Harry Dresden and the idea of thresholds

I keep my Harry Dresden books in my 'Pulp' folder, alongside Robert E. Howard and Sax Rohmer. The Harry Dresden series rocks, sort of like a hard-boiled Harry Potter or a lowbrow 'Watch' series: vampire factions, werewolves, the fae winter and summer courts, demons, gangsters and cops. It makes great reading, good enough to postpone making supper for a bit and braving the complaints. It's a pity the whole of the whole thing was so expensive. Still, it's worth all the money.

So what does Harry Dresden add  to the various genres? The thing that grabbed me, aside from the Bob the Skull, was Jim Butcher's very conscious use of the threshold.

In most modern literature, the threshold is ignored. In vampire stories, the vampire needs to be invited in, before the story can reach its climax. Normally this is handled as part of the convention. In rare instances, there are wards on doors, but these are normally used to keep monsters in, and are broken to allow the protagonists to face their demons and challenges.

In the Dresden books (if you haven't yet read them) wizard Harry Dresden quite regularly uses spells on his threshold to protect himself from unwanted visitors . He has to provide charms to allow certain favoured guests free entry and exit. In one very enjoyable chapter, he has to rapidly remove the wards to prevent a disaster with a government agency that wants to search his dwelling.

The idea of the threshold is an ancient mythological, magical and customary tradition. In Roman mythology, the threshold has its own god, Janus, the god of gates and doors. He presides over beginnings and transitions. In addition to the wards on the door that keep movie monsters locked in, Western European tradition involves a groom carrying the bride over the threshold of the house, immediately after marriage, to welcome her in. In one superstition, if the bride trips on crossing the threshold, the marriage will be miserable. In past centuries, a horseshoe (cold iron) protected the dwelling from fairies. And in the Judaic tradition, a mezuzah, a parchment containing the Shema Israel prayer is hung on the right side of the door.

The point about the threshold concept is that it is a protection of personal space. Personal space, whether protected by superstition, religion, a magical tradition or a lock and key, is one of the most important hallmarks of society. People are also sensitive to their thresholds in interesting ways. Think about the sense of something 'feeling wrong' that you might have experienced before entering your home, only to discover that it has been burgled.

The Harry Dresden stories are a wonderful romp, but don't dismiss them as being nothing more than that. Jim Butcher has done his homework, it works for the story, and I hope it works for other stories as well.