Even at the remove of a quarter century, those fevered days in 1991 retain a startling immediacy.
Now at the remove of 50 years, we can ask how it happened so fast — but not only that.
The only way to observe it is from the remove of a control room: the magnetic fields are invisible, the plasma makes no sound.
At the remove of 80 years, it is tempting to laugh off such a crude attempt at fearmongering and character assassination.
The varieties of societal detachment wending through the piece are echoed in recurring meditations on voyeurism, display and the remove of art and the museum.
The scene as the cars leave Madison is dreamy and tinted with romance, especially seen at the remove of nearly fifty years.
He also accused Mr. Spitzer of being "nowhere to be found" after Hurricane Sandy and of criticizing elected officials from the remove of his CNN television studio.
They were both raised in literary dynasties (his father was the poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis), and both grew up between the urbanity of the city - London and New York - and the remove of countryside: Ireland and Connecticut, respectively.
In real life, we wouldn't invite any passing stranger into these situations, but the remove of the Internet makes it seem O.K. Of course, some people have always been more naturally inclined toward oversharing than others.
Too often, the image of these women is diffused by what is happening around them, and the consensus about it: Cora's morals are knee-jerk and, from the remove of history, easy to condemn.
Not all the mysteries Ondaatje explores in his account of Mynah's sea passage — revisited in adulthood from the remove of decades and from another continent — have clear resolutions, nor do they need them.
