How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
But Irie was sixteen and everything feels deliberate at that age. To her, this was yet another item in a long list of parental hypocrisies and untruths, this was another example of the Jones/ Bowden gift for secret histories, stories you never got told, history you never entirely uncovered, rumor you never unraveled, which would be fine if every day was not littered with clues, and suggestions; shrapnel in Archie's leg... photo of strange white Grandpa Durham... the name "Ophelia" and the word "madhouse"... a cycling helmet and an ancient mudguard... smell of fried food from O'Connell's... faint memory of a late-night car journey, waving to a boy on a plane... letters with Swedish stamps, Horst Ibelgaufts, if not delivered return to sender... (14.77)
Why do some families, like the Bowden/Jones families, bury their histories and turn them into secrets, while others, like Samad, talk nonstop about their family histories (Mangal Pande anyone?)?
Quote #5
"My Niece-of-Shame believes in the talking cure, eh?" says Alsana, with something of a grin. "Talk, talk, talk and it will be better. Be honest, slice open your heart and spread the red stuff around. But the past is made of more than words, dearie. We married old men, you see? These bumps"—Alsana pats them both—"they will always have daddy-long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past. No talking will change this. Their roots will always be tangled. And roots get dug up. Just look in my garden—birds at the coriander every bloody day." (4.134)
Alsana credits their old age for the way Archie and Samad can't let go of the past. Old men, she calls them. The past, according to Alsana, is a tangled thing, and it is not the kind of thing that will just let us be. This is the idea we are left with at the end of the novel, as Archie, Samad, and Dr. Sick stand in the same room once again, almost fifty years after they were all together the first time.
Quote #6
She tried to be reasonable. She asked him: Why are you never here? Why do you spend so much time with the Indian? But a pat on the back, a kiss on the cheek, he's grabbing his coat, his foot's out the door and always the same old answer: Me and Sam? We go way back. She couldn't argue with that. They went back to before she was born. (3.10)
Does Clara accept this as an answer? Is "going way back" a good enough reason for Archie to spend more time at O'Connell's than with Clara? The bigger questions here are: how does Clara understand the past? How does she understand personal histories?