Atdtda35: Brothers-in-arms and bughouse talk, 1002-1003

[Paul Nightingale]

On 1001 Vibe approaches ‘the hard winter realities of Trinidad, to see what
[is] what on the ground’. This is where he claims to be ‘a man of practice,
not theory’. The new section begins with ‘Frank and Ewball [riding] down to
Trinidad for a look’ (1002). Above the section break we leave Vibe in
transit, ‘look[ing] forward to being one of the malevolent dead’; then, a
narrative description of Trinidad, with a focus on ‘unhappy-looking young
men in stained and ragged uniforms’ comes courtesy of a pov shared by Frank
and Ewball, the passage in question prefacing Ewball’s explanation of the
difference between Europe and the US. These soldiers are opposed by strikers
for whom a shared class identity overrides ethnic differences, including the
stereotyping ascribed, down the page, to ‘owners [who] put out stories’.
This is offered, perhaps, as a pre-Gramscian take on modernisation as a
driver of history-as-class-struggle. On 1003 Ewball refers to ‘revenge, back
and forth, families against families’: cf Günther’s reference to ‘the more
usual form’ of violence, bottom of 987.

Following Vibe in the previous section, Ewball also offers a world view, one
that Frank, concluding the section on 1003, calls ‘bughouse talk’ (1003). It
is noticeable that Ewball’s speech opens at the bottom of 1002; he is then
replaced by the narrative summary of what he is saying, perhaps as an
indication that Frank is only half-listening. Vibe’s speech is interrupted
and undermined, first by references to his performance, then by the
intrusion, so to speak, of Foley Walker, ‘attentive back in the shadows’
(1001). On 1002-1003 the narrative summary indicates Frank’s attentiveness
(he is, after all a practical man) before giving way once more to Ewball’s
concluding paragraph on 1003: here, Vibe’s ‘malevolent dead’ and Walker’s
‘ghosts’ are echoed in Ewball’s ‘unquiet dead’.

Vibe’s speech projects a vision of the future, a time when the battle has
been won; Ewball’s version of us/them has no such aim. In his opening
statement, the emphasis on ‘this’ (in ‘they recognise this right away for
just what it is’, following the scene-setting reference to ‘unhappy-looking
young men ...’ etc, 1002) requires the reader to see what Frank can see,
evidence of the class struggle that trumps the false consciousness of
nationalism.

In the final paragraph on 1003, Ewball’s discourse replaces the narrative
summary with a view that ‘geography ain’t the point’ and ‘distance means
nothing’: this observation, of course, applies to the narrative as a whole,
if not quite in the way Ewball intends.