ATDTDA (14): Strawberries, 376

[Paul Nightingale]

The section's opening sentence locates the action at "the eve of a turn in
history", which asks the reader to bring knowledge to the text: cf. the
opening of the previous section, where knowledge, not just acquiescence to,
genre conventions ("a dime novel of Old Mexico ." etc, 374) was juxtaposed
to "a revolution that would never begin though thousands were already dying
and suffering in its name". Here, the opening paragraph ends with a
reference to "feast day[s]" (376), the repetition of the known and expected,
cyclical as opposed to linear time. The latter is marked by the progress of
the journey, the "turn in history" emphasised, however, by "field-shirts
stained as if ominously with the juice of local strawberries" (which
presumably are in season).