The what

Do the quadruple and diminishing reiterations of the "NOW!" on p.45 indicate an insecurity on the part of the text itself? The complex displacements involved in the arrival of "Inspector Elque" suggest that there is something to hide. The "Inspector" is an authoritative, yet duplicitous reader, his policing authority (or author-ity) containing implications of an equally authoritative repression. His name is tropologically overdetermined and cryptic, homophonically suggesting the antlered, herbivorous beast but also, reassuringly, if metonymically, returning us to the world of popular detective fiction. It is significant that this apparently authoritative and "proper" name means, in Spanish, "the what", hence balancing its specificity on the brink of an aporia.

[Naff + apOria + (the) What]

"That was naff." (Ed.) And "now" this.