A Hong Kong Scholar’s Troubled Identity in Dorothy Tse’s 'Owlish'

Abstract

Owlish is a part-realist part-surreal tale of a disgruntled professor in Hong Kong’s fictional double Nevers who unexpectedly falls in love with a ballerina doll. The novel’s plot unfolds against the backdrop of the growing pressure on Hong Kong’s freedoms and its very identity resulting in protests – events concealed by the veil of Dorothy Tse’s inventive language but still unmistakably discernable. This essay approaches Owlish as an academic novel i.e. literary work concerned with university professors and the vicissitudes of their lives within and outside the campus walls. The novel's protagonist, Professor Q, appears to be a brilliant cosmopolitan intellectual on the surface. Yet, deep down, he grapples with conflicting identities, mirroring the predicaments faced by Hong Kong itself. This essay’s focus lies in examining the portrayal of scholar in Owlish and comparing it to those depicted by the PRC and Sinophone writers. By doing so, the essay traces the different traits that construct Hong Kong scholar’s troubled identity, for instance, traditional Chinese literatus, renaissance-esque free-spirited thinker, and overloaded contemporary academic. Elaine Showalter observes that the best works of the academic fiction genre are not merely literary accounts of academic routine but boldly play with the genre itself and comment on pressing contemporary issues. Accordingly, the essay’s primary emphasis is on how Hong Kong professor’s identity crisis reflects the precarious state of the city’s intellectual sphere and what the outcome Tse warns against in her academic narrative.