Geography, Literature, and the African Territory: Some Observations on the Western Map and the Representation of Territory in the South African Literary Imagination

In Western tradition, since the times of classical antiquity, geography--as well as history--was born as a tale, and appeared as a literary genre belonging to fiction through which a special form of knowledge was given expression. ² Umberto Eco adds that

[t]he term 'fictional' should not be taken in a reductive sense. I am among those who think that fictional situations preside over all acts of comprehension of things, not only on the historical level but on the level of perception too. In order to understand any phenomenon, we try to identify a sequence which is somewhat 'consistent'. ³

Geography, then, whose origin must be seen as a description of reality, soon to be implemented by cartography, symbolic mimesis of that same reality. In geography and in maps, writers have always found themes for their narration and a source for inspiration. This is due to the natural affinity rooted in the invention of a descriptive system masked as realism, and to the common origin in the gaze, linked to systems of thought and vision that are strictly interconnected.

The explicitly mimetic origin of the map is, however, an illusion, since in fact the map is a representation, or rather a metaphor. In the ironic comments of such writers as Lewis Carroll and Mark Twain, the map's fictitious character is unveiled by a sarcastic joke. Thus Carroll makes fun of it:

'What a useful thing a pocket-map is!' I remarked.

'That's another thing we have learned from your nation,' said Mein Herr, 'map-making. But we've carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?'

'About six inches to the mile.'

'Only six inches!' exclaimed Mein Herr.' We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!'

'Have you used it much?' I enquired.

'It has never been spread out, yet,' said Mein Herr: 'the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.' (608-09)

Mark Twain gives Huck Finn the task of uncovering the lie of maps. He does so in the course of a conversation with Tom Sawyer who asks him how he managed to find out that the montgolfier (hot-air balloon) on which the two friends are travelling had not yet crossed the border of Illinois. Mark Twain, too, as well as Lewis Carroll, starts from a condition of would-be naïveté in order to unveil the lie of the map, or, rather, its fictional nature. By doing so the map itself turns out to be below the character's tale:

'I know by the color [says Huck to Tom]. We are right over Illinois yet. And you can see for yourself that Indiana ain't in sight.'

'I wonder what's the matter with you, Huck. You know by the color?'

'Yes, of course I do.'

'What's the color got to do with it?'

'It's got everything to do with it. Illinois is green, Indiana is pink. You show me any pink down here, if you can. No, sir; it's green.'

'Indiana pink? Why, what a lie!'

'It ain't no lie; I've seen it on the map, and it's pink.' [. . .]

'Well, if it was such a numskull as you, Huck Finn, I would jump over. Seen it on the map! Huck Finn, did you reckon the states was the...