Atdtda36: Bystanders who had their backs turned revealed their faces, 1035-1039 #2

[Paul Nightingale]

The section opens with one list, the tools of science, and ends with
another, the filmed images observed. At the bottom of 1037, there is Merle's
'mission to set free the images not just in the photographs he was taking,
but in all that came his way .' etc, starting with the still image that
isolates the moment in time, working out from there to include the before
and after, eg 'pedestrians walk[ing] away out of the frame .' etc (top of
1038). If the tools Chick sees ('volt-ammeters, rheostats .' etc) can be
said to imply the uses to which all such objects have been put, ie allow
replication of any such usage in the past; if he can infer a history or
sequence of events from 'brand new Aeolight tubes freshly fallen from the
delivery truck'; then the still images similarly imply activity that,
without Merle's intervention ('mission') would remain hidden. Cf Chick to
his father on 1038: 'Good thing I never had a snap of you - those fellows
could have shown me everything you've been up to all these years.' 

 

At this point the reader might see a reference to the way technology has
facilitated surveillance; and yes, the author might have inserted himself
into the text ('bystanders who had their backs turned revealed their
faces'). However, one might also see attention drawn to the way narrative
might intrude and assume omniscience, as in the passage that begins with
Roswell's 'ears twitching, always a sure sign in him of mental activity'
(1036), followed by the content of those thoughts: 'Fragments of former
patent applications .' etc, another list (1036-1037). Or even the passing
reference to Viridian as the section ends (1039), a reminder that the girls
have been made invisible but not absent since the end of 68.6 on 1032. Not
to mention 'all the information needed to depict an indefinite future'
(1038) as a reminder of the way war has previously been inserted as prophecy
(Thorn on 554, Miles' recollection, on 1023, of his meeting with Thorn).

 

If Merle's 'mission' is used here to consider omniscience, we might think
about the way Chick is positioned in the text. From the moment he announces
he'll 'just wander around today . and take in the sights' (top of 1034) the
previous section is written from Chick's pov; the action is continuous in
the new section (eg the opening line: 'Inside the shop .' etc), the 'huge
piece of machinery' on 1034 replaced by the 'mysterious piece of machinery'
on 1036. However, the narrative challenges that pov, not least with, on
1037, his inability ('So smoothly, Chick missed the moment .' etc) to see
something or 'take [it] in'.

 

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