ATDTDA (5): mythmaking, 149-155 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

Ch13 begins with the Chums "in a desperate attempt to reach the city before
the steamer"; then describes the aftermath to the disaster; and then
concludes with Hunter Penhallow's departure. The Chums are dropped almost
immediately as the narrative fast-forwards to a "Board of Inquiry ...
meeting in upper rooms of the Museum of Museumology". One lofty perspective,
that of the Chums (only emphasised, if we need any reminder, by the comments
of Miles, perhaps), is replaced by another: "From these turret windows ..."
etc (150). The inquiry must apportion responsibility/blame as well as
deciding on a version of events/narrative that will represent the City: "the
whiskered faces at this long curved table" are transformed in what is a very
Foucaultian passage. "Before the disaster" they were "merely ... appointees
of a Mayor no more dishonest than the standards of the time provided for".
However: "Today to a man they were become Archangels of municipal
vengeance". The disaster that has befallen the city, then, has provided them
with an opportunity to assert themselves. Moreover, "[e]minent scientific
witnesses, who before the Events might have held these politicos in light
regard, now could not meet their steady, and from time to time
inquisitorial, gaze". Guilt attaches to "the men of science" (151) who
apparently know less than "[e]veryone in town" about the "Figure with
supernatural powers": not for the first time, the power of myth ("a story
taken so for granted that its coming-true was the last thing anybody
expected") trumps science.

In the words of the inquiry, a rationale for the attack is provided by "an
appropriate vengeance" and "terms of retribution"; earlier, the scientists
had claimed "[i]t deceived us into classifying it as a meteorite" (149).
Among the "few facts" known is, apparently, the manner in which "it began,
methodical and unrelenting, to burn its way out of its enclosure" (152).
There appear to have been no surviving witnesses from aboard the Malus:
"[W]here could any of them have found refuge in time?" In the previous
chapter, Fleetwood Vibe's Journal noted: "Those who claim to have heard it
speak as it made its escape are now safely away in the upstate security of
Matteawan, receiving the most modern care" (145). At the end of that
chapter, the Journal refers to "the unfortunate events to the north" (148);
and by the time the new chapter begins, the official version of events is
being compiled. Perhaps the irresponsibility of the scientists has to be
established in order that a narrative can be produced, one less dependent
than might otherwise be the case on what FV called "scientific objectivity"
(138). I have already described what I called the deconstruction of FV's
certainties; the function of the Journal, then, has been to establish this
process in advance of the mythmaking that features in the current chapter.