ATDTDA (13): Translations, 374-376

[Paul Nightingale]

The action moves from Reef to Frank wandering round Mexico, more accurately
"traipsing to no purpose around an empty shadowmap, a dime novel of Old
Mexico ." etc. Not for the first time the narrative is characterised by
aimless movement, an interrogation of character agency; and not for the
first time attention is drawn to the way location is rendered ("a dime
novel" with the requisite genre ingredients). When we last saw Frank he was
taking refuge in Gaston Villa's band (315); he is still there as this
chapter opens, and will be passed on to Ewball Oust. Like Fleetwood Vibe,
Ewball is distanced from his family ("my folks just want me out of the
country", 375); and like Merle he will 'recognise' Frank, after a fashion.
So Frank can escape neither his family history nor his identifiable interest
in Iceland Spar. The opening lines of the section juxtapose Real Mexico,
whatever and wherever that might be, to the "dime novel" version; and now
"espato" is juxtaposed to a soundalike "espanto" (375). A bit further down
the version of the song that Frank thinks he's playing is juxtaposed to the
version that might see him in the hoosegow. Frank has evidently worked hard
to achieve a degree of musical skill with his galandronome; and by the
bottom of the page he is successfully integrated, Hawkslike, in the band;
yet his performance allows Ewball to 'predict' the next stage of his
journey. For "a young fellow from Lake County" (374), living off unearned
income, Ewball is knowledgeable about both Frank/mining and also local
politics.