ATDTDA (19): Take your pick I guess, 531-535

[Paul Nightingale]

Kit asks Barry if there are "likely to be one or two lady Quaternionists":
this, his reappearance after being banished by Eugenie's suggestion that he
might be "an American gunslinger" (529), is perhaps indicative of a
difference between mathematicians and anarchists. Just as likely it reminds
us that Yashmeen was last seen on her way to Gottingen (503-504). Here,
Barry introduces Kit to Umeki Tsurigane (532), who consequently takes the
place of both Yashmeen and Dally; and then disappears. Deprived of her
company, Kit heads for the Grand Salon, where he too disappears in effect.
As previously, he is there but also absent, leading us to the unidentified
speakers as he led us to the anarchists. Kit doesn't participate in any way,
reappearing only when the text alerts us to "some inappropriately chirpy
music" (534). His outsider status is confirmed by the judgement of "[w]hat
appeared to be a music-hall contralto ." etc. The song that follows is
therefore juxtaposed to the maths-talk, a debate it transforms into
commentary (indeed, advice if you wish to "avoid a spot of awkwardness").

Subsequently Kit recognises Root's voice, initiating what one might call a
third aural stage (539). Root suggests he might have "eloped with that
redhead", which takes us back to the Stupendica. When Root was last present,
he was apparently telling Dally, via Bria, that Kit had disappeared in the
engine room (523); presumably this means he must know that, whatever
happened to Kit, Dally herself wasn't involved in his disappearance.
Whatever the status of this comment, Kit responds by saying he was "drafted
into the navy"; Root fails to respond to this announcement, which might be
explained by his insobriety. For Kit, however, normality has been restored;
and he immediately asks to borrow a dinner jacket, presumably to allow him
to fit in better. They proceed to "Root's quarters, which like Kit he seemed
to be sharing with a dozen or so others of the Hamiltonian persuasion": that
". like Kit he seemed ." confirms that this is Kit's pov. One is reminded of
the first class/fourth class distinction aboard the Stupendica, and Kit's
preference for fourth (511); and this does seem to be the latest phase in
Kit's personal transformation. As Root's guest (a reversal of relations on
the ship) he is invited to choose something to wear from a "wide selection
of colours, sizes, and degrees of formality" (535): "dinner jacket", then,
is open to interpretation, part of Root's twin allusion: "Closest we'll see
to Anarchism in our lifetime."