ToL: Build the Wall! Build the Wall!

[Trike]

So a major feature of this book is how the Navajo rez was kept safe during the apocalypse from savage immigrants by the existence of a giant, magically-erected turquoise wall. Given that this is combined with the idea that certain people are the “chosen people” of the various gods, at first blush this feels a bit problematic considering the current political climate.

However, the problems faced by the main characters arise from *inside* the wall. Those who are outside don’t really pose much of a threat. The metaphor seems pretty clear, but I wonder if it’s intentional, given the lag time between writing a novel and getting it published.

Thoughts?

[Nils]

Yeah, the wall felt really offputting at first. I also felt it was much more an answer to reservations normally being used to Keep People in, not the other way round.
To be honest, the world outside the wall seems really hazy to me, I probably need to read up on her idea of the apocalypse.

[Ruth]

Something that I found interesting about the book is the point that, for the Navajo, the apocalypse already happened a long time ago, with the arrival of the ‘bilagaana’, the Long Walk etc. The Big Water is the rest of the world catching up.

The wall thing certainly feels like an intentional reference to me, and even if it didn’t start that way the book’s publishers must have known it would be interpreted like that.

[AndrewP]

To me it seemed like a plot device just to keep all the characters isolated and together, much like Stephen King did in 'Under the Dome'.

[Iain]

It reads as though it started as a plot device and too on additional meaning with the orange faced president’s daft plans.

It also illustrates the reemergence of the Navajo gods remaking the world.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Tony award winning musical Hadestown also has a song about a wall (inevitably in my head every time it is mentioned):

https://youtu.be/e2pxbyf_tgE

Hey, does the wall keep the gods in too? I wondered if the "sixth world" also contained them.

[Christopher]

I think it is at least somewhat intentional, because there is a bit early on in the book and you’ll forgive me for not getting the exact quotation at the moment, where she does talk about and directly compares the wall to One the old United States government tried to build across their southern border a few years before the Big Water.

[Buzz]

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Tony award winning musical Hadestown also has a song about a wall (inevitably in my head every time it is mentioned)..."

For me it is Pink Floyd lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvPpA...