The relationship between landscape and storytelling is one
of context. What the landscape provides to a listener/reader/viewer is the
adequate support frame to process and evaluate the story. Whether the landscape
depicted is a physical, some architectural or aesthetic, or a metaphysical one,
a state of mind or emotion it generates an entrance ramp so to speak to the
narrative. It creates a baseline that the individual participating can join in
on and begin an empathetic connection to the tale with.
What is
fascinating about this to me is how even the most remote and or removed topics
from an individual can be brought into focus of the participator wholly by
context. The reading is a good example of this, where I am not familiar with
any of the places he describes but through the act of describing them and their
relevance (which may or may not need to be) I can begin to understand what
exactly he is trying to say. Try writing an engaging story without the use of
context, I’d imagine it impossible, mostly to achieve the engaging aspect. That
is really what makes stories come alive, is our imaginative complex to see not
who ever is being described as the main character but to see ourselves in that
role. We become the characters we read about, or rather the characters become
us and for us to be engaged as the character we have to perceive what is going
on, around or within us.
With that
being said I felt a little underwhelmed with Lopez’s description between
landscape and narrative, maybe I missed his point somewhere. I think rather
that I didn't feel connected enough to his own narrative to embody what he was
saying and to evaluate it properly.
Although I
really connected with an observation of his, that after we leave the confines of
a good narrative we feel renewed. “The stories had renewed in me a sense of the
purpose of my life.” I've experienced this numerous occasions but not until
reading it had I thought about it at all. I’m still not sure what to take from
it, often when this feeling comes on after a story it will recede just as
quietly, and kind of bitterly, if I don’t do anything. Maybe there is some
other function of storytelling beyond just abstract separation and fantastical
happenings. Lopez I get is alluding to some healing purpose, which I don’t
agree with per se but I can see where that would come into play. I certainly
feel in a way healed when a fictional happening somehow resonates with my
actual life and can create a momentum of purpose.
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