ATDTDA (7): From far away, 186-188

[Paul Nightingale]

A new phase in Lew's career. On this occasion he has the two Ns to study and
try to make sense of. Introduced in the previous section, they were "more
like visitors from elsewhere, and far away, too" (185). Their appearance and
conduct leads him to hazard a guess at "[t]he Oscar Wilde influence"; for
the first time since we've been, so to speak, riding with Lew we're told
that "all kinds of flamboyant adventurers had been showing up in these
mountains" (186). None of this has registered previously, of course, given
Lew's preoccupation with the Kid and badly beaten miners: the Kid also,
allegedly, hails from "far away", but possibly doesn't count as a
"flamboyant [adventurer]". Of course, "[w]herever he was when he came to, it
didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (185): after the explosion, then,
Colorado seems "far away". Aboard the train to Galveston, "Lew revert[s] to
his former identity, which seemed more and more lately to be off on an
extended vacation, or maybe even world tour" (187). Well, wherever you go,
however far, you're always here. The blurb, way back, begged the important
question: how will the novel join the dots, get from one 'historical moment'
to another? The function of Lew's character, of course, is to offer a
phenomenological account of sorts. (Going back to the first chapter: the
notion of travel was highlighted, of course, given the Chums' take-off and
journey to Chicago. However, the traveller-as-tourist is a theme from P's
earliest writing, and this notion of tourism is central to James' The
Princess Casamassima.)

The "old Anasazi ruins" (186) recall the hidden histories passage on 175; so
Lew and the Ns are, perhaps, "white trespassers", another kind of tourist:
however long they stay, they'll never 'belong'?

The belonging/not belonging motif is further developed when the tarot cards
are discussed. British or West Indian? The question of colonial identity is
raised, to be interrupted by Lew's attempt to master the "strange deck of
cards": and this after the location has been described as "a Red Indian
Stonehenge", but "different" (a Deleuzian moment, in keeping with the
frequent use of repetition). 

Also "different" is the way in which Lew distances us from the troubled Mr
Gilmore, whose fear recalls the paranoia of earlier sections. Lew can't stop
thinking of the Kid; but now he ("or somebody who'd decided to call
themselves that") has become "a spirit hovering just over the nearest
ridgeline ..." etc (187). Cf. "... the land held the forever unquiet spirits
of generations of Utes, Apaches, Anasazi, Navajo, Chirakawa ..." etc (175).
The anticipated apocalypse ("the terrible moment") never comes; and the Kid,
who remained elusive and therefore never actually there in person, has now
become "the embodiment of a past obligation that would not let him go but
continued to haunt, to insist" (187).

Ultimately, Lew's fate here is to become the Ns' "Wild West souvenir" (188).
As such he is objectified: a souvenir is out of time and place. Perhaps he
has been a souvenir of sorts since his debut as the Beast, and he has simply
awaited the Ns in order that this be confirmed. Cf. the earlier description
of the Kid ("embodiment of a past obligation ..." etc) as another kind of
souvenir.