ATDTDA (15): Peeping, 413-417 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

In which Alonzo delivers Chick to Mr Ace, the mysterious visitor from a
future that bears witness to "the end of the capitalistic experiment" and
the hegemonic failure of "the prevailing economic faith" (415). He likens
"[t]hose of us who spoke this truth aloud" to "religious Dissenters of an
earlier day", and invokes a "dark fourth-dimensional Atlantic known as
Time". Cf. the opening to the current chapter, in particular the description
of Candlebrow's expansion beyond "earlier masonry homages to European
models" etc (406). There are, consequently, two contrasting takes on the
modernist world of the novel's 'America', one seeing it as a supplement to
"the elder continent", the other seeing it more as an idealistic
alternative: Mr Ace refers to "seekers of refuge" (415).

In contrast to Mr Ace, Lindsay fears for something he calls "innocence"
(416). The opening pages of the novel established Lindsay as one concerned
with viral infections of one kind of another, eg Darby's "informality of
speech" (4), or "the inexorably rising tide of World Anarchism" (6), the
latter involving a different kind of immigration than that signified by
Candlebrow's appearance, of course, or even "Counterfly's propensity for
gratuitous insult", which we're told might threaten "group morale" (7).
Meanwhile, once in Chicago, Randolph's visit to Nate confirmed the Chums'
role in "[a]ntiterrorist security" (25); and now Mr Ace tells Chick "that
each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt of our
own to enter your time-regime" (415).