IJ study archive

Scene 143: afr two ways

Scene
143
Pages
719–719
When
~9 Nov YDAU (2009); undated summary of the A.F.R.'s standing position while occupying the Antitoi shop
Where
Antitoi Entertainment shop, Inman Square, Cambridge (A.F.R.-occupied)in: Inman Square / "Little Lisbon", Cambridge › Antitoi Entertainment
POV
A.F.R. collective (3rd person, dossier-style)

Characters referenced

Themes

Open questions this scene bears on

Connects to (editorial cuts & payoffs, 7)

Summary

A single-paragraph strategic interstitial laying out the A.F.R.'s two ways of going after the Entertainment. The less-preferred indirect route: surveil and infiltrate the auteur's surviving associates — "its actress and rumored performer, relatives" — and if necessary take them for "technical interview," hoping to be led to the original cartridge. The direct route, to be exhausted first: locate and secure a Master copy on their own. That priority explains their continued occupation of the Antitois' Cambridge shop, where they are — "comme on dit — be turning all the stones."

What to notice

One paragraph of translated menace: the comparatives come out mangled — "Less better", "the directer route" — because the cell is thinking in French and the English is a rendering; the syntax itself wears a disguise. Notice how completely euphemism absorbs the violence: abduction is "taking them", torture is "technical interview" — personnel-memo diction that lets the book's most frightening actors sound like patient clerks. The entire last act gets scheduled here in advance, in under a dozen lines, filed quietly between purse-snatchings.

Beats — page-by-page
  • p. 719: "There were two ways of going, and Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents were prepared to pursue both these" — indirect route (infiltrate/abduct the auteur's circle: actress, relatives; technical interview) "held abeyant" until the directer route (find a Master themselves) is exhausted; hence the squat in the Antitois' shop, "turning all the stones."

Themes in this scene

Connections — backward & forward

Backward

  • Catalog dates this c. 9 Nov — i.e., before the 14 Nov action it's spliced among; the splice makes the Kate/Poor Tony/Lenz street scenes around it read as occurring inside the A.F.R.'s hunting ground.
  • Direct sequel to the Antitoi raid (scene 097, pp. 481-489): "still here, in the Antitois' shop" dates this after the brothers' killing; the methodical search it announces is narrated in scenes 145 and 147.

Forward

  • The "indirect route" is exactly what unfolds once the found copy proves Read-Only (scene 147, n.303): Joelle ("its actress") becomes the target Marathe locates at Ennet House (scenes 151/153); the "relatives" line points at Orin (Luria P. in the Desert, scene 147, p. 725) and at the E.T.A. Incandenzas (the recruited employee + "the Canadian instructor and student already inside," scene 147 p. 725).
  • The calm bureaucratic register ("regrettably fatal technical interview" diction fully flowering in scene 145) continues the Marathe/Steeply serial's dossier voice (scenes 029ff) and the Master-copies temptation material of scene 098 (pp. 489-491).

Notable passages (1)
  • p. 719: "to—comme on dit—be turning all the stones" — the cell's translated-French idiom-mangling as house voice; one sentence that sets the entire endgame's table.

What links here Timeline events here (9) · Connected from (7) · Passages quoted here (12) · Motifs (1)

Timeline events here

Connected from

Passages quoted here

Motifs