Argh, you got me right in the feelings. The characterization rings very true here. It just feels natural that this is where they’d be in a few years.
“Nick begins to tell a whitewashed version, the type that is better for children's consumption. Stories of the war. Most of the most vivid memories he has are of men sprawled out on wire, crowding together in the trenches, body pressed against body. Those aren’t appropriate for children. Then there are the stories of the like-minded men he met in the army, whose bodies he pressed against in other ways, but those stories are if anything worse for current company.”
^^^ I really liked this section.
“She looks up at him sharply. “You don’t need to protect me from Papa,” she says. “Papa’s not a bad man. It was an accident.”
Nick thinks of his father, how he would squeeze Nick’s shoulders too tight all the time, and that never meant anything, he just never saw the bruises that would form beneath Nick’s shirt. Thinks of how he loved him.”
^^^ When I got to his point I had to stop for a few seconds because feelings. Feelings. Also you just set it up so well.
“He had a mother like Daisy and a father like Tom once. He suspects Daisy once had a mother like herself and father like Tom, and probably even Tom is the same. Birds of a feather flock together. They are what their parents made them.”
^^^ Yes. Just yes.
The theme of forgetting Pammy hurts but with the way the book was I can’t imagine it any other way.
I do think they'll all be chilling (...tensely) in a few years, Nick acts like he's done with Tom and Daisy but he's not a very decisive person. They'll probably meet up again. Eventually. Anyways thank you so much for your comment (and the others), I was super happy when I got them, had warm and fuzzy feelings all day and then forgot to actually respond.
Comment on for children's consumption
summerdayghost Fri 31 Aug 2018 11:53PM UTC
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ConvenientAlias Wed 05 Sep 2018 10:02PM UTC
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