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13. Too Soon, Too Late
Explanation and Analysis—Lenient Riggs:
There is a compelling example of situational irony in Chapter 13, which brings up the possibility that Kerans's perspective makes for an unreliable narrator. After Riggs rescues Kerans and Beatrice from Strangman, Kerans is confused about why Riggs is not punishing Strangman for killing Bodkin and attempting to kill Kerans and Beatrice:
‘Why don’t you arrest Strangman?’ he asked.
Riggs laughed shortly. ‘Because there’s absolutely nothing I can hold him on. Legally, as he full well knows, he was absolutely entitled to defend himself against Bodkin, kill him if necessary.’ When Kerans looked round over his shoulder in surprise he continued: ‘Don’t you remember the Reclaimed Lands Act and the Dykes Maintenance Regulations? They’re still very much in force. I know Strangman’s a nasty piece of work—with that white skin and his alligators—but strictly speaking he deserves a medal for pumping out the lagoon....'
Riggs explains that he is stretching his authority even by detaining Strangman as he has. Legally speaking, Strangman only ever acted in self-defense. Under persisting land conservation laws, Strangman in fact ought to be honored for figuring out how to drain the lagoon and uncover the city beneath. It is a win for humanity against the encroaching power of nature.
Kerans cannot believe what he is hearing. From his perspective, Strangman showed up in the drowned world like the devil incarnate. He has terrorized the remaining inhabitants and lured them into temptation by promising them the city beneath the water. He has drained the lagoons only to allow his crew to dump their sewage in the streets of London and ransack all the relics of the dead culture. Bodkin realized that what Strangman was doing could hardly be called conservation or archaeology; when he tried to flood the city again, Strangman murdered him. Kerans is relieved that Riggs showed up at the last minute to save him and Beatrice from a similar fate, but he expects a grander and more horrified reaction on Riggs's part when he sees the dastardly villain they have been fighting. Instead, Riggs invites the man to a dinner party. While he admits to being unsettled by Strangman's albinism and army of trained reptiles, he seems to think that Strangman has been more tacky than villainous.
The discrepancy between Kerans's horror and Riggs's reluctant admiration for Strangman suggests that Kerans may already have wandered further back into the "time jungles" than he realized. He recognizes Strangman as an existential threat in a way that is apparently not at all obvious to someone like Riggs, who still believes the world can be saved and made to operate according to humanity's surviving laws and institutions. The possibility emerges that Kerans might have a warped perception of what has happened to him due to the influence of the heat. Was he truly tied up and tortured for days by sadistic pirates, or has he lost touch with present reality, like Hardman did several weeks ago? Hardman's regression made him antisocial and fearful of other humans. Perhaps Kerans, too, is seeing threats that are more primal than rational. But while Kerans's perspective may not be objective, the book stops short of suggesting that he is wrong to fear Strangman. Instead, the book characterizes Kerans as a prophet who sees what Riggs cannot: only ghost cities lie beneath the water.
Related Themes:
