from school, and on her fourth attempt, she stumbled upon a Door to a jungle world. She happened upon a hunting party of fierce leopard women and joined them, returning to her world only to grab a rifle to kill an ogre and prove her worth to the tribe. She built a life there, and Julian encountered her after she lived in that world for 22 years.

Before Jane can finish her story, Mr. Havemeyer appears at the cabin with a beaten Samuel. Mr. Havemeyer says he will release Samuel if January surrenders herself. January agrees, but Bad attacks once again. Before Mr. Havemeyer can return blows, Jane shoots him with a revolver she stole from Mr. Locke. After the scuffle, January reads the remaining chapter of The Ten Thousand Doors.

Yule Ian describes the first time he met Mr. Locke as he recovered from the ordeal on Mount Silverheel. Mr. Locke says he will take care of Yule’s daughter and anything he might need for his work tracking down Doors if Yule will send any artifacts that he finds back to Locke House. Thus, Yule Ian Scholar becomes Julian Scaller, the field agent who travels the world for Mr. Locke. Julian notices that the Doors he discovers are being destroyed or closed, thereby stopping the world from changing. In a series of postscripts to The Ten Thousand Doors, Julian talks directly to January, for whom he wrote the book. He says he has found a Door in Japan leading back to The Written and that he will return to her to bring her with him. In a cryptic series of lines hastily written, Julian tells January to run, underlines the place “Arcadia,” and finally, “do not trust.”

Section Two Analysis: Brattleboro: A Door to Madness

Brattleboro is a turning point for January and significantly changes the tempo of the novel’s plot. Separated from Bad, Jane, Samuel, and even the safety of Locke House, January is forced to look inward, finding solace in The Ten Thousand Doors. Here, January is able to discover the truth about her parents and who she is, becoming empowered with the knowledge of her own story. January starts to realize that she has to take control of her life, to strip away the demure girl who only acted to please her guardian, and allow her willful self to resurface. Her experiences escaping Brattleboro parallel the chapters she has read in The Ten Thousand Doors. As her parents tattoo the meaningful vows on their arms, January writes her own reality on hers. It is her very essence that opens the Door of Blood and Silver. Here, the power of her words and her power to traverse the Doors are inextricably connected to who she is, much like the god Janus.

Yule Ian’s story highlights how important the traditional stories and the ancient portals that are connected to these tales are to change. There is no substantial progress without the persistent leak and exchange that occurs at the sites of these portals. It is fitting that most of his study brings him to mythologies, folklore, and local rumors. Those stories that have the most strength, that circulate and are retold, are the ones that point to Doors. In a similar vein, through Yule Ian, Ade, and Jane, we see how migrations from one world to another provide new opportunities, even if they require considerable work to realize. Ade’s journey to The Written requires her to build The Key and suffer malicious press suggesting that she was mentally unstable. Ade’s boat is also symbolic; it opens the path to a life she has been chasing. Her boat becomes the key that unlocks the barriers to a new sedentary life. However, her work reunited her with her love and was the starting point for her own family. For Jane, immigrating to the world of the leopard-women allowed her to live up to her true potential. Her own world had limited her, especially while it was under British rule. Although the ogres and the beasts in the jungle provided considerable danger, one wonders if the true danger Jane feared was not having the chance to live at all.