ATDTDA (18): Perhaps not after what you've been using it for, 490-493

[Paul Nightingale]

The Ns' concern over Cyprian as 'new money' is echoed by Cyprian's
recollection of his father describing "[t]he enemy, ... too often found
wearing the same uniform" (491). Cf. Deuce "putting on the deputy's star"
(476). If indeed Mr Latewood is expressing another kind of "lethargic
annoyance" (489), this is a double bind: one both insists on uniformity
(another way of saying repetition) and also yearns for difference.

Discussing Yashmeen, "everyone ha[s] something to say" (491); when Cyprian
says he loves her he is informed that she prefers her own sex, another
example of "the enemy ... wearing the same uniform", as is the subsequent
question regarding his own orientation ("Unless you've been only pretending
..." etc). An unnamed speaker starts to describe Yashmeen as "the type of
woman"; he is interrupted by Cyprian insisting that he loves "Miss
Halfcourt, in particular". From the generic, then, to the particular (just
as, subsequently, Crayke has focused on one pony in particular, 492). The
'problem' with Latewood money is that it derives from "Patent Wallpapers"
(489), ie the production of sameness, or standardisation: only the law can
guarantee ownership. Here, Cyprian is anxious to get away from a
standardised form of desire: his feelings for Yashmeen are unique, in the
way that a roll of wallpaper isn't. He doesn't deny it when asked if he is
"a sod", but goes on: "... but I'm also ... in love", happily embracing
Whitmanesque contradiction (the application of which label, of course,
renders him, somehow, knowable if "depressingly prosaic", 492).

However, his "in love" is "a foreign idiom he had to keep looking up in a
phrase book" (491), its adequate translation evidently proving elusive. He
must "seek, somehow, to pass, perhaps, as one of her little Girtonian
admirers ..." etc (492), another kind of 'translation'. Subsequently,
Capsheaf's "full-bore viva" resembles Tace's "case" on 488: legal discourse,
having been invoked with regard to production/manufacturing, is the means to
close 'gaps' (loop-holes) that make meaning elusive. Similarly, Crayke is
"spending hugely on solicitors" (492) in an attempt to legitimise his
relationship with the pony and render bestiality 'acceptable' (his
"fond[ness]" for ponies on a par with "that harem mentality", 489).