Summary
The novel begins with a brief epigraph quoting physicist Carlo Rovelli, cited in both the original Italian and in English translation: “Time is ignorance,” a phrase that Rovelli includes in his book The Order of Time.
Joe, a young boy, sits on top of a mattress that rests atop the chimney cupboard in his house and reads a comic. He hears a car rattle past accompanied by someone shouting “Ragbone! Ragbone!” and looks out, curious to know where the calls are coming from. Although he sees nothing at first, once he climbs down from his mattress and peers out the window, he sees a man with a pony-drawn cart and a wooden chest on it sitting below. The man wears a long coat and a floppy hat.
Joe asks the man what he wants, to which the man responds that he wants a “rag and a bone” in exchange for a “pot and a stone.” Joe finds an old pair of pajamas in his cupboard and a lamb’s shoulder blade and carries them down to the man. The man invites Joe onto his cart. The man investigates the two items—the pajamas and the lamb’s bone—and asks Joe about where and how he got them. The man opens his chest and offers Joe an array of items to choose from in exchange for the pajamas and the bone.
Joe chooses to take a small round jar, which he notes is quite old. As the man closes the chest, Joe notices that his own name is engraved on a brass plate in the middle of the lid. He points this out to the man, but the man responds ambiguously, telling Joe that “at this time all is yours,” but that next time, he can have the chest. He also gives Joe a stone with an engraving of a horse.
As the man tells Joe that he is going to leave, Joe invites him into his house—a small home with three rooms, a chimney, and a few windows. The two have a brief conversation, although at times Joe struggles to make sense of what the man is saying, as he tends to speak in slang, rhyming couplets, and short fragments. The man asks Joe why he wears an eye patch and Joe tells him that it’s supposed to correct his lazy eye, although the patch does little more than prevent him from reading properly and makes his head hurt. Joe asks the man what his name is, but at that very moment, the pair hear a knocking at the door; as Joe opens it, a strong gust of wind and snow bursts through and the man tells Joe that his name is “Treacle Walker.”
Treacle Walker tells Joe that he is a healer, and that he can make all things better except for jealousy. He takes a bone out of his bag and gives it to Joe, who examines it. Treacle Walker reveals that the bone also serves as a flute. Treacle Walker instructs Joe to go out and get a pail of water to put the stone into the water and then “rub the step” with it so that he can keep the house—a series of instructions that Joe has a hard time understanding. Treacle Walker refuses to show Joe what he means, instead telling Joe that he must do it himself.
Joe dips the stone into the water and is astonished to find that his name appears on it in silver letters. Treacle Walker responds by saying that the stone is for Joe, but as he says it, Joe finds that his name has disappeared from the stone. Joe is astounded and accuses Treacle Walker of being “daft,” or crazy. However, he does as Treacle Walker instructed, and rubs the stone all over the steps to his house. Treacle Walker comes down to look at the step and tells Joe to keep it “so,” but does not explain any further about what his statement might mean. As he looks out into the distance, Treacle Walker sings a brief song about children following a cuckoo to where its nest is. After he stops, he calls the song a “macaronic” and “tarradiddle”—implying that the song is either nonsensical or a mixture of other languages—before telling Joe that such songs are “nominies” (rhymes) for young children, and laments that he himself is no longer young.
Analysis
The novel begins by establishing Joe’s routine—a necessary introduction, since much of its ensuing action is based upon the disruption of this routine, and all that this disruption can trigger for Joe’s consideration of his life. On a day-to-day basis, Joe’s world is surprisingly repetitive; he reads his comics, lives in his small house, and looks out onto the small road running past him. Treacle Walker disrupts this routine, immediately establishing himself as a character who interrupts Joe’s quotidian patterns. The novel capitalizes upon visual and auditory imagery in order to convey this disruption: Treacle Walker’s voice cuts through the familiar quiet, while his cart cuts across the usual scenery.
The novel’s dialogue may be hard to follow for an everyday reader, largely due to its heavy use of colloquial or regional British slang and made-up words. “Tarradiddle,” for example, is a British slang word for a petty lie, while a “nominy” is a small combination of rhyming words. Simultaneously, much of Treacle Walker’s language is mysterious even to Joe, such as when Treacle Walker commands him to “rub the step” —a command that Joe at first thinks is absurd and nonsensical before Treacle Walker reaffirms that he is literally asking Joe to rub the step leading into his house.
Some of these moments, with their absurd or slightly uncommon language, also generate humor. Treacle Walker’s very name is one such piece of verbal play. Treacle is a sugary, golden syrup used in many British desserts; Treacle Walker’s name conjures an image of a man walking through the sticky treacle, and appears to undermine his mystical presence. His name is an example of irony, as Treacle Walker’s appearance and presence do not align with the humorous name, creating a juxtaposition between expectation and reality. However, Treacle Walker’s name is also a reference to the original meaning of treacle—a treatment for poisoning. This double meaning forces us to consider whether Treacle Walker is as simple as he seems; might he also have an ulterior motive or be a malevolent character?
This first chapter is also rife with symbols, the most important one being Joe’s eyepatch and his lazy eye. The fact that Joe’s sight is physically obscured symbolizes his obscured or partially limited view of the world, which the novel begins to hint will be disrupted by Treacle Walker’s arrival. These many moments of foreshadowing include Treacle Walker’s statement that he is a healer, as well as the many objects he possesses that appear to have an uncannily magic quality, such as the jar that inexplicably has Joe’s name on it. The stone, too, is another magical object that appears upon Treacle Walker’s arrival. All of these magical objects give the novel a fable-like feeling.
