ATD: First section first thoughts, possible spoilers 3-118

[Paul Nightingale]

One of the better reviews of ATD is by Michael Wood in LRB; yet he is far
from satisfied with the ("tiresome") Chums of Chance. We can ponder the
function of the Chums, and ask how Chum-chapters relate to other parts of
the novel ...

1. The Chums open and close the first section. The non-interference charter
is referenced on 8 and again on 117, when the narrator summarises the
adventure we won't read. As readers we are excluded from the Chums' world at
the end, as at the beginning: we must all be aware that we can't claim
membership of "my faithful readers" (3), whether or not we live in Tunbridge
Wells (117). We might think we can identify (decode) the eponymous Evil
Halfwit (5), but this is a text we shall never be able to read.

2. The first chapter opens with Inconvenience taking off; there is an air of
optimism in the opening lines (3). The second chapter opens with the
airship's descent over the Stockyards, and the tone is darker (10). The
first few pages, then, describe an arc (optimism/anticipation, then
disillusionment) that we can look for elsewhere (not least in the title of
the novel itself). Cf the Turner thesis, referenced on 52 and the West that,
subsequently, both Lew and Merle will travel towards.

3. Is this narrative structuring related to the juxtaposition of different
'levels' of understanding reality, the global and local, macrocosm and
microcosm? This question was begged, firstly, of course, by the publication
of novel blurb and Young Willis extract. First reference on 3, to "those
features left behind on the ground having now dwindled to all but
microscopic size". Cf "the giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself"
(13), or the "view from overhead" (25), or the apparently uninhabited
islands described in Ch. 10.

4. The novel opens with unattributed speech. We can speculate that orders
are given by Randolph (perhaps Lindsay); and other lines are spoken by Darby
or Chick. Our first task as readers, then, is to impose order on the text by
assigning ownership to these lines. Impossible, not least because we cannot
hear the voices. So another novel opens with the impossibility of
representing sound. Further down, characterisation establishes both order
and the threat to it; at the outset, Lindsay, for one, is defined by his
place in the hierarchy (4), hence his doubts when visiting the Fair with
Miles (21), just before their odd introduction to a Fair they hadn't been
expecting. Subsequently, scenes on the airship are marked by conflict (the
camaraderie on 18-20 notwithstanding), leading to the likelihood (?) of
mutiny (54-55) and "[t]he figurehead debate" (109-111).

5. Ranking is an expression of the ideal; everyone in their place, and a
place for everyone (most of all, perhaps, in an 'era of uncertainty'). The
paternalist, not to say patriarchal, order of Inconvenience is thrown into
relief by the arrival of Penny Black. We might draw connections with the
depiction of family life elsewhere: conflict and break-ups mark the
marriages of both Lew (38) and Merle (57), and Webb is an inept patriarch
(104-105; also relevant is the exchange with Rev Gatlin, 91). His
estrangement from Kit is followed by the aforementioned "political
instability" (109).