Chapter 8
- (Eusa show: Mr. Clevver and the iron hat)
- Goodparley, Orfing, and Riddley enact the ritual at the center of both religious and political life in their society, the Eusa show. As will be immediately clear to British readers and less so to others, the Eusa show is directly descended from Punch and Judy; but where Punch mainly celebrated mayhem (as seen in Chapter 14), each Eusa show is designed to teach a spiritual lesson and, with varying degrees of subtlety, support government policy. In this case, the show announces a radical new view of the Eusa Story: Eusa was not wrong to seek knowledge, because the disaster was all Mr. Clevver's fault. Riddley, as the settlement's connexion man, opens the show with a traditional call and response.
- (45:19) "its the same with all us bloaks we all do our bes work with that same part dont we .... [Dont] be talking so stupid. Its my head I'm talking about thats my main part"
The "head vs. genitals" theme appears earlier in the Eusa Story.
- (46:19) "Trufax is it. This heres going to be the parper stablisht men story is it"
Orfing may be expressing skepticism about the "establishment story" (and trufax is a particularly Orwellian word) but of course every Eusa show is an establishment story; having a dimwitted straight-man playing the designated skeptic is a time-honored rhetorical technique.
- (47:13) "hes got like a iron hat on his head"
Primitive science fiction: Eusa's knowledge is sucked out of his head into a computer. Riddley's people don't seem to have any conception of intelligent machines, and in such a head-centric culture, the idea of having a "No. 2 head" (as opposed to the other "main part" or "little head" that Eusa joked about earlier) would presumably be both fascinating and repellent.
An "iron hat" made an earlier appearance in Hoban's 1974 children's book How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen, where such a hat (though it only conveys sternness, rather than providing any computer power) is worn by Miss Fidget Wonkham-Strong.
- (48:3) "the Nos. of the rain bow and the fire qwanter"
Qwanter = quanta. Quantum physics gets its name from the notion that particles and waves change from one energy state to another according to fixed numbers or quanta. For instance, electrons "orbiting" the nucleus of an atom cannot be in just any orbit, just certain allowable ones, each with a specific potential energy. The difference between any two energy states is a fixed quantum, which also corresponds to the frequency of light that is emitted if the electron drops from a higher to a lower state. Thus, quantum numbers determine the color of light that is absorbed or reflected by atoms (the rainbow) or given off by heated matter (fire). EB
Or, more simply: it's an inversion of the two halves of the word quantifier. In linguistics usage, a quantifier is a term that quantifies (in the phrase "five red shoes" the word five is a quantifier). The fact that in Riddley's time the word has been ripped in half linguistically mirrors the fate of the Littl Shyning Man. DR The standard usage of "quantifier" in logic and mathematics is to describe the concepts "all" (X is always true) and "exists" (X is true at least once)—and their converses, "none exist" and "not all". This suggests that fire qwanter has a meaning similar to that of the all or nothing number in the Eusa Story. JC
- (48:20) "the E qwations and the low cations weve got to comb the nations of it"
Equations, locations, combinations; cations is also a word for positively charged particles, and E stands for energy in the famous equation.
- (50:36) "Eusas face cant change its all ways the same but when youre watching him move a roun ... the torch fires shimmying and all hewl look pernear any way hes talking"
For rigid puppets that are meant to be seen up close, puppeteers often rely on asymmetry and exaggerated lighting; small movements can thus make the face very expressive. Eusa is later said to be "not boath sides the same" and even the Littl Shynin Man is divided asymmetrically.
- (51:16) "Eusa you know what the Eusa Story says. Every body knows it even them as cant read"
Again, although Orfing is arguing against Goodparley's reinterpretation of the story, he is also helping to prepare the audience to accept it—just as any radical preacher has to acknowledge his audience's familiarity with Scripture.