Paul Kingsnorth has this really interesting notion that people
write characters that are people, animals, fantasy creatures, etc., but that
the land is rarely written as a character. He uses research in his essay from
studies on underground fungal networks, which sees these networks as being more
than just a means of transferring nutrients, but now seen as a “collective
fungal consciousness”.
“The scientists investigating animal and plant
consciousness, though, may be taking us back to an older ways of seeing be very
modern means. The living world around us may turn out to be much more sentient,
aware and connected than we have allowed ourselves to believe.”
This asks the questions: How did humans get to this point
where we don’t see nature, as a whole, a living being like our ancestors from
ages ago possibly did? Has modern advances over the years de-humanized us from
seeing nature the way it was supposed to be seen? And if so, how do we reverse
these effects and go back to being “one with nature”?
Kingsnorth
also asks if these “human” traits of awareness, consciousness, feelings, etc. all
extend beyond humans, why are novels still mainly using humans as the only actors?
So the questions I ask are: Why isn’t the land a character
in more stories? Why is it just written as a setting, and just left at that? Is
it because we just over look it, or is it something more; how “de-humanized”
are humans now? And if we are de-humanized, how far down the rabbit hole are
we, and how can we get back out?
I want to start off by saying I was pleased to read this article and have it echo back to something I have brought up before: Earth and everything that happens to be in it is a dialogue. And as humans, we've been avoiding conversation with Mother Nature for a while now. I think in result of human's high consciousness, which whether it is good or bad is a whole another argument, we lost touch. We realized what it was like to want things and what luxuries are that we forgot about what was helping live before and still now. It's taking someone for granted when they've given you everything. We no longer know what it means when the land tries to talk to us because we don't know how to speak language anymore. So it is not surprising we leave land to the setting now. We thought we became too big for this Earth. If we listened to the land these days I don't think we'd like what it'd have to say to us. The lecture I imagine we'd get from them? We are not humans in the sense of humans from the beginning of time. Every few people still know how to talk and listen to the Earth. I think, maybe, if we tried to embrace the land again it'd probably help us out the rabbit hole itself or at the very least tell us how to climb out.
ReplyDeleteI think we as a general whole don't often write stories that feature land as a character because, simply put, land doesn't have thoughts. Of course, it's easiest to write stories about humans, because we as writers and readers can easily relate to other humans. Even with animals, we can at least imagine what it might be like to be an animal, what might be going through an animal's head, and we know (for the most part) why animals do certain things. Land, however, is such an intangible thing that I think we are too intimidated to tackle it as an actual character. What would land say if it could talk? Why does it behave certain ways? Questions like these are intriguing to think about, but let's face it: these are not immediate thoughts that come to mind when thinking of characters for a story. It's hard and unnatural to make a non-living thing the living character of a story. (Though, you could debate that land IS living.) Sure, we all know personification well and even employ it, but it's rare to employ it on such a large scale.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, it's common to think of the "who, what, when, and where" when starting a story. In a story that focuses on the land as the main character, the "where" becomes one with the "who." Combining these elements of a story is not something we naturally think to do. Perhaps, then, to encourage more stories that do feature land as a character or other creative takes, we (as a class, as writers, as people) can try to make a concentrated effort to do this combining of elements more in future writings. We can write stories where the "where" is also the "when," where the "where" is also the "who," etc.