Vellum uses three distinct body-text typefaces (in both roman and italic variants), as well as a sans-serif. These are clearly somehow linked to particular focus characters and/or settings, but the precise relation is difficult to pin down.
Hal gave me some help on twitter: it seems the original idea was to distinguish the “modern-futuristic” setting (2017 with Phreedom as focus character; also described by Hal as “cyberpunk and mythic fantasy” and “fantastica”) from “modernist” Joycean technique (which first enters with Seamus and Thomas in the trenches), but this was later expanded to include a third category, splitting “mythic” out from the “fantastica” category. These recollections should be taken with a grain of salt, not just because of the Death of the Author but also because it was a long time ago and Hal was responding off-the-cuff on Twitter (he couldn't find the original mails to Macmillan): at first he didn't remember that the original two-way split was later extended to three. In any case the tidy categorisation he suggests doesn't hold together very well past the first examples.
You can find the twitter exchange in replies to my first question. His most important observations are:
Following this scheme (and my weakness for alliteration) I will call the three typefaces ‘modern’, ‘mythic’, and ‘mundane’. (The UK and US editions use different fonts for the three styles, however Hal assured me that they follow the same structure. I am working from the hardcover UK edition, published by Macmillan in 2005.)
I've annotated the entire text of Vellum to show the fonts used. I can't give you that, of course, because it would massively violate the author's copyright. But I believe I can give you an annotated skeleton, which might come in handy in following the descriptions below. The three pastel-ish colours indicate the three body-text fonts, while italics and sans-serif represent themselves.
Below is a perhaps too exhaustive annotation of the details of where the various typefaces are used in this volume. Let me try to summarise a little. Some elements are simple:
You will note I've said nothing yet about the mythic typeface. On the surface this is quite obvious: it's used already in the first canto of Chapter 1 for material apparently directly quoted from the myth of Inanna's descent to the underworld. But things are not so simple.
Firstly, some material from this myth appears interleaved within verses set in the modern or mundane typefaces. In some places (“A Speck of Dirt Under a Fingernail” and many others) this material is placed in the same typeface as the verse it ‘intrudes upon’, but set aside from it by italics. However in the first canto in which we meet this technique, “Broken Minutes and Bent Hours”, the mythic material is rendered in the mythic typeface (although also in italics). I suspect that one or other of these cases is in fact a printing error, and since there are many more in which the mythic material is not rendered in the mythic typeface, I must presume that is the intention. (This disturbs my sense of tidiness: you will observe this reaction in the notes below, which were written before I attempted to summarise the entire system here.)
Complicating the picture still further, there is a subplot that arguably could have been set in either the mythic or the modern typefaces, but in fact is set in the mundane typeface. This is the progress of Phreedom's backup plan when she “enters the underworld” (i.e., takes the graving of Inanna, in the tattoo parlour of Madame Iris).
On the one hand, this plan takes the form of an artificial intelligence which Phreedom both grows and programs herself, and which waits in a virtual reality museum tour until its timer runs out: being Phreedom's continuity and cyberpunk would suggest the modern typeface for this thread.
On the other hand, the software agent is a deliberate echo of Inanna's servant Lady Shubur, the museum where she waits is a VR recreation of a temple to Enlil (father of the gods), and her rescue plan is to petition various mythic figures both faded (Enlil, Sin) and very much alive (Metatron) for help in rescuing Phreedom: the mythic typeface would not have seemed very out of place here, once the cyberpunk trappings had faded into the background.
My suspicion is that this subplot is not in the modern typeface purely to give the reader a bit more assistence in keeping it distinct from the action surrounding Phreedom, as cantos and verses from the two strands are often interwoven. And I imagine that the cyberpunk material made it impossible to cast this in the mythic typeface. Still, the result is something of a surprise.
That gives you some idea of the general structure. Let me finish with a list of notable moments in typeface-chasing through the first volume of Vellum:
That's probably enough. I warn you though: if you thought that was long, look out below! You may want to skip to the overview of Volume 2.
The entire prologue is in the modern typeface.
Here begins the retelling of the Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent to the underworld. This canto is in the mythic typeface, however we will see later that this does not always apply even to material that appears to quote the myth directly.
This canto introduces Phreedom, on “August 4th, 2017. Sort of.” It is in the modern typeface: this appears to be what Hal remembers as the ‘canonical’ or ‘standard’ use of the typeface.
We return to Inanna's myth, in the mythic typeface.
Phreedom, again in the modern typeface. Until now there has not been a clear correspondence between the progression of the myth and Phreedom's actions. That is about to change.
This canto alternates between Inanna's myth and Phreedom, with each in the corresponding typeface. The correspondence between the two is becoming more explicit: as Inanna answers the gate guard's questions with lies, so Phreedom gives a fake identity card at the check-in desk, and their jewelery and accessories are itemised in parallel lists.
This canto contains two verses of Inanna's story followed by two of Phreedom's, in the corresponding typefaces. However for the first time a paragraph of Phreedom's (in the modern typeface) intrudes on a chunk of Inanna's (in the mythic typeface): Phreedom leaving her hotel room without her motorcycle helmet appears to correspond to Inanna having her crown taken from her.
The interwoven paragraph is further distinguished from its context by being set in italics. I suspect that the switch from one roman serif to another was considered (either by Hal or his editor) too subtle and too likely to be missed by the reader, so was given this extra emphasis: we will see this technique again in Volume 2 when Jack Carter investigates his grandfather's journey to the Kur.
Here the tidy categorisation breaks down, so completely that I suspect a publishing error. The first verse starts with two italicised paragraphs from Inanna's myth, then ends with a paragraph of Phreedom's story. Phreedom's paragraph is in the modern typeface; following the pattern of the mixed-typeface chunk in “Broken Minutes and Bent Hours”, we would expect Inanna's myth to come in the (italics of the) mythic typeface. Inexplicably, however, it too is in Phreedom's modern typeface.
The rest of the canto follows Phreedom, and is (unsurprisingly) in the modern typeface.
This canto exactly follows the pattern of the previous, including the interwoven quote from Inanna's myth but in the (italicised) modern typeface. These interwoven quotes (in this and subsequent cantos) concern the removal of each of Inanna's marks of authority and power (jewelry, fine clothing, and similar), one by one. With each removal she asks, “What is this?” and is answered, “Quiet, Inanna, the customs of the city of the dead are perfect. They may not be questioned.”
This canto again follows the same pattern, and again the interwoven paragraphs from Inanna's myth are in italics but the modern typeface.
Three of the four verses in this canto contain interwoven quotes from Inanna's myth, and again these paragraphs are in the modern typeface but set out by being italicised. This completes the removal of Inanna's protections.
The first verse of this canto returns to Inanna's myth in the mythic typeface. As there is only one typeface in the chunk, there is no need for italics to reinforce the distinction, so we return to roman. The remaining verses concern Phreedom and are in the modern typeface, as expected.
This canto follows Phreedom only, and is in the modern typeface.
With only one exception, all the “Errata” sections of the book are entirely in the modern typeface. They frequently follow on from the Prologue (Reynard Carter on the Road of All Dust), which shared the same typeface.
This chapter concerns Phreedom and Finnan, and is set in the modern typeface (as is its “Errata” section): nothing unexpected here.
This chapter returns to the mythic typeface for the capture of Tammuz, and makes the first use of the mundane typeface.
Modern Thomas and modern Finnan, in the modern typeface.
The same.
Modern Metatron, in the modern typeface.
The four verses of this canto continue the story of Inanna in the mythic typeface. Inanna denounces her lover Tammuz, who is attacked by the demons persuing her. He calls on Shamash (the god of justice) for help in escaping, and then something odd happens: the text, while remaining in the mythic typeface, leaves the original text entirely behind to explicitly identify the characters Tammuz and Dumuzi, escaping “down into the eternal tales of transformation, metamorphic, mythic”. This is the first indication that the typeface that we are calling “mythic” is not only for explicit retelling of ancient myths; here it is used for a description we might call “deep in the Vellum”, at the level of mythic archetypes and correspondences.
Despite this possibility, Thomas's flight “into the Vellum” (and through time) is here set in the modern typeface: he is still the character from 2017 (not a “deeper” archetype) and his travels, while non-linear in time, appear to be nominally linear as concerns his own experience.
A verse of Sumerian myth in the mythic typeface is followed by a verse of deliberate ambiguity: “Tassili-n-Ajer or Lascaux, 10,000 BCE or today.” The typeface is mythic, but distinguished from the first: it is also italicised. It describes both a rock painting, and the original scene it depicts.
Next we see the first appearance of the mundane typeface, as an as-yet-unnamed voice (it is Seamus Finnan in the trenches of WWI) speaks to “Tommy boy” (identified with Phreedom's brother Thomas but also with Tammuz and Dumuzi). The following verse redoubles the ambiguity: set in “Tassili-n-Ajer or Lascaux, 1916 or today” it gives a variation on the 10,000 BCE verse, describing the same (ambiguous) painting and the moment Thomas sees it. In parallel to the first ambiguous description, this is in the mundane typeface but italicised.
Seamus and Tommy, in the mud of the trenches, in the mundane typeface. We see Tommy begin to succumb to shellshock.
In parallel, in the mythic typeface, Dumuzi relates a prophetic dream of death.
In three verses we follow Tommy/Thomas and Seamus as the shells land around them and Thomas cracks up, but in the fourth (also in the mundane typeface) a hunter shoots at a Thomson's gazelle (linked in earlier imagery to both Tommy and Tammuz/Dumuzi) and misses.
The typeface here is thus more than simply indicating the thread of continuity: from Hal we understand that is serves to indicate the “modernist technique” (i.e. the text as text, not the action described therein) as he described on twitter.
In the mundane typeface, we meet Thomas' commanding officer, Mad Jack Carter.
We alternate between verses of the myth of Tammuz, in the mythic typeface, and verses in the mundane typeface concerning Professor Samuel Hobbsbaum. It seems to be Hobbsbaum's translation of the myth that we are reading, and we seem to be seeing him in the process of translating it.
The first verse appears to be from Hobbsbaum's perspective; it discusses the complications of the myth of Inanna, but in somewhat academic terms, and it is set in the mundane typeface.
In the next verse we see a return to the puzzling structure first seen in “Broken Minutes and Bent Hours”. The bulk of the verse is in the modern typeface and concerns Phreedom and her brother Thomas, but the first paragraph is a quote from the myth, set in italics but still in the modern typeface. Again, I am inclined to consider this a mistake: the thematically coherent version would put his paragraph in the mythic typeface (if perhaps italicised to increase the contrast with the rest of the verse).
The third verse, in the mundane typeface, makes explicit that Hobbsbaum is retelling Dumuzi's tale. And the final verse repeats the problematica structure but in the mundane typeface: an italicised quote from the myth and a roman paragraph about Hobbsbaum, but all set in mundane instead of using the mythic typeface for the mythic material.
The errata, as (almost) always, are in the modern typeface.
In parallel we see descriptions of Inanna and Eresh (in the mythic typeface) and a conversation between Phreedom (who will become identified with Inanna via the “graving” referred to in the chapter title) and the tattooist Madame Iris (who either simply is Eresh, survived to the modern day, or is identified with her by the same kind of graving). The typefaces help the reader keep track while verses from these two threads alternate.
The graving itself is in the modern typeface, described from Phreedom's point of view.
The first three verses of this canto are in the mundane typeface, while the last returns to Phreedom's perspective and the modern typeface. The mundane verses describe Inanna, but the historical Inanna, the “young girl of the neolithic village whose real history is buried there inside that tale”. This is a particularly subtle and surprising use of the typefaces, to alert the reader that this “Inanna” is not necessarily the same person that we have previously heard referred to with that name.
In this canto we see Phreedom preparing an artificial intelligence to act as her representative if her visit to Madame Iris (the modern parallel to Inanna's descent into hell) should go wrong. Unsurprisingly, it is set in the modern typeface.
The first verse of this canto mixes elements of Inannas' myth with Phreedom's story. It uses the modern typeface for both, with the mythic elements italicised (the same structure I have criticised repeatedly above).
In the remaining verses, the wheels fall off the thematic analysis entirely. We see a virtual reality museum tour conducted by a limited-reactivity software agent, and attended by the artificial intelligence Phreedom created in “The Answerers”, now referred to interchangeably as “Lady Shubur”, from Inanna's myth, and “Lady Cypher”. Against all expectation, though, this material is set not in the modern typeface (of Phreedom's story, of the modern-futuristic world and cyberpunk) but in the mundane typeface. I am at a loss to explain this decision; at the very least, it should serve as a reminder that ‘mundane” is more a label of convenience than a description.
Here we see three verses of modern typeface showing Phreedom and other, presumably contemporary, echoes of Lady Shubur (a girl at a santera ceremony, a Christian exorcism), along with a further glimpse of Lady Cypher in the mundane typeface. The first verse interweaves a piece of the myth in italicised modern typeface, but this case can be read as contemporary quoting: “The words [you have just read] carve themselves in Phreedom's flesh”.
This canto follows Lady Shubur/Cypher as she asks help from Enlil, one-time Father of the Gods. It perhaps throws some light on why the mundane typeface was used for this material. It takes place “out of time and not quite in eternity”; Enlil's “own soul is broken up and buried, surviving only in the odd fragments of a patriarachal archetype, here and there[…]. There's a new Godfather with his own temple, his own story, and Ilil is just a footnote in his text, a brick used in the new lord's house.” The mythic typeface would be inappropriate, despite the mythic identities of the entities involved, because these events are not ‘deep’: they do not have reverberations throughout history (at most, they are the reverberations of deeper events). It's less clear why the modern typeface could not be used; perhaps simply because a distinction was needed between the Lady Cypher material and Phreedom's experience of the graving, which will be interleaved in the next canto.
Lady Cypher in the mundane typeface, Phreedom in the modern. I'm guessing it's this kind of alternation which made it impossible to put Lady Cypher's material in the modern typeface, where it arguably otherwise belongs (set in motion by Phreedom, originally futuristic/cyberpunk, and anything but mundane!).
Lady Cypher in the mundane typeface, with the same semi-justification as before.
Lady Cypher and Phreedom alternating again, with their corresponding typefaces.
Pure Phreedom, in the modern typeface.
A verse of the mundane typeface: “She was born Ninanna Belili […] daughter of a neolithic chieftain”.
A verse of the modern typeface: “the girl who used to be called Phreedom”.
A verse of the mythic typeface: “She was born Inanna, queen of heaven, priestess of the earth”.
And a final verse, in the modern typeface, in which Madame Iris (in the tattoo parlour with Phreedom) reflects on what qualities Inanna's archetype has.
Modern Metatron in the modern typeface.
In the mundane typeface, but this canto references the story that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.
Various avatars of Thomas are pursued in the modern typeface, interleaved with Dumuzi being pursued in the mythic typeface.
Phreedom, in the modern typeface.
Within these verses parts of Phreedom's and Finnan's brutalisation by Carter and Pechorin are interleaved with corresponding parts of the search for Dumuzi. As seen before in such interleavings, the mythic elements are placed in the modern typeface, but in italics — even, here, in one case where they form the only content of an entire chunk.
In the first verse mythic material runs into Seamus and Tommy in the trenches mid-sentence; the entire verse is in the mundane typeface, with the mythic material italicised.
But then the next verses alternate between the mythic typeface (for Dumuzi's myth) and the mundane typeface (for Seamus and Tommy). There seems to be an inconsistency between the treatment in this canto and in “His Long, Thin Fingers”.
The parallel stories of Tommy and Dumuzi, told again in alternating verses of mythic and mundane typefaces.
Thomas (Phreedom's brother) in the modern typeface.
The same.
The climax of the stories of Tommy and Dumuzi, told again with Dumuzi in the mythic typeface and Tommy in the mundane. Elements of the myth interleave into Tommy's verse, in italics.
Metatron in the modern typeface.
Carter and Pechorin, as modern agents of Metatron, in the modern typeface.
Here we have again the mundane typeface used for material that is decidely not mundane: the river of the canto title, and a version of Thomas/Tammuz that seems to tie together every echo and avatar yet seen. It might be that “modernist” is a better label, but that doesn't seem right to me either: this passage is quite explicitly about mythic resonances and eternally repeating stories. I can only shrug.
Modern typeface, as with most errata sections.
Phreedom and Finnan (who we now know is the same Seamus Finnan of Tommy's story) in the modern typeface.
In the mundane typeface, describing the death of Puck, Thomas Messenger (although not the same person as Phreedom's brother, despite having the same name), from the point of view of his lover.
The rest of this chapter continues in the mundane typeface, giving the back story to their relationship; the setting is an alternative world in which Gnomes, Fairies, Ogres and similar take the roles of the human races we know.
This errata section, as usual, is in the modern typeface.
This chapter follows Metatron, and is mainly in the modern typeface. This canto includes excerpts from Inanna's tale, but they are garbled: Metatron is reading them on his laptop, which is infected with Phreedom's Lady Cypher. As these are modern echoes of the original myth, and scrambled besides, it makes sense that they are in the modern typeface as well (although distinguished by italics).
Phreedom, in the modern typeface.
Metatron and Lady Cypher, in the modern typeface.
Metatron, in the modern typeface. This canto again contains parts of Inanna's myth in italics, but again they are to be interpreted as read by Metatron.
Metatron, Carter and Pechorin, in the modern typeface, again with echoes of Inanna's myth. Here it is less clear if they are to be interpreted as read by Metatron or as original, but they are still in the (italicised) modern typeface.
Here the chunkverses alternate between Inanna's myth (in the mythic typeface) and the arrival of Carter and Pechorin at the tattoo parlour (in the modern typeface).
Modern typeface, unsurprisingly as this is now Phreedom's story. There are also still echoes of Inanna's myth interwoven, in italics.
The pivotal moment in which Enki's bitmites mix with Eresh's bottled unkin blood, and the entire canto is in the modern typeface: this is Phreedom's story, despite whatever connection it might have to Inanna.
Likewise with the moment of her escape, taking Eresh's book of gravings with her.
Here Inanna's myth returns, in verses (in the mythic typeface) alternating with Phreedom's (in the modern typeface).
Likewise. Phreedom appears to have escaped, but by the correspondences with Inanna's myth we know that tragedy is approaching.
In this last canto of the chapter, we see Inanna's myth (in which she denounces Tammuz to escape the demons that have followed her from the underworld) in the mythic typeface, and Phreedom's story (in which she offers her brother the chance to escape his fate, and he refuses to take it), in the modern typeface.
This errata section is in the modern font.
For the second volume I have kept my more detailed descriptions at the chapter level. Since some continuities persist across multiple chapters, something can be said here with even less detail. Here are the basic continuities, with their choice of typeface, that we will be concerned with:
The eclogue introduces Endhaven in the mundane typeface; we will return there in the epilogue.
The rest of the chapter weaves together two related continuities: Phreedom in the Vellum (in the modern typeface) and the Song of Silence (in the mythic typeface). At first these are given separate cantos, but gradually the rhythm of alternation speeds up: in “The Liquid Light of Language” and “The Paradox of Patrios” they take alternating verses, and in “The Golden Age Returns” each verse about Silence (in the mythic typeface) ends with a paragraph about Phreedom (in the modern typeface). By the final canto the regular structure has broken down, and we have: a verse in the mythic typeface; a verse with both mythic and modern material, each in its typeface; a verse in the modern typeface; and a verse in the mythic typeface, about Silence, but that refers to him singing in “Ivan's sports bar grill and steakhouse” which appears to be the venue that Phreedom has just left. The perspective alternation has sped up to the point of actual identification of the two continuities; we will see this technique again when Jack Flash breaks out of his psychoanalysis.
The Errata section returns to the modern typeface.
The interrogation of Seamus Finnan, from two temporal perspectives. One, in the mundane typeface, follows from WWI, taking in some of his trench experiences, his treatment for shell-shock, and his political activism in Scotland. The other, in the modern typeface, is Finnan the unkin, tied to a chair in a freezing slaughterhouse and interrogated by the bitmites. There is no mixing of typefaces within a single canto, and the rhythm of alternation is rather slow: typically more than one canto in the same typeface/continuity before the next switch.
The Errata section, in the modern typeface, concerns Metatron and two versions of Carter and Pechorin who have featured in this chapter; one version appears in the chapter in the mundane typeface, but here both are in the modern typeface.
This chapter uses the mundane and modern typefaces to distinguish two threads of continuity: an expedition by Mad Jack Carter in 1921, and his grandson (who shares his name) in 1999 investigating the expedition.
The 1921 continuity is contextualised as historical materials which the modern Jack Carter has received in the post, and given in the mundane typeface. His investigations are described in the modern typeface, and sometimes intrude on the historical materials: In “Dear N., the letter reads. A piece of good luck…” the letter is in the mundane typeface (“Dear N. A piece of good luck…”) while the annotation “the letter reads” is in the italicised modern typeface. The annotations continue, e.g., “I don't know who N. is or how my grandfather and namesake came into posession of this letter.”
The Errata section concerns Guy Reynard and Puck on the road of all dust, and is in the modern typeface.
This chapter weaves together four typefaces, describing three threads of continuity, all set in an alternative future Britain cast as a fascist steampunk colonial power. “Jumpin' Jack Flash” gives Jack Flash's viewpoint, describing the acts of violent sabotage that lead to his capture: this thread is in the mundane typeface. After his capture he is examined by a Dr Reinhardt Starn (starting with “Weapons-Grade Adamantium“), who suspects him of faking schizophrenia: this thread is in the modern typeface. The third thread of continuity, which can be seen in “A Glint of Snickety-Sharp Teeth”, introduces the last two typefaces: a sans-serif for the “mindworm” inhabiting Pechorin, who is observing Jack's interviews with Starn from behind a one-way mirror, and the mythic typeface for what are at first presented as Jack's memories, stirred up and directed by the mindworm.
In this chapter the three continuities remain distinct, alternating canto by canto.
The errata section concerns Reynard and Puck, and Phreedom and Don, and is in the modern typeface.
We return to Seamus's interrogation, again using the mundane typeface for 1920s material and the modern typeface for Finnan the unkin and the bitmites. Now, though, the modern material recontextualises the 1920s: not as a literal thread of continuity, but as Finnan's memories, called up and modified, during his interrogation.
Mostly each canto sticks to a single one of the two threads. In one exception, Don MacChuill (who is playing a part in Finnan's induced memories, trying to get him to let the information they want slip) “jerks both hand and mind away from the prisoner”: this verse is in the modern typeface, while the rest of the canto (in the 1920s continuity) was in the mundane typeface. In a second exception, the modern Finnan (who by now is aware of what kind of interrogation he is undergoing) suffers a series of flashbacks through 1920s material, cast as a single paragraph of the mundane typeface, that switches back to the modern typeface as “he drags himself back out of it, back into the present”, for the rest of the canto.
The modern material does not follow a linear timeline, but includes modern flashbacks: Seamus and Phreedom, after Thomas's death but before the interrogation started. The typeface implies that this is backstory for the reader, and not memories stirred up by the bitmites during the interrogation.
Most of this Errata section is in the modern typeface, but it also (uniquely among the Errata sections of either volume) contains some material in the mundane typeface. In “The Heart of Damascus” Carter, interrogating Finnan, discovers where Thomas is, and the view switches mid-verse to WWI (in the mundane typeface), then again to a different Carter and Pechorin (back in the modern typeface), each shift apparently continuing the same action despite the new context.
This chapter continues, and complicates, the psychoanalysis of Jack Flash. As before, Starn's interview is in the modern typeface, the mindworm-induced memories are in the mythic typeface (with the mindworm itself in a san-serif), and Jack Flash's first-person description of his situation is in the mundane typeface.
Now, though, individual cantos may contain more than one of these viewpoints. Jack Flash, in the mundane typeface, “let[s his] psychic guard slip for a second” and is apparently hypnotised by a Rorschach ink blot, after which the canto continues with verses in the modern typeface from Starn's perspective. In another canto the interview material (in the modern typeface) bleeds immediately back into the mindworm's continuity (san-serif and mythic typeface) as it convinces the mindworm that Jack is “armed and dangerous” and instigates another attempt at memory control.
Finally, in “Dreamtime's Up”, the three threads weave together into a single continuity. First parts of Starn's interview appear (in the modern typeface) in verses under the mindworm's control (in the mythic typeface). Then Jack Flash (in the mundane typeface) gives a direct answer to a mindworm directive, which until now has always prompted memories given in the mythic typeface. All four typefaces occur in a single verse as Jack Flash takes over his analysis/interrogation.
The final canto of the chapter returns to the mundane typeface and Jack Flash's first-person narration (with a verse in san-serif showing the collapse of the mindworm), establishing that this was the ‘offical’ or ‘real’ continuity all along.
The errata section, as always, is in the modern typeface. It concerns a different Jack suffering from schizophrenia, and Reynard and Puck and the hominid they call Jack on the road of all dust.
This chapter continues the 1921 expedition of Mad Jack Carter (in the mundane typeface) and the 1999 investigation of the expedition by his grandson (in the modern typeface). As before, the modern Jack Carter occasionally intrudes on the historical materials (in one case to explain what is meant by the phonetic term “voiceless”), and these intrusions are set in the modern typeface (in italics where they appear in a paragraph that is otherwise in the mundane typeface). From the canto titled “Childe Roland” onwards we are following the modern Jack Carter, who has retraced his grandfather's steps to the Kur. Both of these continuities are written as diary entries, by men who share the same name, and who have now reached the same physical location and are making the same discoveries: while there are textual clues that establish their identities, the typefaces are quite useful in keeping the threads distinct.
The errata section returns to the usual modern typeface.
This chapter continues the interrogation of Seamus Finnan: as before, the 1920s material is in the mundane typeface while the modern material is in the modern typeface. Now, though, the modern world is started to bleed into the 1920s: the bitmites speak to him in the mundane typeface and he suffers what appear (to his 1920s self) to be visions but what are actually memories of later events.
But a third thread of continuity also appears: Don and Phreedom, travelling through the Vellum, hear a song called “The Ballad of Seamus Finnan”. These passages are set in the mythic typeface.
By the end of the chapter, the material in the mundane typeface is no longer cast as an interrogation. It is simply giving Finnan's history, as he fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War: this aligns thematically with his resistance to the Covenant in the modern material.
The epilogue, with Tom and Jack in Endhaven, is entirely set in the mundane typeface.