ATDTDA (2): Merle's dream, 56ff #3

[Paul Nightingale]

Merle's arrival in Cleveland ("the 'Forest City'", 59, is nicely oxymoronic)
coincides with the manhunt for "genial desperado Blinky Morgan", another
character who has "allegedly" committed a crime. The emphasis, then, is on
the telling of it, rather than what he has actually done: "Newsboys cried
the tale, and rumours flew like bugs in summer". Detective strut their
stuff, "aimlessly questioning anybody whose looks they didn't care much
for". As in his dream, Merle is challenged; and his failure to provide an
explanation they find acceptable renders him a "candidate for Newburgh". Not
only is his innocence in doubt, but his sanity also (the detectives' need to
assert themselves and perform authority is reminiscent of Lindsay on the
Inconvenience). Furthermore, "the more troublesome scientific cranks" have
to be labelled, sorted, categorised as Other, pretty much as anarchists do.
The "small Aetherist community, maybe as close as Merle came to joining a
church" (60), is tolerated by "mill hands with little patience for extreme
forms of belief, unless it was Anarchism, of course". Hence, an uneasy
alliance of outsiders. It transpires that Blinky can come and go as he
pleases (61), while "a wide piece of the population" is subjected to
harassment by the police (59), all of which confirms the function of
policing.