ATDTDA (15): An unforgettable recital, 422-424 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

Now that Alonzo has disappeared "the former crew of the Inconvenience
[become] aware of doubts creeping in". The return of the repressed? The
"elaborate hoax" is a form of self-delusion, or perhaps false consciousness;
once exposed as such, ie its authorship acknowledged, it ceases to be
effective. The "lateral solutions" described on 418 can never be recognised
as such, since that would betray their roots; here, the scenario favoured by
"the former crew of the Inconvenience" (422; on 418 the formulation is "the
crew of Inconvenience"; on 419 all five members are named for the only time)
is differentiated from the "reality too frightening to receive the vast
undiscriminating light of the Sky", ie 'the light of day'. Back at the start
of the section: "As if in a dream, they would come to recall ..." etc (418).
Upon waking the dreamer might recall parts of a dream even as it returns to
the unconscious: hence "now and then in the interstices of what was after
all not a perpetual Midwestern holiday", or "the not-to-be-spoken-of
betrayal ..." etc (422). And then: "Had they gone, themselves, through some
mutation ..." etc. An interesting ontological question, one borrowed from
Philip K Dick, methinks: "They may only have once been readers ..." etc
(423), the writing speculative here, confirming that this is one possibility
among several.

Perhaps the only way of outwitting the "ancient enemy" (422) is to present
them with actors/replicants who don't know they're actors/replicants, in
which case false consciousness serves the interests of "the Organisation"
they are working for, rather than the interests of said enemy. Note the
earlier repetition, "prevailing economic faith" (ie "the whole capitalist
illusion", 415) and "the Chums unquestioning faith that none of them,
barring misadventure, would ever simply grow old and die". (Incidentally, as
well as Dick, I'm reminded here of Christopher Priest's The Separation,
another novel that refuses to tie together loose ends, or single up all
lines.)

However, once the individual knows they have been "hoax[ed]" they can
compare their present condition with one that hasn't been so acted upon, one
that would have been able to avoid it. So to speak of "surrogates" doesn't
necessarily mean literal replacements; in this instance, "the 'real' Chums
are those who have followed the alternative hoax-free route. At the
beginning of the section those who "break free of the sinister contracts
they'd been gulled into signing" are differentiated from those who "[choose]
lateral solutions"; perhaps here there is a rejection of what appeared
initially to be a solution.