Diving the Reef: Water Metaphors in the Work of Ivan Vladislavić

Abstract

This article exposes the groundswell of water metaphor prevalent in Ivan Vladislavić’s Johannesburg texts, particularly the creative nonfictional Portrait with Keys. It attempts to construct a hermeneutic, or perhaps a “hermenautic,” for the incongruity of this metaphor in works representing the landlocked city. While examining the peculiar urban geography of the Witwatersrand, it considers how water is used to explore the interplay of the surface/depth binary in relation to Vladislavić’s critique of the Baudrillardian simulacrum. Late capitalist practitioners in the Johannesburg built environment have constructed a number of ersatz waterways to compensate for this pronounced geographic scarcity. Vladislavić thoroughly satirises this simulacral exercise to indicate the entropy of hyperconsumerism. However, the significance of water as a literal and figurative substance goes beyond a chastening hypermodern critique. In uncovering the ancient geological history of water in the broader Witwatersrand region, the article looks to the ways in which water metaphors may signal forces beyond the bounds of the comparatively brief anthropocene. This history destabilises virtuality and surface, and instead points towards water as a symbol of depth and continuity with the past. Water, being emblematic of flux, becomes a conceptual mechanism to convey a semiology of transformation, flow, and renewability in Vladislavić’s works.