The Map Room
Places
Meaningful places, from Vancouver to the Balkans. 43 entries.
A
B
- Balkans
Nev's ancestral homeland. She went there on impulse and spent 11 months uncovering her lineage, its history of war, oppression and sexual shame, and her own inherited patterns.
- Belgium
Where Colin ran one of his offices, the setting of the salesman who didn't want to be manager.
- Belgrade
Serbia's capital, where Nev recorded the episode at the end of her year-long journey in the Balkans.
- Bem Mozi
An artistic cinema-pub in Budapest Grant loved, where his friend Zoltán tended bar.
- Bergen-Belsen
Nazi concentration camp where the survivor behind Colin's film Eli was held.
- Boston
Where Mia moved in the past year, working at Harvard and piloting death salons.
- British Columbia
Its alcohol signs (ID if you look under 35, when the drinking age is 19) are Grant's example of Canadian bureaucratic excess.
- Budapest
Where Grant lived for 16 years (from age 26 to 42), practised aikido, and absorbed Hungarian pessimism; he had no home internet there.
C
- Canada
Grant's home country; on returning after 16 years he finds it bureaucratic, overly agreeable and hard to love, and plans a memoir about it.
- China
Where Colin sourced products for his company and learned that packaging can cost more than the product.
D
- Delphi
Site of Apollo's temple and the Oracle in Greece, which the Greeks considered the center of the world. Tamir didn't get there on his Greece trip that summer but has it on his list.
- Dorchester Cabin
Tyler's isolated, fenced cabin in the woods of Alberta, 'the horror-movie cabin in the middle of nowhere', where the blue roan stallion appeared.
- Dresden
The firebombing in Slaughterhouse-Five, which Colin mentions.
E
- Edmonton
Where Tyler's friends were driving back to when he phoned them, spooked by the ghost horse.
F
- Florence
Italian city where statues of Dante stand alongside those of warriors, cited by Tamir as a culture that valued poets as much as fighters.
G
- Germany
Salih's country, where Murakami was first translated via English, then retranslated from Japanese; Salih draws a parallel between Germany's and Japan's ongoing WWII reckoning.
- Greece
Where Salih recently reread Sputnik Sweetheart's Ferris wheel passage and where Tamir was haunted by the pan flute from the same novel.
- Gütersloh
Salih's home town in West Germany, between Dortmund and Hannover; a book-loving city with many libraries and bookstores where Murakami is still a niche.
H
- Hungary
Grant's home for 16 years; Hungarians told him 'we are the most pessimistic people in Europe'.
I
- India
Where Sheela met Bhagwan in 1972, at 22, while home to visit her mother after an eye operation.
- Italy
Setting of Colin's film 'I Know You', and home of the 'good life' mentality of family, friends and food that he admires.
J
- Japan
Discussed for its bubble economy (the backdrop of Hard-Boiled Wonderland), its unresolved WWII trauma, and how hard it is to live there as a loner.
K
- Kashi
Ancient name of Varanasi; the kingdom of the princess in the Vedantic parable Tamir tells.
L
- Lisbon
Starting point of Grant's overland journey across Europe at 26; he thought he might have a Portuguese life before ending up in Budapest.
- London
Where Colin boxed as a young man, where he clashed with the gym influencer, and where he met the blindfolded Rubik's Cube kid.
- Los Angeles
Where Colin overheard two men at Soho House claim any number one single can be bought for a million dollars.
M
- Manchuria
Setting of war chapters in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, including a whole chapter cut from the English translation.
- Maple Ridge
Town near Vancouver where Samantha's QHHT hypnotist Marilyn lives and holds day-long sessions.
N
- Netherlands
Setting of the mint-sauce lamb anecdote.
- New York City
Where Tamir studied with Swami Sarvapriyananda at the Vedanta Society in Manhattan.
O
- Oregon
US state where the Rajneeshees bought land and built Rajneeshpuram.
- Ottawa
Where Grant first went to university and read On the Road at 19.
P
- Portland
Setting of The Lathe of Heaven, where its effective-dreaming protagonist lives.
R
- Rajneeshpuram
The commune and town the Rajneeshees built on land in Oregon after leaving India. In Tamir's intro it was a fully functioning utopia with its own airport and Bhagwan's fleet of…
- Rural Alberta
Where Tyler grew up on a farm in a small community with a huge extended family; it shaped his loyalty and his reading-based knowledge of other cultures.
S
- Squamish
Town in British Columbia where Ian is based and runs his men's group; the retreat where Tamir met him was in a valley outside it.
- Switzerland
Where Sheela lives today, about an hour from Zurich toward Basel. She invites Tamir to visit for tea and says Switzerland is no less beautiful than Greece.
T
- Toronto
Where Grant saw Kurt Vonnegut speak in the 1990s, and where he went by bus after reading On the Road.
- Troy
Ancient city where Paris took Helen, starting the Trojan War. Tamir's example of love's destructive side.
V
- Vancouver
Where Tamir's podcast studio is and where he saw Ryan Holiday speak.
W
- West Point Grey
Vancouver neighbourhood where Mia lived in a big house that was the perfect setting for her grief dinner parties.
Y
- Yaletown
Vancouver neighborhood where, in a childhood dream Tamir still randomly recalls, a six-foot housefly chased him.