The Land And Its Linkages With Culture

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know anything about the links between land and the local culture? People have an impact on the land, what I want to know more about is the way that the land shapes the local culture and has an impact on the people living there. A related question is why do some places have nice vibes and places which can look very similar feel horrible? Im not really thinking along the lines of anthropological generalisations that certain physical conditions will produce certain social conditions, more about the vibes that the earth has. I saw an article on this years ago so I know the material exists, Im just hoping that someone knows what Im talking about. Titles, authors, books, websites - any names would be appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

Have a look at Landscape & Memory by Simon Schama, (Fontana Press ISBN 000 686 348 5). The book looks at our relationship with the landscape around us - the rivers, mountains & forests - & examines the impact they have had on our culture & imaginations, & the way we have in turn shaped them for our needs.

It was accompanied by an excellent TV series about eight years ago. Does anyone have a copy on VHS?

 

[phgnome]

I think Feng Shui is the study of the relationship between land and people. But not so much the land itself but the type of energies that flow through a certain area. I don't know very much about it but one of my relatives used to do "readings" for people. It takes into consideration the person who is inhabiting the area (it factors in the person's date and time of birth because it's part of the belief that the energies have different effects on different individuals). He did this type of landscape consulting for banks in Hong Kong. He was saying that there are just some places that are bad for some people and not others. Some places are good for some uses and not others. But you can change the "luck" of a land by adding a rock in the prescribed place. I've tried looking for material in it in English but a lot of it doesn't cover some of the things that he talks about.

There are businesses that occupy certain spots that keep changing hands or going out of business only to be replaced by another store that ends up sinking, too. Although 2 places can LOOK similar, the energy flows that go through them, he said, aren't the same. Maybe innately, we can sense that energy but since it's so rarely spoken about in a serious manner that we don't consciously acknowledge it -- when we feel a type of energy that doesn't react so well with us, we can't put a finger on it and refer to it as "a place that makes you feel uneasy".

 

[Anonymous]

An interesting other perspective is The Book of Babel by Nigel Lewis. It deals with the subject from a more linguistic angle, uncovering the metaphors hidden deep in thought, but has a lot to say about how the way we say and think things is connected to primordial experiences of the natural world. Lewis takes as his setting an early field between the woods and the sea, then shows how the simple objects and creatures about the place still dominate the substructure of language today. I never realized, for example, how amazingly central pigs are in the origins of European language and culture - they really do sneak in everywhere. A bit odd but worth a go.

 

[Spookdaddy]

I thoroughly recommend both the books already mentioned.

You could also try Paul Devereux’s new book Haunted Land and Michel Meurger's Lake Monster Traditions. Although the latter might appear to be a cryptozoological book Meurger is, from what I can recall (it’s a while since I read the book) interested in the influence a landscape has on its inhabitants. Do we sometimes create monsters to explain why a particular area makes us feel the way it does?

Bruce Chatwins Songlines is probably relevant as well. Urban landscapes are covered in such books as Peter Ackroyd’s London - The Biography and Michael Pye’s Maximum City (re New York) however in both books the natural landscape disappears as the sheer volume of history and people takes over as, I suppose, it does in reality.

Although I assume you are after non-fiction it’s worth remembering that landscape and it’s influences can play a huge part in fiction. In fact sometimes the landscape is the most powerful character in a book. A very quick scan of my own shelves would suggest James Lee Burke’s Louisiana, Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh and Cormac McCarthy’s Texas and Northern Mexico. (For a book that will make your gums bleed try McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. An almost demonic landscape serves as a backdrop to one of the most monumentally violent books I’ve ever read.) Of course you’ve also got classics like Wuthering Heights where the landscape is an integral part of the novel. The Romantics, especially poets like Wordsworth, were obsessed with landscape and our relationship to it.

There is a book called Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis which deals with the way the city of Los Angeles has been influenced by it's place within an unstable natural environment.

How we are affected by the landscape around us interests me a great deal as well so if you come up with any more ideas let me know.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Completely forgot Iain Sinclair's Lights out for the Territory. Sinclair is a bit hard going at times but this one is definitely relevant to bluezombie's original query and would be of interest to anyone with fortean interests.