Thursday, February 08, 2007

Stomping Above & Below Ground

Still around. This novel idea won't go away. So I'm reading some fantasy and thinking about the genre a little. This is a return for me to certain old stomping/reading grounds. "Stomping grounds." There's a phrase for you.

Anyway, there are two stories here, one of them I'll call "above ground," it being straightforward tale in this world of predictable natural laws etc. And then there's the "below ground" story, which is where, literally, the fantasy comes in.

I've been reading Alan Jacobs' fine book on C. S. Lewis, The Narnian. All that about a mythic past (time and place) that has faded, or been eclipsed--sometimes called faery.

Well, I'm thinking about that. The thing is, the "below ground" story is not very clear to me. I can get my people into it, but I'm not sure what happens then. Remember that it was the Indians who called this place, Towamensing, "the wild place." Tell anyone that, and they'll ask the obvious question: "Why?"

But the point is, there was something here even before the Indians. Something they recognized, were perhaps frightened by, and called "wild." Which is funny, because that's what the European's called the Indians. Wild.

These thoughts are just the strands I'm playing with.