Chapter 9

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  • (Riddley's tel; another Eusa show: Littl Salting)
  • Riddley performs the other part of his connexion man duties by attempting to interpret the recent Eusa show. His thoughts take a mystical turn, while we see how his father took a more pragmatic approach to an earlier show.
  • (55:26) "How is it with you? On or off?"

Binary again—see Chapter 6.

map detail: Littl Salting, Dog Et, How, and Crippel the Farn
As seen earlier, farm communities have begun to displace hunter-gatherers, with aggressive support from the government.

See Littl Salting and Dog Et in Places.

Salt and savor are recurring images throughout the book. Littl Salting's name is particularly appropriate to the novel due to the three alternate definitions for salting cited by BJB: "1. Wet land that is very close to the sea, so can be flooded by salt water. 2. A labor union tactic used to organize a union ... labor union members (salts) hire on at a non-union business. 3. Colloquial name for a kind of land scam where minerals or other resources are scattered on a piece of property so they can be 'discovered' by a prospective buyer."

See Places.

  • (56:26) "a Outland raid from over water"

Outland is everything outside of Inland.

Here we see a much clumsier Eusa show, which has almost nothing in common with the previous one except for Eusa representing a rather naïve Everyman. Presumably either Goodparley and Orfing became much better writers after this, or they were in a hurry to respond to current events.

  • (60:6) "A littl salting and no saver"

"Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? or is there [any] taste in the white of an egg?" (Job 6:6)
"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." (Matthew 5:13)
"Salt [is] good: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned?" (Luke 14:34) BJB