"Topographies"

by Natasha Waxman

This story has three major characters: Phillip Cameron (an architectural historian who re-produces Nolli map), George (Phillip's colleague) and Jake (the young student lover). 
The story is told from Jake's and George's first-person point of view, intersected with Phillip's introduction to Nolli map.
 
  • the importance of Nolli map (according to Phillip)
  • -- the city shown "for the first time as a coherent, living body" (3).
  • -- the past vs. the present p. 8-9 we lack great monuments; 
  • Topography and individual lives:
    1. What does it mean when Phillip says: ". . . the maps of our cities are the stories of our own lives as they were generations and centuries before our own births, and as they will be after our own deaths . . . " (p. 3)
    2. map and margins: p. 5
    3. putto: 5, 7
    4. the chart of chi at Dr. Tang's office p. 4
    5. What does Phillip strike out in his revision of his introduction to Nolli map? 
      • description/populist intention pp. 1-2. 
      • notes on the individuals  p. 3
      • what lies beneath the visible: map // one's own body p. 5
      • comparison to the present 5, 
      • reference to himself as a young student 9
  • Jake and Phillip
    1. Jake's role in his relationship with Phillip: 
      • used to be his student (young)  p.4
      • care-taker; acupuncture p.3; concerned with Phillip's physical conditions (valve surgery); worried about his getting weaker, spending too much time on the map 6; the dream, 6; bruises 8; 
      • Jake's love: loves to sketch him; still loves him after he stops looking at him for a month.
    2. Phillip's concentration on the map:  p. 6
    3. The issue of age: Jake's joke (4), George's view of Jake (5), Jake's eating (6), 
      • Phillip-- not let Jake see his body 8
  • George 
    1. his views of Jake: young, a pretty boy p. 5
    2. and Phillip: lonely p. 7, needs Phillip's help in the Legislature Restoration bid. 
    3. In-between: tries to speak for Jake p. 4; for Phillip 8; 
  • Jake's life and choice
      •  refuses being fathered; (The first nearly kills me.)
      •  mother going out on different dates.  
      •  my dad was a construction worker;
      •  his response to Phillip's jealousy and George’s response: p. 19 –hauled off and deck (punch) him, or show that he's "marked."”  


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