Atdtda36: As if desire were all it would take, 1021-1026 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

The opening reference to 'their Harmonica Marching Band days' recalls 30.3,
which begins with 'the Chums' unquestioning faith that none of them, barring
misadventure, would ever simply grow old and die' (418) and goes on to
describe 'the brief aberration in their history known as the Marching
Academy Harmonica Band'. Are we about to see another 'aberration'? In Ch30
the Academy is an alternative to Candlebrow U and owes its existence to the
over-production of German harmonicas, an 'unforeseen outcome of the Law of
Supply and Demand', ie supply creating demand (or, perhaps, hegemony shaping
consciousness). Here, there is an 'understand[ing] that in some way not
exhausted by the geographical they [are] lost' (1021). There is 'a
depression of spirit new to them' as they observe events on Earth,
'look[ing] on in helplessness'. Cf the opening of this paragraph: 'As if
maps and charts had suddenly become unreadable ...' etc. More to the point,
it is the Chums who can no longer read what they see; and perhaps the
counter-Earth is one where the Chums cannot easily believe the evidence of
their eyes. Going further, this inability to see/read can be associated with
a loss of identity following disaffiliation. This section will involve a
great deal of reflection on events past, prompted by allusions to 'the
current world situation' and the disappearance/reappearance of Padzhitnoff.


In 30.3 the narrative features the disappearance of Alonzo Meatman and,
here, Balashchan ('one night in the early autumn of 1914', 1022) informs
them of both Padzhitnoff's 'mysterious disappearance' and 'the current world
situation', something they are, apparently, unaware of. Yet, by this time,
we have already seen that the Chums remain locked into some kind of material
reality, 'rent on surface properties, interest from business loans, returns
on investments of many years standing' (bottom of 1021, top of 1022); and
this unearned income, one way of representing the Chums' history, is
'unrelated to the sky' (bottom of 1021), exceeding anything they might have
earned ('contractual operations'). The unearned income is thereby tied to
their ignorance of 'the current world situation' (which, in turn, is tied to
Padzhitnoff's disappearance). Of course, unearned income has to come from
human activity somewhere, unless we really do believe that money is capable
of procreation: how this squares, then, with the Foundational Memorandum
(bottom of 1021) is not explained. Balashchan offers employment and a
contract the Chums take seriously insofar as it gives meaning to their
subsequent wandering, but they will later find they can dismiss it without a
second thought (1025) as the Lindsay/Darby squabble is juxtaposed to
warfare, Randolph 'gestur[ing] out the windows ...' etc.