Transience, Time, and Place

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Ruthie never mentioned when the story takes place, and Fingerbone is not actually a real town. However, you can probably trace the setting pretty well - Wikipedia helpfully mentions that the book Ruthie reads, Not as a Stranger, was written in 1954. And I assume it’s not taking place after 1980, when the book was published. In a sense it’s nice to know where the book takes place, so maybe those hours I spend procrastinating on Google Maps can be spent in relation to at least one class. Anyway, here's what Finerbone probably looks like.

But upon trying to figure out where the book takes place and when and whatnot, I started thinking if that even matters. Obviously, since it’s not all that hard to figure out and place names are mentioned, it’s not exactly that Robinson’s intention is to hide the location of the story to illuminate something specific. But the setting isn’t emphasized,and Robinson also depicts how miniscule human life is in the scale of geologic time, making all human life really looks all the same; every drama, every interaction, no matter where or when is rather similar. And since so much of this novel’s story focuses on transience, the setting of it shouldn’t really matter. If everything in life it’s so temporary, and there is no real connection to the place or time of that life, is there? People just exist in a spot for a bit, in a time for a bit, and then they move on. Regardless of outside events, our lives are often so short and disconnected from those settings as well. So why would Robinson emphasize the setting if this is her philosophical point about humanity? Was my finding the google maps image of the lake even important, and her perhaps counterproductive to our reading of the novel?

Comments

  1. Sophia SchmitzApril 5, 2019 at 10:00 AM

    I don't know if people have seen this NOVA but they put the creation of the universe to right now in a year. The existence of humanity is the last minute of the year. Reading housekeeping reminded me of that because it shows that time is so large and we are here for just a short time nothing we really do matters.

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  2. ChristinaApril 7, 2019 at 12:50 PM

    I think the setting plays subtle but important role. They're stuck in Fingerbone and it's community. Additionally, Ruth and Lucille had that catalystic experience in the woods. Imagine if this novel was set in the present. We have so many different ways to connect with people on such a global scale. Ruth and Lucille could've found their aunt Molly. They could've also found people sharing their interests. It's the setting's isolation that I think instigates the Ruth and Lucille's different paths.

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