A metaphor for how easily perception can alter, fog erases "les contours de la campagne autour du train" so that the landscape becomes "une contree
abandonee," as if devastated by "une catastrophe secrete, muette, une sorte d'epidemie foudroyante entrainant leur totale desintegration." The narrator finds this "reposante," like the beginning of "un de ces films ou romans d'anticipation" that he hadn't intended to write but that springs from his journey's inception, its plot "furnie tout naturellement par le voyage." From this sudden strangeness emanate the form and content of both his and Reda's writing.
Chaque habitant du cylindre est defini par rapport a cette recherche: les "chercheurs" cherchent (dans "l'arene" au fond du cylindre), les "grimpeurs" cherchent (mais dans les niches et tunnels situes autour de l'arene), les "guetteurs" attendent de chercher, les "sedentaires" sont d'anciens chercheurs susceptibles de reprendre cette activite, et les "vaincus" sont d' anciens chercheurs qui ont
abandonee la quete.
Raoul's monologue thus establishes normative positions of foreigner, lover, artist, homosexual,
abandonee, and wife, precisely in order to throw them off balance by allowing th e characters to circulate among them.
23.3 To understand derelicta...et tanquam specula to mean 'meme etant
abandonee comme une guette' seems impossibly forced.
One is not an
abandonee, a finder, a converter, or any other kind of re-possessor until one acts.
who was killed in an accident," while Ruth's mother "tended us with a gentle indifference that made me feel like she would have liked to have been even more alone--she was the
abandonee and not the one abandoned" (109).
I call one who claims abandoned property an "
abandonee." Full ownership of the acquired object vests in the
abandonee, and his rights are secure.