ATDTDA (3): A scent at the edge of her memory, 69-72

[Paul Nightingale]

When the Fair closes, the "refugees" Merle tries to photograph (69) prove
elusive. The Fair has provided a linear narrative called Progress, or
Civilisation; the different peoples on display have been classified in that
giant museum, but now differentiation is replaced by an improvised
aftermath, "all these non-midwestern varieties of human, some teamed up
together, some going it alone", all in the name of survival. Dally's sense
of loss is acute and beyond explanation ("banished for no good reason"),
that is, beyond language.

Hence, we replace the storytelling that revisits her mother with another
kind of narrative, one "making her and her Pa just some different kind of
Eskimo". And now the narrative, for the first time, adopts Dally's pov to
describe their "exile". As earlier she insisted he tell her of Erlys and
Zombini, she now "[begs] Merle, tearfully as she knew how, to please bring
them back, please ..." (70): what we see, then, is her father's failure to
make present what is absent--as father and photographer, both.

Growing, Dally gains a perspective that gives her a sense of past; she no
longer lives in the here-and-now, and she is no longer quite so dependent on
her father. She is reminded ("[a] scent at the edge of her memory") of her
mother, the first time in the novel that she gains access, unmediated by her
father's storytelling. The exchange (70-71) about ginseng (memory or cash
crop) indicates that the magic is going out of their relationship,
Merle-the-storyteller has lost the authority he once had: "He shrugged as if
he wasn't sure. 'Don't mean it ain't the truth.'"

Two lengthy paragraphs (71, 71-72) complete the section, devoted to Merle
and Dally respectively. He has already said he doesn't intend to pursue
Erlys, and so his paragraph focuses on the variety of girls to be looked at.
They substitute for Erlys. Merle's narrative, then, is repetitive, one girl
after another, one image recycled.

The second paragraph adopts Dally's pov; it is void of people, for the most
part, even the person cutting her hair is reduced to "[a] palm out for a
tip" (72). Merle is absent, just as Dally is absent from the previous
paragraph; so each experiences the journey in their own way. That "Dally
would one day recall ..." (71) indicates that this experience isn't shared
with her father. Again, this is a narrative that concentrates on the
subjectively sensual, what she hears and smells. In this section as a whole,
there is little communication other than the dialogue passage that separates
the two phases. There is nothing of the storytelling that has characterised
their relationship to this point. Previously, Dally has craved Merle's
storytelling as a way to gain access to his world; now, she inhabits her
own.