ATDTDA (12): A visitor from quite far away, 337-343 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

Dally in New York, and the section ends with her asserting herself (343). It
begins with her at street level, her view of the city somewhat more detailed
than the long-shot offered in the previous section (336). There, "she found
herself stunned by the immensity, the conglomeration of architectural
styles, quickening, ascending, to the skyscrapers at the heart of it";
dwarfed, and perhaps intimidated also, the quotation as a whole (which is
what I should have included initially) carrying connotations of anomie. On
the subsequent page, at street level, there are people with whom she can
interact, eventually introducing herself to Restaurant Katie (not one
assumes an R-girl, 337).

Before that happens she continues as amateur anthropologist, studying the
curious behaviour of men and women: "A visitor from quite far away ." etc.

She finds the restaurant "a cheery place"; and subsequently discovers it is
vegetarian; the chop suey joint she visits with Katie (338) is in stark
contrast, perhaps dirtier, but also busier. In the first instance she might
have been attracted by "[t]he unmistakeable church-supper smell of American
home cooking" (337), with its connotations of not-city small-town values;
subsequently she might have the confidence to enter the chop suey joint
solely in Katie's company. She has to be eased into the relationship,
introducing herself as Dahlia, then rejecting Katie's offer to find
somewhere to stay; a couple of pages later she is letting Katie introduce
her to Hop Fung (339). Hence a series of social interactions that might
remind us of Frank in Telluride (282ff).