地圖集

by Dung Kai-cheung

這不是一本地圖
它是90年代以來重要的城市論述
在空間與權力中
它讓我們認識一座城市的身世

中國時報開卷好書獎、亞洲週刊中文十大好書、紅樓夢獎決審團獎、香港藝術發展局藝術發展獎年度最佳藝術家獎、聯合文學小說新人獎、聯合報文學獎、聯合報讀書人最佳書獎得主、香港知名作家董啟章┼畫家楊智恆，跨界跨域首度合作

地圖模仿世界，還是世界模仿地圖？
地圖是埋藏在時間之下的地方，
地圖是凝止在地方之上的時間。

在1841年之前，在1997年之後，故事已經開始，故事還未結束。考古學家是下一個太平盛世的第一位備忘錄零餘者，用文字繪畫香港的地圖，建構一段被遺忘的V城歷史。

彷彿波特萊爾筆下所描述的城市漫遊者般，或者卡爾維諾的馬可波羅，考古學家憑藉上一個千年殘存下來的維多利亞城地圖，通過想像，解讀和重構一個湮沒城市的面貌，開發地圖這種地理測繪形式中的歷史、文化和權力暗示，把地圖重新讀成一種小說、一種虛構、一種偽嚴肅，偽學術風格，看似正經，實則荒誕。有如卡爾維諾的《看不見的城市》，用解讀地圖的方式把一座實實在在的香港城拆成數十節神祕而虛幻的片段

香港新生代重要畫家楊智恆，特別為本書繪製四幅具有代表性意義的跨頁插畫，小說家VS畫家，是對昔日香港的沉思，對香港未來的推想；更是小說諧仿理論論述的有趣實驗。

《地圖集》分為理論篇、城市篇、街道篇和符號篇，全書成於1997年前夕，作者董啟章嘗試在這歷史性時刻重繪香港地圖：
※ 理論篇發掘或發明各種形容香港地理的名詞，帶出閱讀城市的理論；
※ 城市篇與街道篇結合虛構與地方掌故，重寫歷史，審視當下的香港；
※ 符號篇是對香港城市透過書寫想像的空間刺探一個實體城市的過去、現在與將來。在史實的基礎上鋪排虛構的情節，虛實之間，令讀者著迷。

從理論篇→城市篇→街道篇→符號篇，
從消失到重建，
香港，這個名字，
從文字到畫面躍然紙上。

Genres: Fiction, China, Fantasy, Asia, Cities, Novels, Literature

172 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Dung Kai-cheung, a Chinese fiction writer born in Hong Kong, 1967. He received his B.A. and M. Phil. in comparative literature from the University of Hong Kong. He is an author, journalist, playwright and essayist. He works at a part-time lecturer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and mainly teaches Chinese writing. His wife, Huang Nian-Xin works as associate professor at the Chinese department of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His most important novels include "Atlas", "Histories of Time" and other award-winning books. Different from other local Chinese writers, Dung translates his own work into English versions. Dung is devoted to the education of youth writers. He writes preface and prologue for Hong Kong youth writers, some are his students in the Chinese department of Chinese University of Hong Kong.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Ronald Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've wanted to read this ever since it was nominated for the BTBA - it was probably the book that stood out to me the most from that year's longlist (just the subtitle - "The Archeology of an Imaginary City" is enough to get my pulse up; comparisons to Borges and Calvino only solidify my desire), but it kind of got buried for a while, and I just happened to come across it again when attempting to (and failing to) reorganize/organize my "to-read" bookshelves.

This is a clever little book (and it is little, consisting of 50 chapters of 2-3 pages each, most being 2); the history of an imaginary city as told (mostly) through its maps (there are narrative/journal records as well, though there are typically maps tied to those as well), but it is also a book of (imaginary) theory pertaining to the interpretation of maps: so, it is a book about maps containing a theoretical framework of interpreting maps; and it is a book about interpreting maps to extrapolate a legendary (lost) city. It is full of myriad datapoints and historic records, but almond them are suspect, as the author ensures there is enough information present to make you doubt, even in some small way, the veracity and believability of everything presented.

There isn't a narrative to speak of, it's more an imaginary history of progressively reductive scope (the sections show this reduction - Theory :: The City :: Streets :: Signs), where the narrative dwells in gaps between maps, and the changes in the city are more inferred by the shifting view as the chapters quickly flit by.

Oh, and it's also about Hong Kong, and it's talk of maps and (imaginary) territories and (imaginary) boundaries; its core premise that words written on a map can shape reality, just as reality can change the words written on a map; it all comes back to the moment (this book was written) when sovereignty transferred in 1997.

Again, it's a clever little book, those who like non-traditional narratives (and Borges and Calvino) should give it a go.

[Lianne Burwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was the winner of the 2013 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation award (long form). After seeing mention of it on a website, I was intrigued enough to get it from the library (I actually had to put in a 'suggestion for purchase', and when it came in, it promptly had a wait list).

When I got the book, it wasn't quite what I expected. Not that this is a bad thing; it's just a different thing.

First of all, it's a tiny book. Much smaller in size than most books, both in area and in being only 150 pages. Normally this would make it a book finished in a day. But the writing is so dense that it requires a quiet room and a lot of concentration.

I'm not sure I would call it a novel, or even sf or fantasy, but it was very interesting.

It is written as an examination of maps of Victoria/Hong Kong, in roughly chronological order, along with a few references to other historical documents (journals and the like). If you're looking for a plot, you're wasting your time. But it does examine how a city grows and evolves.

The fantasy (or perhaps magic realism is the better term for it) elements come from brief mentions here and there. For example, in the earlier segments there are references to the island appearing and disappearing from maps at various early times. There's the street that forms a perfect square, with identical houses on each side, and no house numbers, making it easy to get lost. There's mentions of potential alien invasions. And then there's the idea that when the international airport was built, there might have been plans to make the entire island moveable.

Definitely not a novel, but it is a perfect jewel box thought experiment to sink into. I enjoyed it, but finished it rather confused about what I'd just read. I do see it as a book to revisit every few years, and would expect to find new things every time, much like the city.

[Chrcgr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd put it somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. I enjoyed aspects, but it was just ok. The pretense was thick, the homage to Borges and others clumsy. Excellent premise, though. And some very nice tidbits. Another read in a different frame of mind might reap 3 full stars.

[二六 侯 · Rating 2 out of 5]

董啟章《地圖集》中的小說文體實驗讓我想起韓少功的《馬橋辭典》，但說實話這本實在不如馬橋辭典好看，因為馬橋有故事，而這部半真半假的擬論文作品堆砌了後現代文學、史學及人類學的名詞動詞，用一種相當知識份子自視曲高和寡的筆觸將「香港」稀釋成街道的名字，一種有骨無肉的文字……簡而言之，即是故弄玄虛。

[Mattea Carberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is really such a hard book to rate because it is so unlike other books i’ve read. it is clear from the beginning that it isn’t written or structured like typical prose, in which there is a clear plots and cast or characters. even the narrator is nameless, and thus ambiguous overall. hence, i found the novel wasn’t as actively gripping as some of my favorite novels but i really cannot get over the great feat that this book is. i think the question the book raises about history and memory are incredibly thoughtful, complex, and of growing relevance in our rapidly changing world. also, i think part of the reason the book reads a bit try and points is because of the sheer overwhelming composition of the book itself. it’s hard to juggle all these various snippets of perspectives of Hong Kong, but this mass of accounts does well to simply illustrate the disorientation one finds oneself in when trying to define a place, especially one as elusive and imaginative as Hong Kong. and although i said the narrator is ambiguous (objectively), the narrative voice is very strong throughout, building a relationship - though somewhat odd - with the reader.

i think all of dung’s interrogations into the various artistic and historical practices when it comes to remembering and defining a city are highly applicable to many other localities as well. dung perfectly reminds us of the importance of looking to one’s past, in the minutest and biggest details, and to not fall into the trap of viewing history as a linear, single narrative.

[c · Rating 3 out of 5]

real rating: 3.5/5

i think this book set out to do a lot of things — to provide future archaeologists with past and "current" (as of 1997) readings of hk maps through the magical realism of borges and calvino. to achieve this, dung explores hk by playing on the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, fact and folk, past and future with varying degrees of effectiveness.

i think dung is particularly successful with the former — i.e. this book being an "informal" piece of scholarship on hk for future archaeologists. the first quarter of the book is dedicated to demonstrating how concepts in cartography/geography apply to the past/future of hk, how different readings of hk's past/future contribute and/or challenge these concepts. i particularly like the chapters on misplace, displace, antiplace, and nonplace; there is something beautifully tragic about an elegant retelling about hk being misplaced both on its own (internal) terms and global (external) — districts are misplaced (where one place is forever displaced by another), hk as an abstraction due to its denied physicality and being deprived of its material existence, and hk as a nonplace; not that it isn't a place or that it has a non-existent place, just that it lacks certain conditions that a place should have, like a name and referential reality (ooof). while hk is *indeed* very existential by design, just like calvino's invisible cities, where many different fictional cities are really just descriptions of venice, a lot of these descriptions are probably quite universal to cities around the world. there are two sentences that i think are particularly poignant in describing hk:

- "hong kong has been a work of fiction from its very beginning"
- "it's because we belong to the space-time that is ours. nobody lends it to us and we don't borrow it from anybody."

hk's existentialism and its "in-betweenness" uniquely positions it as a backdrop for plays on opposites, and this is an ongoing theme throughout the novel, as dung plays with fiction vs nonfiction, fact vs folk. although hk was colonised in 1841 (and the new terrorities in 1898), maps from 1834 show hk and lamma island in red (common practise at the time was to mark only british territory in red). a later map (of the south china sea) from 1850 excludes hk altogether. what does this say about the jurisdiction of hk at the time; were we already ceased from chinese territory? were we british? were we just abandoned by the rest of the world? i also particularly enjoyed his explantions of street names in hong kong, often tying them back to old practises in hk (e.g. tung choi/sai yeung choi, ice house street, sai yee street) and local folklore (which !!! was definitely not told about as a kid. i grew up thinking hk's history was too "young" to have our own folk stories, but surprise! its literally been right in front of me this entire time).

i rave a lot about this book because it's such a delight to read in its greatest sections; it challenges me to think differently about hk, and its taught me a lot about stories/facts that i never knew about its history. but this book is also very dry a lot of the time, and namedropping calvino, eco, barthes, and borges inevitably give foreign readers the wrong expectations. (in defense of dung, i can totally see the comparison with calvino — just, calvino is a master of language. dung is moreso an occasional master of showing tragedy through cartographic concepts)

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is rich with ideas, conveyed in 3–4 page chapters (of which there are 51 total) and presented in 4 thematic section. As stated in the book's introduction, the impressionistic stories feel a bit like Borges or Calvini, but they are also very much their own. I was impressed by how strongly Dung stuck to the theme of cartography. The book bursts with possible historical maps of Hong Kong that are very plausible. While most of the maps are (I believe) fictional, geographers and map enthusiasts will have seen many maps like them, whether they related to coasts, topography, urban zoning, or geology. My favorite section was the third, called "Streets." It reminded me much of popular Chinese urban gazetteers that explore the history of a place through its toponymy. There is no plot that unites the chapters or sections. Many of the chapters use the narrative device of a future archeology of maps to animate two or three interpretive camps that disagree about the meaning of street names, map legends, or some other visual device that has implications for understanding social life in the city. This is an effective way of driving the stories, but sometimes feels a bit silly or forced. The scholarly schools that are invoked are impossibly esoteric. Although I was compelled to read the book to completion (and I did), the longer I read it the fewer number of chapters I could get through in a single sitting. Dung's passages are simultaneously meditative and theoretical, which demands — and rewards — readers' attention.

[Wing · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dubious privilege of having basked in the twilight of British Hong Kong enables this poststructuralist little gem to fulfil my wistful nostalgia deliciously. I must admit some knowledge of the history and geography of colonial Hong Kong is probably needed to fully appreciate its ingenuity. It is postmodernist, so there are semiotic flourishes but the degree of self-indulgence is not intrusive. Between the lines hide acute social, political, and cultural critiques that are prescient, timeless, and, I dare say, universal. The fun of course is for the reader to decipher the myriad learned and delightful metaphors. Written originally in Chinese/Cantonese back in 1997, it took two years for the author himself and two translators to revise it and finally render it into English in 2011. The translated text is very polished indeed. Four stars.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is time to mark this book "read" and admit that I will never finish it. It feels like the kind of book you would be assigned in a graduate seminar on postcolonial literature - with a lot of background and context, you might walk away understanding its message, but it still would not be exactly enjoyable to read. Maybe it was the a poor translation? Maybe it was because I don't know enough about Hong Kong's history and culture? In any event, I tried but failed to finish this book.

[Louis Pilard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book with fictional theories and histories blended in with genuine philosophical musings on the story of Hong Kong. Dung blurs the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction continuously, reiterating the point that for postcolonial places like HK, fiction and imagination are core to the invention of reality.

[Emma Kazal]

emma kazal-core i love CARTOGRAPHY and also TEARING IT APART

[Mandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utter crap

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wtf was this?!? Albeit a fast read-it had zero story. somewhat mindless, thinly veiled as metafiction, wifely compared to calvino and eco, but galaxies away imho.

[Jared Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an interesting concept

[Chris Duval · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I were to use one word to describe this book of ersatz essays, it would be wry. But I decided to use many words instead.

Part I
The author concentrates on maps or parts of them as symbols. At first it is place names, and the ambiguities about their referents; briefly it is boundaries, and also unnamed blank spaces delimited by lines (shores, for example). Finally it is maps as a whole, with much attention to mapmakers’ or readers’ aspirations, for example, for control. The content ranges from the abstrusely philosophical—

'The term "antithesis" should here be understood in its rhetorical sense, that is, the pairing of opposite ideas in speech or writing for apologetic effects.'

--to the silly—

'If you find the Central of 1:16,650 to crowded, you can choose to take a stroll in the Central of 1:4,500.'

In all cases the tone is that of a scholarly condensation, reconciling, where possible, diverse sources: allegedly ancient fragments and pretenses of modern polemics.

Part II
This part references back to the inferences and sources of Part I, bringing unity. This section focuses on urban plans and views, enjoying degrees of satire. He gently mocks by juxtaposing "the consistently rigorous approach and precise technique of the British Royal Navy Surveyors" with the resemblance of the hachure-textured official map to a casual drawing of a warty toad (‘The Toad of Belcher’s Dream’). He pays homage to Jorge Luis Borges both explicitly and via the purported generation of a Hong Kong map from the idle and ignorant musings of a child. This last however occurs in the context of a biting, while understated, criticism of Japanese historical revisionism (‘War Game’).


Part III
The author continues his play with labels and their referents and his mockery. His whimsy is foremost in the tall tale about the Europeans recreational use of an ice house (‘Ice House Street’), and the fables about the intertwined history of a sugar house and an old mint (‘Sugar Street’). ‘Tung Choi Street and Sai Yeung Street’ is an amusing tale of cultural dominance and resistance rendered fabulous by themes of summer and winter vegetable plantings. Scholarly interpretation taken ad extremum comes with discussion of laundry culture (‘Sai Yee Street’).

Part IV
One of the touchiest subjects at the time this was written (1997) was the soon-to-be Chek Lap Kok Airport. The essay on its planning launches into the absurd, insisting that it is an emergency escape vehicle bound for space in the event of some catastrophe such as ‘nuclear accidents,… or an alien invasion’. More daring is ‘The Metonymic Spectrum,’ which begins with a straight forward mapping of colors to conventional land usage categories but, keeping the color set and its ordering intact, goes on to map them to sounds and smells. Thus orange maps to public housing districts and the ‘scream of a rape victim’ and blue maps to governmental and communal public facilities, and to [the odor of] ‘moldy wooden tables and chairs in government office.’

Is it science fiction? Genre is only important to me to the extent the anticipated categorization frees the author’s creativity—not a problem here. But to answer my question, I’d say generally not, but marginally yes. The premise is of a society of the distant future trying to reconstruct a long lost Hong Kong, primarily from extent maps. To be conventionally science fiction more would need to be revealed of that future society, and it would need to be significantly alien from ours. Most of what is revealed are scholars indistinguishable from today’s (save in their ignorance of our present), although ‘The Travel of Numbers’ and scattered other bits go further.

What follows should be taken as an homage to the spirit of the book.

The non-authorial translators are: Anders Hansson, who studied Chinese at the University of Stockholm, and obtained a PhD from Harvard University and worked in Beijing (Northern Capital); and Bonnie S. McDougall, a professor emerita at the University of Edinburgh, formerly connected to Harvard and the University of Oslo. Some might infer that these connections might impart a northern bias to their choices for English words and phrases, a direction analogous in the subject matter with movement away from the island and to Kowloon and beyond. Yet others would insist that the very latitudinal distance of the translators provided them the remove necessary for objective mappings from Chinese to English.

[SK · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very strange book. I gave up on fully understanding most of the books' nuance. But there are some powerful passages when read from the point of view that your lived experience as a resident of a city is what makes a city, not what's dictated by the governments and documents.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Name checking Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino does not necessarily make for a great book.

If it were not described as "Set in the long-lost City of Victoria (a fictional world similar to Hong Kong)" and "written from the unified perspective of future archaeologists struggling to rebuild a thrilling metropolis.", you would have never guessed that premise.
Nowhere is it made clear that these are writings from future archaeologists. That would be way more interesting than what the book actually is: post-modern, semi-academic, repetitive noodling.

There's some humour and magical realism sprinkled throughout the book, but not enough. Especially the first and last sections of the book, which describe fictional topographical and scientific terms are just too repetitive and dry. I could understand the humour behind it, but at some point you have to wonder if the joke hasn't run it's course.

[Alena · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was a *tough* book to get through. although it sits at just over a 150 pages, and each chapter is between 1-4 pages, atlas is DENSE. dung truly makes every. word. count. every sentence, paragraph, and chapter has a purpose, and it’s your job as a reader to try to put the pieces together to answer two major questions: “how did hk transform from a fishing port into a metropolis?” and “how does cartography manipulate this narrative?” atlas is the type of book you have to absorb in bite-sized pieces—crank out a few chapters, walk away for a bit, digest what you read, then pick it back up again. though, i found returning to atlas a struggle at times because the narration feels mechanical at times. nonetheless, you’re bound to walk away with a new perspective about “the power to create fiction.” impactful read, worth sticking it through the end.

[Alex MacFarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stuff. Especially the first section, which mediates on many different, strange ways to view maps, as well as some other parts: stories of streets, such as the one that changed names between winter and summer; a play on the double meaning of legends in a cartographic context.

[Katarzyna Bartoszynska · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. It's built around a really cool idea, but unfortunately the execution leaves something to be desired. Theoretical fictions need a certain lightness to succeed; this one sinks a bit under the dry weight of analytical ponderings.

[Samson · Rating 4 out of 5]

自問很少看純文學，尤其是香港文學。這本可能是繼十一年前看過劉以鬯的「對倒」後的首次。董啓章用一本正經的學術硏究語調，柔合真實掌故和天馬行空的想像，讀來既真又假，趣味盎然。寫在1997年V城大限，但時點是設在未來，而對V城作出＂考古＂。
有時間會再看看他其他的小說。

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, though sometimes baffling look at maps, language and culture. One for the cartographers.

[Vanessa Ma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non-fictional fiction, particularly intriguing to a map-lover.

[BBFlyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too esoteric for my taste. No story. Playing mind games with maps. Might be better in the original Chinese.