Atdtda28: Once he would have said, 788-789

[Paul Nightingale]

We are left wondering what will happen to Prance (his "uncertain fate", 787)
and then rejoin Kit, going back to what has already happened: "Kit meantime
had fallen in ..." etc (788). If Prance has been "taken aloft" (787) by the
Chums, Kit has been caught up in "a band of brodyagi" (788) for whom
progress is unpredictable: "... things interrupt, detours happen". This
aptly describes Kit's own experience. However, if Topor's exegesis suggests
the random nature of existence, his speech is interrupted by the narrative
voice explaining Topor's status as a master of, one who imposes 'order' on,
nature: "with a single ax [he] could do every job ..." etc. And then: "They
had devised a steam distillery ..." etc.

The lengthy parenthesis inserted into Topor's speech is indeed an
interruption or detour, and Kit himself goes on to deviate from what "[o]nce
[he] would have said ..." etc. Passive, he is speechless, unable to use the
word "vector", unable to invoke with satisfaction Yashmeen's holy wanderers.
Further, he is marginalised: "Following the sound ..." etc. And: "At night
he heard ..." etc. He bears witness here to what has just happened, a
"cleared right-of-way", then "track running between the trees".
Understanding is produced, order imposed.