The numinous in America

[klwilliams]

At Westercon, both Lois McMaster Bujold and Michael Swanwich brought up the idea that fantasy needs to contain "the numinous", a spiritual or divine element, the supernatural. I've been thinking about that in regards to fantasy set in the United States. I find that stories with elves set in the downtown of a major city usually (though not always) feel grafted on, because elves aren't something that started out in the U.S. Neil Gaiman's American Gods were gods brought over to the U.S. from other countries. There are good stories with Native American gods and mythology, but I've been wondering what "the numinous" means in the WASP, urban United States, without bringing over gods or mythologies from other continents.

Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series springs to mind, based as it is on American folk magic and the Mormon religion. While both have their roots in Europe, they are still distinctly American. (The Book of Mormon is, roughly, the story of Jesus traveling though North America bringing his Word to the Indians.) Nina Kiriki Hoffman's The Thread That Binds the Bones, and her other supernatural stories, are another example. Michaela Roessner's Vanishing Point, while more science fictional than fantasy, is set in the Winchester Mystery House and contains at least a supernatural (science indistinguishable from magic) element.

What are the numinous elements in, say, downtown Manhattan, or the Financial District of San Francisco, or even downtown Pocatello, Idaho? There are always ghosts. Neil Gaiman created the Endless. American churches, such as the Baptists or Presbyterians, don't have the same kind of almost-magical liturgy that Catholic-based churches have.

I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting question to me, since Bones of Faerie is set in St. Louis, which is not one of the more numinous places on the planet. Admittedly, I had to set it after the end of the world to get there. :-) But I'm shopping a novel now that I also like to think touches on the numinous set in present-day Arizona ... I think for me, it comes to looking back to the land itself, and it's inherent, deeper nature: the dense plants and thick air and deep rivers of the midwest; the warm winds and summer wildfires of the southwest. I don't much find the numinous in the man made things, especially the newer man made things, though I know that's in part just me.

Though come to think of it, I did turn the Gateway Arch to something of (I hope) a numinous element, too. Because if you stand under the Arch, and look up at the right angle, there is a touch of the strange and magical there.

Maybe the numinous is all about the filters through which one views the world?

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Interesting. The Anita Blake stories are set in St. Louis, which might have something to say about the ambiance there. Personally, I think the confluence of the mighty rivers in the area lends a great deal of power to the landscape there.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Heh. I actually wrote the very start of Bones when I was still in a critique group with Laurell, before I left St. Louis. (More than a decade ago now--it took me a long time to finish that book!)

I think, though, that we all wrote stories set there because we lived there, and it was a landscape we knew, and then all found ways to do more with it. (And the Anita Blake books did this particularly well.)

But when you begin looking for the power and the numinous in St. Louis, those rivers pretty quickly come to mind.

Interestingly, it took me a couple years living in the desert, before I began writing stories set here, too.

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I think for those of us born in this generation (I'm 50+, YMMV), it takes a couple of years for the inherent power and character of a setting can really seep into us sufficiently to describe specific locals well. Some of the pleasure (or horror*) of reading things set in your area comes from seeing the places in your mind's eye, and seeing how the other person describes what they feel.

*I read a Jerry Bledsoe true crime story set in my hometown of Greensboro, NC, about a series of horrific murders that took place in one family in the area over a few years. The ending event took place at an intersection in Guilford College that I'd passed through hundreds of times a year. After being away for 20 years, the depiction of what had happened in places where I'd spent time was even more horrible because I could see the geography/locations so well.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I'm right around 40, and I feel like it takes time for the power of most places to seep in, too. There've been exceptions through the years, but mostly, yeah.

Oops, spelling blip

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

(Make that "locales well." I wish I could edit comments...

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I think you're on to something here.