My favorite quote from The Optimist's Daughter is during the breadboard encounter after Laurel tells Fay she doesn't need to keep the breadboard anymore. "Memory lived not in initial possession but in the freed hands, pardoned and freed, and in the heart that can empty but fill again, in the patterns restored by dreams" (179). I think this quote is very powerful and liberating. Laurel is saying that the past is gone and only a memory earlier in the page, and now she is freeing this memory to flourish in her mind and in her soul. She doesn't need to be weighed down by an object that represents a memory. Laurel can keep these memories inside of her and not have to carry the weight of objects with her to have the memories in her life. She feels freed and pardoned and she is now able to move on and continue with her life, even after the loss of her father. She says that the heart can empty and fill again which shows hope. Hope that Laurel can move on, be free, and eventually love again, whether it is a friend or a lover. This is a beautiful sentence that shows Laurel's peek where she finds hope and embraces it, even though she might still be unsure of where she is going or what she is doing.
One of my favorites (so hard to choose just one!) is from Let the Great World Spin: "There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they will never see the surface. There is, I think, a fear of love. There is a fear of love" (156). This is the end of Lara's chapter, after she has been deeply and permenantly affected by Jazzlyn and Corrie's death, which she and Blaine caused. It speaks, I think, to our capacity for holding on to grief, deep in our hearts, and our inability to let love heal. McCann comes back to this at the end when Jaslyn observes Lara: "There was something of the beautiful failure about her" (343). Heartbreaking and real.
I really like on the last page when it says, "We stumble on, thinks Jaslyn, bring a little noise into the silence, find in others the ongoing of ourselves." It's when Jaslyn is contemplating the world while visiting Claire, and I think the idea that we rely on others to go on is really profound. That we can only do so much on our own, we only bring a little noise, but with and through others we are able to continue living. I think that also plays into the hopeful message of the book which is also all about connections because as long as you can find someone to share yourself with, to connect with, you can go on in your life. And in the end all of the characters do find a connection somewhere with someone, and they go on.
I love that one too, Rebecca! Another one of my favorites is "Gloria laughed at them and said that she'd overtaken grief a long time ago, that she was tired of everyone wanting to go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear." (339) I love this quote because the first part, I think, can be related to other situations besides dying. Many people have high standards and goals but aren't willing to do the work to achieve them. It also strikes me as saying that people are too caught up in their future than living life in the present. I'm not exactly sure why I like this part so much, but every time I read it it makes me think of new things that it could mean, situations it could apply to, and I just love the way it sounds. Thinking about Gloria saying it also makes me love appreciate her character and reminds me of what a wise person she is. "The only thing worth grieving over was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear." It shines a positive light on grieving. One shouldn't grieve because of things that he's lost or the things he doesn't/can't have, but that there is an overwhelming amount of beauty in life. This quote can also relate to what Lauren was talking about in class today with this novel being a representation of the grieving process, through the characters and the country. I also found a quote that I wanted to share that I thought could relate to the theme of our class and what we've been talking about with this novel finding a way to bring people together. "It had never occured to me before but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing as strange as the last, and connected."
Nice correlation with the title of the course Angele! My favorite quote is from Let the Great World Spin: “It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from” (59). This sentence instantly spoke to me, and it is truly hard to describe why. In an essay last year, I used this very idea to sum up my conclusion, but my version didn't sound so poetic. If I had the time, money, and good people to keep me company, I would travel my entire life. There is nothing like seeing a new and unfamiliar landscape or visiting a new city or town. No matter what the geographical location, the culture and landscape of a city or town will always be different from, say, New Orleans. It's a breathtaking experience to realize the great people and places that exist in the world, but it's an extrordinary experience to understand the advantages of your own roots. I owe my opportunity to see the world to my roots, to my parents, to Newman's education, etc.
My favorite quote from the summer reading was on page 31 of Let the Great World Spin. It went, "Hours and hours of insanity and escape. The projects were a victim of theft and wind. The downdrafts made their own weather....Perhaps in a way it was alluring, like little else around it: whole, bright, slapping curlicues and large figure eights, helixes and whorls and corkscrews." The reason this passage stuck to me is because I found that Colum McCann is really the first author I have read that has displayed the emptiness that is in the urban projects of major cities. In the mainstream we often hear rappers and singers sometimes glorifying the projects, yet whenever I have passed them in my car, all I see are ghost towns. They look, literally, empty and desolate, with no trail of human existence whatsoever. They look decrepid, while also looking like they will disinegrate at any moment. If I was so unfortunate as to have to live in one, I would feel lonely and melancholy about the situation. McCann went against the norm by portraying the projects in a different attitude by describing the emptyness that constantly flows through those concrete jungles.
My favorite quote is from the optimist's daughter. After Dr. Courtland tells Judge McKelva that the operation is not 100 percent predictable, Judge McKelva said "Well I'm an optimist." I think that this quote foreshadows the journey that his daughter takes throughout the book. He has already gotten to the point in life where he is willing to let go of the past and move on with his life. He has battled through tragedies including the death of his wife, therefore he does not despair over the prospect of his eye operation. After Laurel has reflected on the loss of her father, her last living relative, she is finally able to move on to the next phase of her life.
“Up home we loved a good storm coming, we’d fly outdoors and run up and down to meet it,” her mother used to say. “We children would run as fast as we could go along the top of that mountain when the wind was blowing, holding our arms right open. The wilder it blew the better we liked it.” During the very bursting of a tornado which carried away half of Mount Salus, she said, “We never were afraid of a little wind. Up home, we’d welcome a good storm.”
Terrible weather and the American South seem inseparably bound, like a captain to the mast in a rough squall. I wrote for Mr. Gee about the flow of the Mississippi and her role as the mother of the better portion of the country, and no place so directly as Louisiana and New Orleans in particular. Where the Mississippi is the mother, the weather would almost certainly be the angry and wrathful whiskey swilling husband of such a woman. I think of them both as interlinked, both as characters in the history and culture of the eastern states and the south in particular. I harken to "The Storm," and the odd nature it brings out in people: the licentiousness and the disregard, that frontiersman attitude that Faulkner addressed in the opening lines of "Mississippi."
I suppose my home then is the peculiar child of an overbearing mother and an unpredictable father, but the river's mud and the static in the air are reminders of the long and mutable history here.
Sitting at home, watching banana leaves twist in the full brunt of an August storm which has turned day into dusk, I feel calm, cool, collected, and happy to be here. In a hurricane, I have fun. Until the floods come, if they do, I love the sound of the wind and the sight of the rain. On more ordinary days of soft rain and grey windy skies I walk out to enjoy the calm and the slight, cool damp that comes. It's simultaneously soothing and electrifying and I-really-think-it's-just-a-Southern-thing but I love it.
I guess it feels primal. The words "Storm's-a-comin'." conjures vivid images of rural delta porches and rolling clouds, the excitement of the impending potential doom, or the peace of a lighter rain drumming my copper roof. It's one of the two mightiest forces of nature around here, and it has such a connection to the landscape and to any of us who experienced Katrina. I guess, ultimately, what I'm failing to say in any kind of a concise or orderly manner, is that I know what Becky was saying.
I feel that, and I like that Welty knows that feeling too, enough at least to give that touch to one of her own.
“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.” I found this quote very moving because in the modern world, life moves so fast. We are little kids one day and the next we are at a university a 1000 miles away from home. Teenagers want to race through their youth looking forward to getting away from home and being on our own. As a middle and high school student, we cannot fathom being in the shoes of a graduating senior or a college student. We blow right through it all, and before you know it. It is all over. So instead of looking forward to what life has in store of us, we should take our time and explore what life has to offer right now, at this instant. Then we get older, we realize what we have done, our hearts drop, and we stop and think about the past. We think about what we have lost and will never get back. We think about the fact that no matter how successful and famous we become in our lives we will never get back our youth. This quote makes me realize how I have always wanted to go out and live my life when my life has always been right there in front of my face. Instead of seizing every opportunity in my life, I have let a large portion of the opportunities slip right behind my fingers. Only until recently have I stopped and thought about being a little kid again and my past, and every time I do my heart sinks into my stomach.
My favorite quote from The Optimist's Daughter is during the breadboard encounter after Laurel tells Fay she doesn't need to keep the breadboard anymore. "Memory lived not in initial possession but in the freed hands, pardoned and freed, and in the heart that can empty but fill again, in the patterns restored by dreams" (179). I think this quote is very powerful and liberating. Laurel is saying that the past is gone and only a memory earlier in the page, and now she is freeing this memory to flourish in her mind and in her soul. She doesn't need to be weighed down by an object that represents a memory. Laurel can keep these memories inside of her and not have to carry the weight of objects with her to have the memories in her life. She feels freed and pardoned and she is now able to move on and continue with her life, even after the loss of her father. She says that the heart can empty and fill again which shows hope. Hope that Laurel can move on, be free, and eventually love again, whether it is a friend or a lover. This is a beautiful sentence that shows Laurel's peek where she finds hope and embraces it, even though she might still be unsure of where she is going or what she is doing.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorites (so hard to choose just one!) is from Let the Great World Spin: "There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they will never see the surface. There is, I think, a fear of love. There is a fear of love" (156). This is the end of Lara's chapter, after she has been deeply and permenantly affected by Jazzlyn and Corrie's death, which she and Blaine caused. It speaks, I think, to our capacity for holding on to grief, deep in our hearts, and our inability to let love heal. McCann comes back to this at the end when Jaslyn observes Lara: "There was something of the beautiful failure about her" (343). Heartbreaking and real.
ReplyDeleteI really like on the last page when it says, "We stumble on, thinks Jaslyn, bring a little noise into the silence, find in others the ongoing of ourselves." It's when Jaslyn is contemplating the world while visiting Claire, and I think the idea that we rely on others to go on is really profound. That we can only do so much on our own, we only bring a little noise, but with and through others we are able to continue living. I think that also plays into the hopeful message of the book which is also all about connections because as long as you can find someone to share yourself with, to connect with, you can go on in your life. And in the end all of the characters do find a connection somewhere with someone, and they go on.
ReplyDeleteI love that one too, Rebecca!
ReplyDeleteAnother one of my favorites is "Gloria laughed at them and said that she'd overtaken grief a long time ago, that she was tired of everyone wanting to go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear." (339)
I love this quote because the first part, I think, can be related to other situations besides dying. Many people have high standards and goals but aren't willing to do the work to achieve them. It also strikes me as saying that people are too caught up in their future than living life in the present. I'm not exactly sure why I like this part so much, but every time I read it it makes me think of new things that it could mean, situations it could apply to, and I just love the way it sounds. Thinking about Gloria saying it also makes me love appreciate her character and reminds me of what a wise person she is. "The only thing worth grieving over was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear." It shines a positive light on grieving. One shouldn't grieve because of things that he's lost or the things he doesn't/can't have, but that there is an overwhelming amount of beauty in life. This quote can also relate to what Lauren was talking about in class today with this novel being a representation of the grieving process, through the characters and the country.
I also found a quote that I wanted to share that I thought could relate to the theme of our class and what we've been talking about with this novel finding a way to bring people together.
"It had never occured to me before but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing as strange as the last, and connected."
Nice correlation with the title of the course Angele!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite quote is from Let the Great World Spin: “It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from” (59).
This sentence instantly spoke to me, and it is truly hard to describe why. In an essay last year, I used this very idea to sum up my conclusion, but my version didn't sound so poetic.
If I had the time, money, and good people to keep me company, I would travel my entire life. There is nothing like seeing a new and unfamiliar landscape or visiting a new city or town. No matter what the geographical location, the culture and landscape of a city or town will always be different from, say, New Orleans. It's a breathtaking experience to realize the great people and places that exist in the world, but it's an extrordinary experience to understand the advantages of your own roots.
I owe my opportunity to see the world to my roots, to my parents, to Newman's education, etc.
My favorite quote from the summer reading was on page 31 of Let the Great World Spin. It went, "Hours and hours of insanity and escape. The projects were a victim of theft and wind. The downdrafts made their own weather....Perhaps in a way it was alluring, like little else around it: whole, bright, slapping curlicues and large figure eights, helixes and whorls and corkscrews." The reason this passage stuck to me is because I found that Colum McCann is really the first author I have read that has displayed the emptiness that is in the urban projects of major cities. In the mainstream we often hear rappers and singers sometimes glorifying the projects, yet whenever I have passed them in my car, all I see are ghost towns. They look, literally, empty and desolate, with no trail of human existence whatsoever. They look decrepid, while also looking like they will disinegrate at any moment. If I was so unfortunate as to have to live in one, I would feel lonely and melancholy about the situation. McCann went against the norm by portraying the projects in a different attitude by describing the emptyness that constantly flows through those concrete jungles.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite quote is from the optimist's daughter. After Dr. Courtland tells Judge McKelva that the operation is not 100 percent predictable, Judge McKelva said "Well I'm an optimist." I think that this quote foreshadows the journey that his daughter takes throughout the book. He has already gotten to the point in life where he is willing to let go of the past and move on with his life. He has battled through tragedies including the death of his wife, therefore he does not despair over the prospect of his eye operation. After Laurel has reflected on the loss of her father, her last living relative, she is finally able to move on to the next phase of her life.
ReplyDelete“Up home we loved a good storm coming, we’d fly outdoors and run up and down to meet it,” her mother used to say. “We children would run as fast as we could go along the top of that mountain when the wind was blowing, holding our arms right open. The wilder it blew the better we liked it.” During the very bursting of a tornado which carried away half of Mount Salus, she said, “We never were afraid of a little wind. Up home, we’d welcome a good storm.”
ReplyDeleteTerrible weather and the American South seem inseparably bound, like a captain to the mast in a rough squall. I wrote for Mr. Gee about the flow of the Mississippi and her role as the mother of the better portion of the country, and no place so directly as Louisiana and New Orleans in particular. Where the Mississippi is the mother, the weather would almost certainly be the angry and wrathful whiskey swilling husband of such a woman. I think of them both as interlinked, both as characters in the history and culture of the eastern states and the south in particular. I harken to "The Storm," and the odd nature it brings out in people: the licentiousness and the disregard, that frontiersman attitude that Faulkner addressed in the opening lines of "Mississippi."
I suppose my home then is the peculiar child of an overbearing mother and an unpredictable father, but the river's mud and the static in the air are reminders of the long and mutable history here.
Sitting at home, watching banana leaves twist in the full brunt of an August storm which has turned day into dusk, I feel calm, cool, collected, and happy to be here. In a hurricane, I have fun. Until the floods come, if they do, I love the sound of the wind and the sight of the rain. On more ordinary days of soft rain and grey windy skies I walk out to enjoy the calm and the slight, cool damp that comes. It's simultaneously soothing and electrifying and I-really-think-it's-just-a-Southern-thing but I love it.
I guess it feels primal. The words "Storm's-a-comin'." conjures vivid images of rural delta porches and rolling clouds, the excitement of the impending potential doom, or the peace of a lighter rain drumming my copper roof. It's one of the two mightiest forces of nature around here, and it has such a connection to the landscape and to any of us who experienced Katrina. I guess, ultimately, what I'm failing to say in any kind of a concise or orderly manner, is that I know what Becky was saying.
I feel that, and I like that Welty knows that feeling too, enough at least to give that touch to one of her own.
Phew.
“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.”
ReplyDeleteI found this quote very moving because in the modern world, life moves so fast. We are little kids one day and the next we are at a university a 1000 miles away from home. Teenagers want to race through their youth looking forward to getting away from home and being on our own. As a middle and high school student, we cannot fathom being in the shoes of a graduating senior or a college student. We blow right through it all, and before you know it. It is all over. So instead of looking forward to what life has in store of us, we should take our time and explore what life has to offer right now, at this instant. Then we get older, we realize what we have done, our hearts drop, and we stop and think about the past. We think about what we have lost and will never get back. We think about the fact that no matter how successful and famous we become in our lives we will never get back our youth.
This quote makes me realize how I have always wanted to go out and live my life when my life has always been right there in front of my face. Instead of seizing every opportunity in my life, I have let a large portion of the opportunities slip right behind my fingers. Only until recently have I stopped and thought about being a little kid again and my past, and every time I do my heart sinks into my stomach.