On the book: Architecture and magic

[pegkerr]

Today, as pameladean says, I glared at my novel awhile, specifically chapter 2, where I am trying to figure out the transition from the (pretty good) opening scene at home between Solveig and Ingrid, to Solveig meeting Jack for the first time at work. Finally, gave up and switched to writing one of Solveig's journal entries, which is more words on the page, but am not sure it will be included in the book.

Have been thinking: what is it about the fact that Solveig is an architect that shapes the ending (the final climax, etc.) about the ending of the book? How is the fact that Solveig is an architect significant magically? I started thinking about the concept of "genius," which I first picked up on in a footnote (!) to the mystery novel Jane and the Genius of the Place, by Stephanie Barron (quite good, as are all other novels in this series, if you're wondering. Jane Austen as detective. A delight to readers familiar with her books.) Anyway, the footnote reads:

It was Alexander Pope (1688-1744) who remarked that nothing could be achieved in landscape design without respect for the "genius of the place"--the governing spirit of a particular landscape. He referred to an idea first stated by Horace, that every place possessed a resident genie, that must be propitiated if Beauty was to be achieved. Pope probably intended this to mean a respect for the natural attributes of the terrain; but at times his words were interpreted quite literally as a respect for a resident god.

You see where this is going, don't you? Neil Gaiman worked with this, in a way, in American Gods, although he seemed to say that gods were tied to both a people and a place. He hypothesized that the people who came over to the New World brought their old world gods with them, but as there were fewer and fewer people who believed in those old gods (Odin, Loki, etc.), the old gods weakened as the new gods of technology, money, the Internet, etc., waxed in power. Emma Bull perhaps touched upon a similar idea, glancingly, in War for the Oaks, where the phouka says that the soul a city is centered on water; he locates Minneapolis's heart (nexus of its power) at Minnehaha Falls.

So if there is a genius of the place in Minneapolis/St. Paul, what would it be? Some kind of Amerindian/Scandinavian mixture, perhaps? The discussion of geniuses of places I read concerned landscape design, but why should it not concern architecture/building design, too, as buildings, too have to fit into places? What would the genius be for the ice palace? The Frost King, perhaps? And after all, an ice palace melts, just as spring follows winter. Perhaps the genius of the place changes with the change of the seasons? That seems to be what the St. Paul Winter Carnival myth is about, with King Boreas battling it out with the Vulcans (their word, not mine) for supremacy.

I find these ideas interesting but am annoyed, as usual, that threads of thought I consider worthy of further consideration seem to be already tangled up in American Gods and War for the Oaks.

I'm taking the day off work from the day job as I have a visiting Author in the Schools appearance tomorrow (at Fiona's school, actually). I've already arranged to meet again with Inga the architect afterwards. I want to talk with her about what I might need to read to help me get an idea of the field of architecture, and to ask more specific questions about what happens at a cherette (a design meeting). I think my back brain has been reluctant to write about Jack and Solveig in the work place because I'm so appallingly ignorant about architecture.

Cheers,
Peg