About creating a sense
of place in two books
A while ago I read two
one after another – Aliette de Bodard's "The House of Shattered Wings"
and "Lagoon" by Nnedi Okorafor. It was a fortunate coincidence, because
even though these are very different books, seen side by side you can see some interesting
similarities between the two books. The one that interested me in particular,
was the sense of place in these books, and the relationship of the characters
with the cities in which the books take place.
On the face of it, these
are very different books. Lagoon in a story about first contact with aliens,
set in present day or very near future Lagos in Nigeria. The House of Shattered
Wings is a story set in post-apocalyptic Paris, with fallen angels and magic.
I'm doing both these wonderful books a disservice by describing them so
simplistically, but it's important to mention where the stories take place,
because what they have in common is the amazing sense of place that both de
Bodard and Okorafor manage to crate in these books.
This sense of place, of
Paris and Lagos, comes through in two ways. One is descriptive. Both Okorafor and
de Bodard do a wonderful job in conveying to the reader not only sights and
sounds of the cities, but also the elusive sense of atmosphere of a city. We
all recognize this sense of place when we come across it in a book, even if we
can't really describe what it's made of. In the case of these two books we, the
readers, can easily relate to the crowded, busy, bustling streets of Lagos, and
to the tense atmosphere of Paris trying to cope with its fall from grace, with
the aftermath of the war.
The other way the reader
can get this sense of place is through the way the characters interact with
their surroundings. Even if not explicitly, readers recognize when characters
are truly part of their environment, and when the place they reside in is
inconsequential. We can sense when the characters truly have a relationship
with their surroundings, rather than it just being a place where they happen to
live and operate. And this is the case in both Lagoon and The House of
Shattered Wings, but the type of relationship the characters in each book have
with their respective city is very different. While Okorafor's characters are
rooted deeply in the city and the land, and this is what gives them their
identity, de Bodard's characters are eternal exiles trying to find their place
in Paris.
On more than one
occasion, when Adaora and the other protagonists of Lagoon are asked about the
source of their special powers, they answer "we are Nigerians, and a
Ghanaian". But this simple statement is only the tip of the iceberg. Lagos
in the focal point, and origin point, for all the characters in the book. Lagos,
with its unique blend of people, religions, cultures, traditions and so on,
shaped and created them all. But it is also the rich and fertile soil they need
to flourish. The aliens come to Lagos' lagoon because it is the perfect
starting point for the revolution (or evolution) they bring to earth; Agu comes
to Lagos because it is the best place for him to become the protector of the
innocents; Anthony, the Ghanaian rapper, finds audience and muse there. And all
their stories, and other stories in the book, are woven together by Udide
Okwanka that resides under the city. They can't take place in any other place.
The relationship de
Bodard's characters have with Paris is very different – they are all strangers
in the city, exiles, and keep trying to make it their home. It is most apparent
in Pierre and Madeleine, of course. Pierre who has lost his name, his homeland
Anam and his place at the Jade Emperor's court, and keeps looking for something
in Paris that will replace them after realizing he can't get back. Madeleine
how was born in the city, but keeps going back and forth between the two
Houses, never quite finding a place in either. Paris is also the place where The
Fallen, the outcasts, create the Houses, and I don't think it's too far
reaching to argue that this may be a kind of attempt to recreate something of The
City, from which they were exiled. The attempt of characters
to find a home is also apparent in the short stories taking place in this universe.
Morningstar himself looks back to Heaven in the story "The Face of
Heaven", and "Paid Debts" is a story about trying to get back
home on a smaller, more local scale. All this takes place in Paris not merely
because it is a place of exile, but because for these characters it offers a
chance to become a new home that no other city does.
These are very two
different types of relationship – belonging and exile. But they are both
masterfully written, and both have the effect of creating a wonderful sense of
the cities in which the stories take place, by virtue of the way the characters
interact with these cities.
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