ATDTDA (18): And I thought I was obsessed, 495-496

[Paul Nightingale]

Renfrew is attempting to record his entire life in the form of "dossiers ...
kept on everyone who had ever crossed his path ..." etc. He is both the
centre of this universe and marginalised: any given dossier will place its
subject at the centre, and only when "the running accumulation of dossiers"
is considered will the sum of their parts reveal Renfrew as central. Cf.
"... Merle dreamed he was in a great museum, a composite of all possible
museums" and "[t]he wallet was itself a sort of museum, on a smaller scale-a
museum of his life ..." etc, including "biographical litter" (57).

Here, the "distracted handshake[s]" (495) point in two directions.
Synecdochally, the image joins Renfrew to another, positions him as part of
their life at the same time as they are positioned as part of his life,
confirming that he is indeed part of his own life (as the Lacanian child
sees themself in the mirror).

Of course, Renfrew is 'absent' from the current section, an appendage to the
lives of Cyprian and Ratty.