Atdtda38: All political #2

[Paul Nightingale]

Once Renzo has replaced Dally, Kit is encouraged to think the impossible.
Not having 'a working time machine' means he is powerless to counter Clive's
influence; he then challenges Renzo's ambition ('that's insane', 1070) but
immediately gets to work 'sketching and scribbling'. On 1071, following a
brief (Wellesian?) breakfast scene it has become an 'interesting problem'.
On 1069, looking for a way to distance her from Clive, Kit asks Dally to fly
with him; a page later he has accepted Renzo's invitation and there is the
impression of time travel as '[they slip] for a short interval into the
Future' (1070).

Kit is the intellectual, who sees work as thought, thinking about 'the
interesting problem of how to pull a gigantic triplane out of a nosedive'
(1071), a problem that has now replaced that of trying to negotiate Dally's
relationship with Clive. However, the strike and demonstration are an
allusion to another kind of work. Moreover, it can now be acknowledged that
abstract thought might have human consequences, ‘strikers ... scattering
like ants in an anthill’ (1071), even if the phrasing does take the form of
dehumanisation. Cf Kit's earlier view that he and Dally won't be shot down
(1069). Nonetheless, the victims here are less important than the
problem-solving activity as an end in itself; on 1070 Kit experiences 'a
steep, stomach-lifting dive', followed by 'one of those cowboy screams' on
1071. As an example of how far the narrative has come, cf the description of
the Inconvenience’s arrival in Chicago in Ch2 (10-13).

Previously the focus has been on war between nations/empires. On 1068 the
'familiar faces' from Göttingen are reluctant to confront possible
consequences of their work, which has to be rationalised nonetheless; and
there is some ambivalence in 'comfort[ing] themselves that Italian warplanes
would only be used against Austria, which was responsible for the war
anyway'. By the end of the section, the perceived enemy is defined by class
conflict, providing Renzo with a scapegoat for 'the disaster at Caporetto'
(1071). By then Kit 'ha[s had] a velocity-given illumination', which allows
the narrative to distance him from Renzo and avoid extending his brief
collusion with fascism. At the bottom of the page he attempts without
success to mitigate Renzo's triumphalism ('Not if 
' etc); and then, over
the page, the future is invoked in the form of iconography ('Eagles seemed
to be 
' etc. 1072) that Kit can read no better than, earlier, he could
Dally.


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