The Earth's Hoard

I have just started to read the book The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente. So far, I find it quite charming. I read that this book was "a kind of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by way of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland," and I can see what the reviewer at Publisher's Weekly meant. The language is witty and clever, and the creativity of the story is impressive.

This morning, while reading, I was struck by a description of the Earth opening up in order to reveal the space where Fairyland exists. This space is described as being like your grandmother's "big, dark closet, her shed out back, her basement, cluttered with the stuff and nonsense of millenia. The world didn't really know where else to put it, you see. The earth is frugal; she doesn't toss out perfectly good bronze helmets or spinning wheels or water clocks. She might need them one day."

I loved this personification of the Earth as a hoarder: not just a Depression-Era hoarder, but one that has been accumulating clutter and knickknacks since the Bronze Age. I wonder if archaeologists have ever taken this perspective on Mother Earth: she is a hoarder in her golden years, whose closet has become stuffed over time.