MAPPING OSLO- LITERARY CARTOGRAPHY AND NARRATIVE

Robert T. Tally introduces literary cartography as a method of analysis which can generate fresh approaches to the study of spatiality in literature by comparing narrative to a form of mapping. Tally's literary cartography functions metaphorically and does not include the use of real maps, but rather of mental maps that writer, characters and readers work with in deciphering a text. Real maps are in their turn symbolic visual representations of the world they stand for and similarly to narratives and mental maps, they work with conventions. This paper intends to analyze the interplay of walking, mapping and writing the city of Oslo in the fiction of contemporary Norwegian writer Lars Saabye Christensen, making reflection on how literary cartography may be applied to literary studies in general.