ATDTDA (19): What an amusing game, 535-536

[Paul Nightingale]

Root has discovered the power of speech-mania; he sees himself, and Kit, as
part of a grand tradition of maths genius. Which is interesting, given that
Kit is in the midst of his latest makeover: if Webb and Scarsdale Vibe have
been positioned as rival patriarchs to this point, Root offers maths figures
as alternative.  He attempts to describe an "[i]ntriguing new field opening
up" (536), one that uses maths for purposes of gambling; but Kit isn't
interested and decides he'll "just wander for a bit".

As aboard the Stupendica (eg the Daydreaming paragraph on 515) Kit feels
stifled here, "the European manners oppressive" etc (536). This "temple of
money", moreover, invokes exploitation and colonialism. However, one can see
Root's "new field" as somehow colonialist, involving a kind of
rationalisation, eg the "race to see who can venture out furthest into the
borderlands of the nonexistent" (535).

Here, Kit thinks of Fleetwood Vibe and Africa (536), part of his own
knowledge base, but the reader might also think of the Chums' approach to
Chicago, and the first sighting of the Stockyards (10); and "European
manners" are juxtaposed to "a saloon type of atmosphere" (536). In Chicago,
the emphasis is on the end of the West (see also Professor Vanderjuice's
speech on 53, eg "... where the trail comes to its end ..." etc). The
commodity in question, beef, can be seen, heard, smelled; however, 'money'
(the props used to play the game) signifies a deferred meaning ("its own
Unspoken"). With regard to the rival patriarchs, each in his own way a
traditionalist, one thinks of Scarsdale Vibe's "mouth-foaming episodes of
unseemly behavior" (167); or Webb asking Lake where her "bundle of US
currency" came from (189).