PLACE IN QUESTION
Some experimental fiction questions normal categorisations and repre-
sentations of place. In Bernard Cohen’s book Tourism (1992) , towns and
cities in Australia are entered alphabetically under headings: Adaminaby,
Adelaide, Alice Springs, Ararat, Armidale, Auburn, Avoca, Batchelor,
Bathurst and so on, one page to each town. The layout suggests a tourist
manual, but the entries do not describe the town or city in the normal way.
They tell us very little about the physical environment, and virtually
nothing about its amenities, buildings, restaurants, cultural life or
activities. In fact, some of the entries are extremely tangential to the place
concerned, and hardly seem to ‘belong’ to it at all. In this sense the book
shifts preconceived notions of place, since locations are non-specific and
continually overlap with each other. The first piece, ‘Adaminaby’, suggests
that any place is always spilling over its own boundaries and changing: the
spreading ink on the map is a metaphor for this. It also draws attention to
the way that place, language and identity are inextricably linked:
Example 12.3
Adaminaby
The nip of an insect is a catchcry; the shriek of the gulls a
complicated threading across the sky. The horizon admits
everything. As far as I am concerned, this town keeps going and
going, changing its name, its colour, its attitude, but continuing.
Here it is on the map. Here. A word and a point.
I rest the tip of my pen on the point marked ‘Adaminaby’ and the
ink begins to spread.At first it’s quite quick, the growth of the town,
but it appears to slow as the area defined by a noticeable change in
radius increases. In the end I have to look away for some minutes
and then back to discern change. In the end the entire map is
marked with the one point.
In Adaminaby I am made up of utterances. Bubbles of speech
adhere to the air and follow me about as I arbitrate the next turn.
Here we are limited to two types of speech: stories, and slogans.
There are no other ways through the language.
And although so much remains hidden, I am always surprised to
discover new things. Every minute turns up a bauble to seize. In this
place, you take what you can, leave what you will. Oh yes, and in the
end, you can still read the names of towns through the page’s
inevitable inkiness.(Cohen 1992, p. 1)258 The Writing Experiment