Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 7

This chapter is taken up with a narrative of the author's relationship with a man named Dave Rahm (see "Important People"), a geologist and stunt pilot. She writes of first seeing Rahm fly at an air show in which his airborne acrobatics flowed seamlessly from one stunt into another without rest or interlude, how he smoothly (and with apparent effortlessness) created a "line" of movement evocative of beauty and vision. "Dave Rahm," she writes, "worked in the cockpit right at the plane's nose; his very body tore into the future for us and reeled it down upon us like a curling peel." She also describes, in considerable detail, a flight she took with Rahm over the mountains, in which he flew extremely (some might say dangerously) close to them without any real risk to himself or his passengers. She then...