The present time of “The Night Inspector” occurs in the period after the American Civil War, 1867, although it also covers the time of the war itself, as well as the time before and just after. The present takes place in New York City’s lower Manhattan. However, the book is not a genre piece of historical fiction. Certainly, much care was taken by the author to present the historical past with verisimilitude (there’s a fine word). Mr. Busch draws on an expert knowledge base about the war and about the conditions of life in post-war, 1860s New York City. But this is a story driven by the richly detailed lives of the characters, their memories, hopes and dreams. They are characters whom one could find in any time and space.
The story concerns a Union veteran of the war, Billy Bartholomew, who was horribly wounded and who wears a leather facemask to hide his disfigurement. He was a sharpshooter, an “assassin,” as many of his comrades call him. They shun him for his craft of concealing himself up a tree and shooting Confederate soldiers who venture near. He often was assigned particular men (and women) to kill, stalking them very successfully till his wounding. Before the war he attended Yale. (He must have had good SAT scores.)
Billy is a troubled man; he experiences traumatic memories of killing his victims. Due to the nature of his activities, he was not seen as heroic. His horrible wounding (his face was shot off) adds to his sense of being an outcast, and at the book’s beginning, he lives a lonely existence in a squalid room, walking the streets of lower Manhattan at night and sleeping away the day. His only companion is a prostitute named Jessie, but in the course of the book, he meets a character he calls “M” (more on this to come) and eventually re-connects with an old army friend, Sam Mordechai. He saves an African-American man, Adam, from a beating and tries to befriend him.
Much is made in the story about the mask Billy wears, how emotions are difficult to conceal but a mask does the job. There is a connection between Billy’s real mask and the idea of “striking through the mask” in Melville’s “Moby Dick.” More on this to come.
Last time, I wrote about the phenomenon of re-reading, about the differences between a first and second reading of a story. As I’ve begun re-reading “The Night Inspector,” I can offer some relevant thoughts.
Overall, I’d say a second reading is slower. I find myself taking time to appreciate sentences and ideas. The first time through, I was focused more on figuring out the point of the story. And this is very much in line with theories of reading, (isn’t that convenient) specifically with the first reading being associated with mimesis, fitting the story to the real world, and the second, what the story means to the reader. (Was I trying to fit my experience to the theory? I don’t know, best B.)
Foreshadowing is apparent the second time around. On page two, we find the following in a paragraph in which Billy is writing about the difficulties of loading a heavy rifle while up a tree: “Never consider a feat undone if the reward is of a size. We move what we must, whether barrels of meat or kegs of dead flesh, when at the farther end of the transaction there lies a crate of dollars.” What first appears as poetic allusion here becomes, once the whole thing has been read, a premonition of the climax. The first time through, I didn’t really focus that much on this, the second, it leaped out and smacked me like the flipper of a great white whale (was that really necessary?). The point is that what at first seems metaphor becomes real barrels and kegs.
By the way, you say. Doesn’t the story have to do with the famous author Herman Melville? That’s what you keep hinting at)..
Yes, shipmate, it do. The story does involve the real human, Herman Melville, makes use of real events in his life, fictionalized them, and treats him as a character in the story. Billy refers to him as “M,” and Melville refers to everyone as “Shipmate.”
Interesting.
Yes, we will get there.
In a similar way, the first scene that involves Billy’s paramour, Jessie, introduces a crucial plot point that the story eventually resolves. And this was immediately clear to me the second time through. However, the first time, I did not see it. The idea of Jessie enlisting Billy’s help to rescue children seemed important, but it was not clear how important it was. I was intensely curious about the story and wondered if it was more a tale of recovery from wartime trauma than something based in the present.
Despite frequent leaps to the past, the story is firmly in the present.
This brings me to a critical point. Around page fifty, the character of Herman Melville says, “We live in several moments, several places, at once.” This is how time is handled in the book, not as consisting of a present from which the characters “flash-back” to the past. The distinct time periods in the story, particularly Billy’s experience of the war, are equally weighted with the story’s present in terms of immediacy.
What about Melville? my bro.
Let’s get into Melville next time.
Till then.
Housekeeping: As it’s been a while since I’ve been posting, some subscriber’s emails are not correct. Please re-subscribe if necessary.
Comentarios