Framing Fiction | Episode 27

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Tai Tam, Hong Kong (photo by the author)

Each week on The Matterhorn podcast, I discuss a way to layer fictions and discover the nuances of truth, using my novel as a catalyst but looking at other works of fiction as well as theory and interdisciplinary ideas. Each week, I also spend a little time on places & spaces, as part of a continued discourse on these ideas.

Thursday, I’ll be back with a 5-minute actionable version of today’s show, and Saturday I’ll share the next chapter of A Hong Kong Story. If you want to choose which posts you receive via email, please visit this page.

I’m keeping all of this completely free for listeners/readers with the option of patronage (and access to the private chat) and support through my Bookshop.org affiliate page. Thanks for joining us today!

See the Table of Contents below for a preview of this season:

Table of Contents

A full transcript can be accessed on the web version.

*Transcripts are generated after recording by Substack AI with minor edits — they are still working on allowing changes to paragraphing and bold / quotes / etc.

Keywords:

• Frames and titles in the arts

• Parergon, Passe-Partout

• Openings

• Leung Ping-Kwan poems - “Thinking of Vincent at Van Gogh’s Exhibition” & “Midday, Quarry Bay” - with thanks from PK’s wife for copyright permission for reading both the English version on the podcast and these Cantonese versions from Jacqueline Leung (a HK pianist whom I interviewed earlier in the year):

  Van Gogh

  Quarry Bay - i & ii

• My first fiction post from Saturday - A Hong Kong Story

• Literary examples

• Spaces & Places focus: Hong Kong topography

Texts:

Books are linked to my affiliate page on Bookshop.org where I receive 10% of profits on any purchase. 80% of their profits go to independent bookstores. Thanks for your support!

• The Truth in Painting (Derrida) - Passe-Partout & Parergon chapters online

• More on Parergon

• Before the Law, Derrida

• How to Read Literature (Eagleton)

• The Poetics of Space (Bachelard)

• Leung Ping-Kwan poems - “Thinking of Vincent at Van Gogh’s Exhibition” & “Midday, Quarry Bay” from Amblings (Copyright permission to read acquired from PK Leung’s widow)

• Hong Kong: culture and the politics of disappearance (Abbas)

• Moby-Dick (Melville) - Gutenberg online

• The Things they Carried (O’Brien)

• Autumn (Smith)

• A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) - Gutenberg

• The Noise of Time (Barnes)

• The Bluest Eye (Morrison)

• Our Country Friends (Shteyngart)

• Monsieur Pain (Bolaño)

• Life is Cheap but Toilet Paper is Expensive… (Wang) [I think I said ‘cheaper’ in the recording - oops! see trailer above]

• Van Gogh quote

• Degas quote

• Marina Hulzenga

• HK hills

• HK islands

• HK habitability

• Kowloon Walled City

• + After recording, I also read

  Lonely Robot Theme
  ‘s great post on Kowloon Walled City. Do check it out!

Imagining a Borderless Future

Cultural Differences at the (Permeable) Border