Bay area/Transmigration
Paul Goracke
I felt it brought much insight to local references in Dick's novels (like
Valis and Transmigration, not Martian Time-Slip, etc :^) While reading
Transmigration of Timothy Archer for the first time, one passage jumped
out at me - when we first encounter Bill, he says:
'... she cranked it until the battery ran down and then she came back in.
She was furious but later on she thanked me." He pondered and then said,
half to himself, "She was going to ram an oncoming car on the Bay Bridge.
So I saved him, too; the other car. It might have been like a station
wagon full of kids."'
This doesn't look like much, until you realize that the Bay Bridge is
two-tiered, with east->west traffic on top, and west->east below. So,
ramming an oncoming car isn't just a matter of crossing the center line
as it is, say, on the Golden Gate.
For me, this leads to two possible explanations:
1) I don't know anything about the history of the Bay Bridge, and it
was single-tiered when Dick wrote this.
2) Bill is making this little story up to bolster delusions of self-
importance, leaving you to conclude that he's not quite as stable
and harmles as he first appears.
Just an observation I thought the rest of the world outside the Bay
might find insightful.
Paul Goracke
pg...@netcom.com
p.s. I might have reversed the east/west/top/bottom thing (I didn't own
car while I was there) but you get the idea.