Analyzing Underworld — Part 1 Chapter 1
[1] I was driving a Lexus through a rustling wind. [2] This is a car assembled in a work area that’s completely free of human presence. [3] Not a spot of mortal sweat except, okay, for the guys who drive the product out of the plant — allow a little moisture where they grip the wheel. [4] The system flows forever onward, automated to priestly nuance, every gliding movement back-referenced for prime performance. [5] Hollow bodies coming in endless sequence. [6] There’s nobody on the line with caffeine nerves or a history of clinical depression. [7] Just the eerie weave of chromium alloys carried in interlocking arcs, block iron and asphalt sheeting, soaring ornaments of coachwork fitted and merged. [8] Robots tightening bolts, programmed drudges that do not dream of family dead.
This is the 1st paragraph, which shows the encroaching of machine into human world. As we go on in this chapter. we will see this is related to the scene of deserted planes which the artists painted, trying to “humanize” these machines which were used during the cold war. We can say the contention between human and machine or alienation is never ending.
It starts with “I was driving a Lexus”. Lexus plays around “luxus” and “lexis” of Latin, meaning luxury and word. Then it points out its production is “free of human presence”, as a general statement, stating the topic of this paragraph. [3] is a further exposition of this topic, using a vivid synecdoche, “a spot of mortal sweat”, while adding “the guys who drive” to maintain to connection between machine and human. [4] is general description of the automated system, using words forever, priestly, every, prime, to characterize the system, eternal and meticulous. [5] is a synecdoche serving [4]. [6] is another vivid synecdoche to describe the system from an opposite angle. [7] is again a vivid upfront description of the system, using synecdoche and parallelism. [8] using another two synecdoches to conclude this paragraph.
Looking back, we can see this para is mostly an exposition para, with some personal connection with “I” and “Lexus”.
[1] It’s a culmination in a way, machines made and shaped outside the little splat of human speech. [2] And this made my rented car a natural match for the landscape I was crossing. [3] Heat shimmer rising on the empty flats. [4] A bled-white sky with ticky breezes raking dust across the windshield. [5] And the species factually absent from the scene — except for me, of course, and I was barely there.
2nd para. [1] is a summary of 1st para and a connecting sentence, combined an abstract concept, machine, with a vivid synecdoche, little splat of human speech, referring to human. [2] is the topic sentence of this para, comparing the car, the machine, with the landscape. [3] and [4] provide vignettes of the landscape: heat, flats, sky, dust. [5] changes angle, and talks about absent species, and back to “me”, preparing for next para, by saying “barely there”, creating a suspense.
[3rd para. 1]Let’s just say the desert is an impulse. [2]I’d decided in a flash to switch planes and get a car and hit the back roads. [3]There is something about old times that’s satisfied by spontaneity. [4]The quicker you decide, the more fully you discharge the debt to memory. [5]I wanted to see her again and feel something and say something, a few words, not too many, and then head back into the windy distance. [6]It was all distance. [7]It was hardpan and sky and a wafer trace of mountain, low and crouched out there, mountain or cloud, cat-shaped, catamount — how human it is to see a thing as something else.
Colloquially, the author ends the suspense in [1], naming impulse as the scapegoat. [2] tells how it happened, and [3] gives the motivation. [4] further explains the benefit. [5] makes concrete what I want to do. [6] is emphasis. [7] describes in details of [6], and ends with a hint on the uniqueness of human, echoed the discussion above, about machine and human.
