VLVL2 (14) Harbour of Refuge, 316-321

[Paul Nightingale]

As already noted, the way location is described in VL is important: in
this particular section, the building of location (316-317, top of 318)
is juxtaposed to the way in which migrants have to adapt themselves to
their changing circumstances (Zoyd on 319, others on 321).

"'A Harbour of Refuge', as the 1851 survey map called it ..."

History repeating itself, perhaps: "... but for now the primary sea
coast, forest, riverbanks and bay were still not much different from
what early visitors in Spanish and Russian ships had seen."

If this passage reminds us of the opening chapter's location of
Vineland, in '1984', within a global economy, then the subsequent "good
look at downtown" (318) might alert us to the possibility that the text
is coming full circle, which in turn might remind us of the way the
opening chapter set up a telling opposition between cyclical and linear
times.

So briefly ...

Consider the "villagers watching the photographer at work, often posed
in native gear ..." (317).

Villagers only become natives when objectified by the outsider's gaze.
Their routine activity, the local economy based on fishing, has been
disrupted in order that they might participate in the anthropological
narrative. Yet the wording of the passage ("watching ...") emphasises
their attempt to read the photographer.

A lot more in this chapter, of course; unforgivably I've avoided it like
the plague. No more here than the edited highlights. My pretty feeble
excuse is that I've run out of time, so I'll pretend I might get back to
it at a later date.