BEg2 ch24 Traipse onto the grid

[Mark Kohut]

She cries out for the fact of Lesters maybe?

On Mon, Mar 14, 2022 at 2:53 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> “Down on the floor, nose level with an electrical outlet, she imagines for
> a second she can see some great brightness of power just behind the
> parallel slits. Something scurries at the edge of her vision, the size of a
> mouse, and it is Lester Traipse, the shy, wronged soul of Lester, in need
> of sanctuary, abandoned, not least by Maxine. He stands in front of the
> outlet, reaches in, parts the sides of one slit like a doorway, glances
> back apologetically, slides into the annihilating brightness. Gone.
>
>     “ She cries out, though not for Lester exactly.”
>
>
> We’re in present tense - only time in the book?
> Sorry, I’m not that observant but will keep that question for future
> reference -
>
> Immediacy: “words only delta t from the signified” or something like that?
>
> Personification of the grid a somewhat GR trope.
>
> My distinction between the electrical grid and a communication network, or
> rather one of them - not that I originated any of them - is high power vs
> low
> power. You see it in help wanteds: “low power technician” for alarms or
> LANs.
>
> For a power socket to evoke nostalgia for Traipse in Maxine is in a
> continuum with other references to the relationship between electric power
> and life - _Frankenstein_ -  but also the springs of that mattress in AtD
> carrying the dreams of previous sleepers. It’s one of those scientific
> things that got carried not quite verbatim into literature and enlivened
> it, may their tribe increase!
>
> So she first saw Lester on the street, then in a dream, and now entering
> the high power network of Con Edison. Isn’t he going to show up in
> DeepArcher later? Can’t remember.
>
> Also - Traipse is like, a pebble in Ice’s shoe, but he isn’t even that to
> Windust. So although that doesn’t make Windust’s hands much less murderer-y
> - thousands or millions minus one is about the same - I begin to doubt as
> to why Windust would be the Traipse-killer. Maybe - like OJ - he was
> conducting his own investigation.
> --
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>