"Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination"
About this Quote
Her counter-metaphor is pointedly industrial and civic. “Factories” gives you repetition, strain, craft learned by doing; it suggests production without glamour, the kind that leaves marks on the body. “Streets” adds exposure and contingency: the messy traffic of other people, danger, accident, noise - the novelist not sealed off in a tower but moving through a public world. Then “cathedrals” raises the stakes without slipping into piety. A cathedral is built over generations; it’s labor plus structure plus an aspiration to meaning that outlasts the builder. Frame’s imagination is not a private playground but a whole society of work sites, with different kinds of pressure.
Context matters: Frame’s life was shadowed by institutionalization and misrecognition, and her writing often treats “unreality” as something society imposes, not something the writer escapes into. The “unreal land” line reads like a critique of how outsiders label the imaginative mind as escapist or suspect. Her intent is both defense and dare: the novel is not a trip; it’s a long-term occupation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: The Envoy from Mirror City (Janet Frame, 1985)
Evidence: Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination, learning the unique functioning of Mirror City, its skies and space, its own planetary system, without stopping to think that one may become homeless in the world, and bankrupt, abandoned by the Envoy. (Page 155). The quote is from Janet Frame's own autobiographical book The Envoy from Mirror City, the third volume of her autobiography. A scholarly thesis quotes the passage and explicitly cites it as '(Envoy, p.155),' which provides the page number and matches the wording closely. Open Library lists The Envoy from Mirror City as first published in 1985. Secondary quotation dictionaries also attribute the line to The Envoy from Mirror City (1985), though one snippet incorrectly calls it the 'first volume' of the autobiography. I did not verify an earlier magazine/speech appearance prior to the 1985 book, so the earliest verified primary-source publication I found is this book. Supporting evidence: Open Library lists first publication in 1985, and the Warwick thesis reproduces the passage with page 155. ([openlibrary.org](https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL4371097A/Janet_Frame?utm_source=openai)) Other candidates (1) The Little Black Book of Writers' Wisdom (Steven D. Price, 2013) compilation99.1% ... Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land : it is hours an... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Frame, Janet. (2026, March 9). Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/writing-a-novel-is-not-merely-going-on-a-shopping-149245/
Chicago Style
Frame, Janet. "Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination." FixQuotes. March 9, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/writing-a-novel-is-not-merely-going-on-a-shopping-149245/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination." FixQuotes, 9 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/writing-a-novel-is-not-merely-going-on-a-shopping-149245/. Accessed 14 Mar. 2026.
