ATDTDA (17): All were just 'over there', 460-462

[Paul Nightingale]

Frank finds himself ("almost like emerging from a stupor") returning to
Nochecita. His meandering progression replicates that of Merle in the
previous chapter, in each case a 'going back'. Whereas Merle, at Candlebrow,
"recognise[s] the place he'd been looking for, the one he'd missed first
time around", Frank is struck by the transformation of Nochecita. When he
first went there with Reef (Ch17) the writing records, for the reader's
benefit, the consequences of social change (200-201); it is now Frank who
can judge the before-&-after, "the nearly negligible fraction of his life
spent here ..." etc (461). Merle seems to fit in at Candlebrow; back in
Nochecita, Frank experiences alienation: in Durkheimian terms, this passage
picks up where the earlier chapter left off, describing the small town
transition from mechanical to organic solidarity, "an unreadable map". Cf.
the description of the Sfinciuno Itinerary on 248-249, "two distinct
versions" (249) of whatever the map is supposed to represent. Here, "the day
often as not seemed set to the side of whatever he thought was his real
life" (461).

Meeting Linnet he notes change and continuity: "... still a local belle,
still teaching school, but ..." etc. She too thinks he has changed: "You re
not that same cute mine-school boy I remember ..." etc (462). As with Merle,
the narrative gives the reader superior knowledge, eg Linnet's reference to
Stray's sister. She speaks of Stray "gazing down on the rest of us":
"carelessly aviating above"?