ATDTDA (10): They said you're far too sweet, 273-277

[Paul Nightingale]

We last saw Frank parting from Reef after the burial (217); he was last at
Golden preparing for the exam interrupted by Reef's arrival (199). He leaves
immediately for Denver, so never gets to take the exam. His education will
proceed differently; and what is being assessed now is his ability to
survive. Hence he adopts a series of disguises.

Thus far, Scarsdale Vibe has associated himself with the "vast ebb and flow
of anonymity" (31) and, for want of a better phrase, appearance alteration
(156). At the Fair he was identified by the old woman he shot without
hesitation (31); at the Yale-Harvard game his "feed-company clerk" look was
no match for Foley Walker's "vibrant orange and indigo" outfit (156). Here,
Frank tries "a number of disguises" (273), but only succeeds in changing his
hat: nothing, it seems, can stop the "pattern of approach" that unfolds. He
disciplines himself and "learn[s] to smile with every appearance of
sincerity", which appears the closest he comes to changing his appearance.

Working as an engineer would have meant working for Vibe. The nature of
Vibe's 'real' disguise is emphasised by his reputation, "the Christian
daring of [his] gesture to Frank" etc (274). Frank cannot escape his
identity and the image attached; he will always be Webb's son, there will
always be a suspicion of "Anarchism in the blood or something like that". To
successfully reinvent himself he has to establish the importance/usefulness
of an alternative to gold/silver; he has to become part of an alternative
economy.

Wren is introduced by her first speech (275); we find out that Frank has
been involved with her for a while now, "unexpectedly entangled". Why
"unexpectedly"? His thoughts/actions thus far in this first section of Ch22
have concerned work and the Vibe connection; from now on the section will
focus on his relationship with Wren, who consequently becomes some kind of
distraction. One thinks back a few pages to Lake meeting Deuce in the
Nonpareil (261); one might also recall Frank wandering round Nochecita and
meeting Linnet (203-204). Frank hangs out in saloons, but still manages to
meet "a girl anthropologist a year out of Radcliffe" (275), just as earlier
he was drawn to the schoolteacher. Frank asks Wren if her interest in the
Denver Row is "strictly for scientific reasons"; she confirms it with a note
of irony. Cf. Fleetwood Vibe on "scientific objectivity" (138).

Evidently she finds her time in the House of Mirrors pleasurable, as indeed
does Frank. Whereas Lake must reinvent herself to enable the relationship
with Deuce; and Frank, at the start of this chapter, is trying to reinvent
himself, effectively for the same reason, to escape his Traverseness; Wren's
transformation is of a different order. In a Picasso moment Frank sees her
"examining herself from all the angles available" (276): any transformation
she does undergo is to do with appearance and his perception of her, whereas
Lake's transformation was at the level of characterisation. The reader might
or might not find Lake implausible as a character; such criteria are not
appropriate here.