Writing on the fringes of map and mind : A Dictionary of two cities (雙城辭典) and the fantasy in Hong Kong

Abstract

A return to fantastic writing as an expressive mode in Hong Kong literature of the 2000s provides an invaluable access to the realities which have continued to shape the unique city of Hong Kong, be they political or social. This dissertation is an invitation to the examination of a series of theoretical discussions on fantasy in order to shed light on the historical and cultural specificities of fantasy within the Hong Kong context. This thesis hence examines the use of fantasy in A Dictionary of Two Cities (雙城辭典) published in 2012 and co-written by Tse Hiu-Hung (謝曉虹) and Hon Lai- Chu (韓麗珠), through the theoretical lens of two Western theorists Rosemary Jackson and Andre Breton in regard to three premises: 1) Fantasy traces the absence within the dominant cultural order; 2) it does not only escape reality, but also re-combines or inverts it and 3) it offers a fragmented and ambivalent vision for the establishment of the truth. The two young cohort local writers, Tse and Hon, dubbed the most influential surrealist writers of Hong Kong in the 2000s, self-invent and reiterate a form of dictionary to tell their stories by experimenting with language and confounding the logical expectations to produce a more deeply nuanced image and compellingly challenge a stereotypical image of the city. Through a critical reading of some chosen texts from this fiction, this dissertation aims to provide important insights into how these stories reimagine dystopian versions of Hong Kong and the life of its inhabitants to stand as a guide book for survival through the present tumult of fragmentation and the countdown to an unsettling, unknown, precarious future of Hong Kong. The dissertation has been divided into four sections: the first introduces the relationship between the history of Hong Kong and Hong Kong literature and the implication of the form of “Dictionary” as suggested in the title; the second compares the different notions of literary fantasy and explores how Hon and Tse use literary fantasy, mainly with the endorsement of Rosemary Jackson’s theories in A Dictionary of Two Cities, particularly in terms of the subversive function of revealing the unseen culture which has been suppressed by the dominant power and exploring the frustrated wishes; the third deals with the deconstructive nature of truth in the world of fantasy from both postmodern and surreal perspectives; and the fourth examines the use and features of narratives in fantasy writing, focusing on its instability and slippage that may articulate some possible effects on readers.