In the Memory of the Map: A Cartographic Memoir by Christopher Norment (review)

In the Memory of the Map is a "cartographical psychology" - an amalgamation of personal history, the scholarship of others, and mythology (p. 3). The book opens with Christopher Norment, a biology professor located in New York, complaining about reading the "same incoherent sentence three times" as he attempts to grade his students' work (p. 1). Norment consequently opens his cabinet drawer, seeking solace in a topographic map of Mount Whitney, CA. The enjoyment Norment experiences when reading the map, and the ease with which he is able to interpret its symbols, contrasts with the trouble and boredom he experienced when attempting to mark his students' work. From the outset, then, his loving relationship with cartography is evident.

Norment's purpose in this volume is to examine the role of maps in his life and, by extension, in the lives of others. In the Memory of the Map is organized chronologically. "First Maps" investigates experiences related to the maps Norment discovered between the ages of 8 and 18, when he was growing up in the Santa Clara Valley and Santa Cruz Mountains of California and being molested by his stepfather. "Middle Maps" then explores the maps he encountered as an undergraduate and in the years leading up to his thirties, during which he married and finished a master's degree. "Late Maps" describes Norment's more recent encounters with maps, through experiences such as leaving his job, undertaking a PhD, and being a parent. The final chapter, "Without a Map," describes a 13-day backpacking trip Norment went on, accompanied by a friend, in Washington's Pasayten Wilderness.

Apart from the tellingly titled final chapter, each chapter is accompanied by at least one map, ranging in style from Norment's hand-drawn memory map of Saratoga to the Starr's Guide map of the High Sierra. Although achromatic, these images are useful accompaniments to the text. Throughout the book, Norment seeks to promote maps in two predominant ways: as "triggers of memory" (p. 2) and, because of the movement they promise, as holding the possibility of escape from one's current situation. Norment does not hesitate, therefore, to criticize postmodernist geographers for viewing maps as "texts" to be deconstructed. It is noteworthy that Norment's sentimental memoir does not treat maps as purely visual artefacts: Norment can touch them when he runs his hand over a piece of Redwall Limestone in the Grand Canyon; he can smell them in the odour of buckbrush and laurel that rise from the California chaparral; and he can he taste them in a spoonful of curried rice and lentils eaten in northern Canada. Put simply, maps are portrayed in a multi-sensory manner.

While Norment does not offer graphic descriptions of his childhood abuse, at several points in the book the dark memories are evident in his prose. For instance, he notes that the roots of his "obsessions with maps" lay in the possibility of escaping from his childhood home, thus distancing himself from those who threatened his safety (p. 23). However, Norment makes it evident that what originated as an escape from sexual abuse and family tension developed into an addiction to cartography and nature. For instance, Norment has now taught navigation for Outward Bound and travelled deep into the Sierra, the Himalaya, and Utah. Interweaving his personal narrative with work on maps by scholars, poets, and novelists, Norment provides a rich intellectual account permeated by his passion for maps.

Interestingly, there are great similarities between Norment's text and Mike Parker's (2010) Map Addict. While Map Addict is a celebration of British rather than American cartography, both authors claim that maps have played, and continue to play, a key part in their life. In addition, both texts are autobiographical, and both authors claim to have developed a cartographic addiction. Moreover, the books are structurally similar: Norment's closes with a chapter titled "Without...