SGK-Herbsttagung 2014

“Kunst und Kartografie”

Cartographic Strategies in Fiction

Christina Ljungberg

Macrobius’ map after Crete of Mallos’ Earth globe, 425 ADCommentary on the Dreams of Scipio (Africanus)

The Shape of the Promised LandIreland 750 ADIrish monks trying to make senseof The Book of Joshua in order todisambiguate the Bible’s textualinconsistencies about how Israelwas divided among its 12 tribes

Why is the use of maps in fiction so effective?

• because of the intermedial tension generated by the interplay between the two sign systems, cartography and writing

• with the nature of maps as mediated, ‘extended’ seeing

• with the way maps relate to their objects, that is, to the known, unknown or merely imaginary world

Historical maps

• Avoiding censorship• Documentation• Mirror the narrative organization• Question concepts like ‘authenticity’

and ‘exactitude’ and discuss them• Map emotions

Sir Thomas More, Utopia (1518)

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels(1726)

So geographers, in Afric mapsWith savage pictures fill their gaps And o’er uninhabitable downs;Place elephants for want of towns!

Jonathan Swift, On Poetry, A Rhapsody (1733/1983, 526)

World map in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719)

La Carte du Tendre in Mlle de Scudéry’s Clélie (1654)

Modernist maps ca. 1880- 1950s

• Quest narratives• Source of motivation• Depiction of a detailed fictional world• Visualization of the itinerary on which the

plot hinges• Interactive device for reader involvement

R. L. StevensonThe Treasure Island map (1881)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes(1903-4)

Arthur Conan Doyle – The Lost World (1912)

Arthur Conan Doyle – The Lost World (1912)

Thomas Hardy’s Wessex as a reorganization of actual space into a fictive geography

J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings (1937- 1949)

Postmodern maps ca 1980

• Discussing metaphysical problems of writing and being

• Disclosing social planning or ideological inventions

• Visualizing diagrammatic features of the text• Woman as map / colonized nature

Paul Auster, City of Glass (1988)

Professor Stillman’s ‘walked maps’ in Paul Auster’s City of Glass (1988)

Aritha van Herk, Places Far From Ellesmere (1990)

Postcolonial maps ca 1970

• show the consequences of mapping• question the unreliability of official records• problematize mythical mapping• discuss the postcolonial body as (colonised)

landscape• expose maps and mapping as ideological

processes

Rudy Wiebe, front map of The Temptations of Big Bear (1973)

Rudy Wiebe, epilogue map of The Temptations of Big Bear (1973) in which the Indians have been ‘boxed in’ in the newly created Indian reserves

Kamila Shamsie, Kartography(2002)

Kamila Shamsie, Kartography (2002)

Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family (1982)

Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang (2000)

Jamyang Norbu, The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (1999)

Jamyang Norbu, The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (1999)

Using cartographic strategies in fiction – that is, thinking cartographically –requires an understanding of • how the map functions as a medium • why a map is different from an image or other

hybrid media • its usefulness as a narrative prop• why a map is never a mere illustration but

generally functions as a convenient metaphor to compare the fictional world with our physical real world

• how the map engages the reader in the production of meaning

References:Barber, Peter. 2005. The Map Book. London: Walker.Carey, Peter. 2000. The True Story of the Kelly Gang. London: FaberConan Doyle, Arthur. 1903-4. The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Harlow:

Longman.--. 1912. Lost World. London: Wordsworth Classics.Defoe, Daniel. 1719. Robinson Crusoe. M. Shinagel (ed). New York: Norton.Hardy, Thomas. 1878/1974. The Return of the Native. London: Macmillan.Ljungberg, Christina. 2012. Creative Dynamics – Diagrammatic strategies in

fiction. Amsterdam: Benjamins.More, Sir Thomas. 1518/1991. Utopia. Trans. R.M Adams. New York: Norton.Norbu, Jamyang. 1999. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes. New Delhi:

HarperCollins.Ondatje, Michael. 1983. Running in the Family. New York: Vintage.Scudéry, de, Madeleine. 1654. Clélie. Histoire Romaine. Paris: A. Combe.Shamsie, Kamila. 2002. Kartography. London: Bloomsbury.Stevenson, Robert Louis. 1881/1924. Treasure Island. London: HeinemannSwift, Johnathan. 1726/1968. Gulliver’s Travels. London: Longman.van Herk, Aritha. 1990. Places far from Ellesmere. Red Deer: Red Deer

College Press.Wiebe, Rudy. 1973. The Temptation of Big Bear. Athens OH: Swallow Press.