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Ask anyone to take a sheet of paper and to draw an island as seen from the air. Most likely, that person would draw a stylized image of a piece of land, without much detail other than being surrounded by water. It would fit within the space confines of the sheet. It would also, uncannily, have an approximately circular shape.

Why should this happen? Islands–hundreds of thousands in the material world, countless more in the fictional one–come literally in all shapes and sizes. There is no compelling reason why the whole surface of an island should fit onto a square sheet of paper. Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, Baffin, Sumatra would only fit within the same frame if seen from space. Nor are islands circular. Actually, none of them are; moreover–other than planet Earth from space–very few get close. Perhaps the answer lies in an obsession to control, to embrace an island as something that is finite, that …