The characters in The Other Town were struck with a tendency to pry into other people’s business. I was interested in this because the similarity of the towns became a point at which the people were able to see into the lives of others. Scandals, personal matters, and other parts of everyday life were put out for other people to see. In the story, the houses within the other town are made into exact replicas of the citizen’s houses. A fantastic component to this includes the replicators being able to find and replicate every single detail of every citizen’s everyday changes to their houses. The yearning the people have to visit this other town is almost fantastic as well. The main character speaks about this idea as if it is an actual calling to visit the other town frequently.
“Then, a restlessness comes over us, an unease, a kind of physiological unhappiness. For it’s as if the other town, which is far quieter than ours, is producing a hum, a melody, that we strain to hear.”
This, I believe, also gives the characters a sense of freedom. They can look in anyone’s house and know it is replicated exactly. This fuels a humans natural tendency to want to know what is going on, to be nosy. The fact that the people physically get restless is another interesting aspect of this story. This makes me wonder if it is a component of something supernatural calling to them from the town. The citizens also question the point of having the town. Certain groups speak out against the idea of invading people’s lives and their ‘houses’. They also find that it is a great waste of money and resources. Groups of teens and children rebel, finding ways to sneak out to the other town, only to be caught and punished. The other town is taken as another way to inspire children to get in trouble, as the pull of the town is too much for them. The narrator is not exactly opposed to the yearnings they feel from the other town. They don’t consider the findings to be a problem.
I like your speculation about there being something supernatural about the other town, that it is “calling” to the people; it definitely makes the other town feel even more mysterious and makes the reader wonder what goes on there when no one else is around.
I agree that they were prying into their lives as the houses were set up so close. Prying would be about the only way that they could get this information and to set it up in the way that they have!
While prying does play a part in this story, the story also deals with perfection, the need to mimic someone else’s life, and the constant critics of the other town by the residents, to name a few. An important question that I asked myself was this: why didn’t the other town have people? With the minute attention to every detail, it seems strange that the replicators never found a way to replicate the people. I can’t quite place my finger on what the other town represents and what Millhauser was trying to tell the reader.
This fascination with this replica of a town, I would say more than prying, but more of curiosity for this empty, shell of a town. An odd doppelgänger for the town, but plausible in it’s upkeep and maintenance.