Wake of Forgiveness: Favorite Passages

[Rachel-K]

If you have a few favorite lines or a passage from Wake of Forgiveness, please share it with the group by posting here! 

[thewanderingjew]

p. 57

And so by her will, if not by G-d's, this child would live.

Thoughts of the Widow Vrana

p. 127

MY name. Its Graciella. And my mother is alive to everyone but my father. Now follow me.

I liked this quote because it contrasts the difference between the Villasenors and the Skalas. her mom is alive but her father doesn't acknowledge her yet Karel and Vaclev would give anything if Klara was alive so they could acknowledge her.

[mommybooknerd]

pg 126   ...that he could spend the rest of his life noticing his surroundings only as they pertain to her.

pg 124  Something about the body, something about the eyes, about the flesh and the bones and the heart.  About how they want to adjust, to heal, to see and feel.  And they do, he thinks, if never entirely.

pg 110  This is the blood-lust of brothers, the vengeful rage of the father, all of it born out and somehow flawless in its wickedness, like some depraved reenactment of Genesis staged solely for the amusement of reprobates.

pg 94   ...watching in silence as the horses carry their burdens into the the indiscernible distance.

pg 55   And he was wounded, too, as anyone could see, and his afflictions opened something wide in her heart that only caring for him could fill.

[thewanderingjew]

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Rachel-K wrote:

If you have a few favorite lines or a passage from Wake of Forgiveness, please share it with the group by posting here! 

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hi,

Is this thread going to be for the whole book or the sections we are reading on the schedule? I am trying to read with the schedule and I don't want to read the quotes if it is going to contain spoilers. Thanks,

twj

[pen21]

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thewanderingjew wrote:

p. 57

And so by her will, if not by G-d's, this child would live.

Thoughts of the Widow Vrana

p. 127

MY name. Its Graciella. And my mother is alive to everyone but my father. Now follow me.

I liked this quote because it contrasts the difference between the Villasenors and the Skalas. her mom is alive but her father doesn't acknowledge her yet Karel and Vaclev would give anything if Klara was alive so they could acknowledge her.

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twj,

these quotes say alot about women in this book so far. The times were very hard, but it seems we are seeing the worst of how women are treated.

[thewanderingjew]

I was also struck by the way women seemed to treat themselves. They didn't expect respect but rather seemed to expect to be abused and/or to flaunt their sexuality in order to accomplish their goals.

I found it especially sad because women today often still remain in abusive relationships, not knowing how to extricate themselves, not realizing that they don't have to be hurt, that they can have legitimate expectations and should be treated with respect.

pen21 wrote:

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thewanderingjew wrote:

p. 57

And so by her will, if not by G-d's, this child would live.

Thoughts of the Widow Vrana

p. 127

MY name. Its Graciella. And my mother is alive to everyone but my father. Now follow me.

I liked this quote because it contrasts the difference between the Villasenors and the Skalas. her mom is alive but her father doesn't acknowledge her yet Karel and Vaclev would give anything if Klara was alive so they could acknowledge her.

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twj,

these quotes say alot about women in this book so far. The times were very hard, but it seems we are seeing the worst of how women are treated.

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[annemd]

The rain surges with a hard gust of wind and then falls to a sprinkle again.  Karel combs his fingers through his tangle of wet curls.  A nervous muscle pulses in the crook of his afflicted neck, and he shifts his wet weight in the saddle to have a fruitless, squinting look overhead.  The rain needles his good eye, asnd the sky is dark enough to suggest that the moon has orphaned the heavens (p.126). 

I love so many of the passages, with rich and vividly painted pictures that could be an effort to read and/or picture, but here are effortless. The writing is masterful.

[Rachel-K]

Hi all,

I did remove a (lovely) post because it had a spoiler in it. Let's try to keep to the assigned pages if we can in these threads this week. IT ISN'T EASY! Next week I will put up an "all spoilers" thread if I absolutely must! 

[coffee_luvr]

I believe that was my post.  So sorry to have broken the rules!  I did not realize that this thread was only for pages thru 132.  I will be very careful about future posts as I am a bit further on in the book than page 132.

[Rachel-K]

No worries, Coffee! It wasn't a big one, and it is so very easy to do! 

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coffee_luvr wrote:

I believe that was my post.  So sorry to have broken the rules!  I did not realize that this thread was only for pages thru 132.  I will be very careful about future posts as I am a bit further on in the book than page 132.

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[RIRN56]

Page 46..".The truth was, talk or no talk, it took less than the sight of her to take him back all those years, to the wonder of her dark hair and the taut swell of her calves below the hem of her dress, to the sweet, earthy smell of her he'd taken in some fourteen years back, and to the desire that he'd begun to imagine he'd never again satisfy or suppress, either one."

( pretty powerful longings that Karel had held in for so many years)

page 44..."To be a Czech farmer in south Texas was to be always thirsty, and it was a well-known joke among the women of Lavaca County that if their men were made to choose between their pints of pilsner and their peckers, there'd be a premium on good sharp knives and coagulant salts at the general store in Dalton."

(that made me laugh)

page 10..."The four of them work harnessed two abreast in front of their father, who's walking in their work, one foot in each furrow, spitting stained juice between his front teeth and periodically cracking a whip to keep the boys focused and the rows straight."

(That section appalled me..to have children treated like horses! It made me feel so bad!)

[JaneM]

Pg. 99 from the horse race.  This one sentence is one paragraph:

Alive in Karel's mind is only a whisper of suspicion, one muted by the astonishing beauty of what he's seen and he smiles at the fortune of having borne witness to something so graceful and yet so capable and strong, to a girl turned woman before his eyes, to that woman flashing her white teeth at him, smiling because, for her, as for Karel, there is nothing quite so thrilling as a race run on horseback, nothing filled more with wonder, nothing so able to convnce you that you are flesh and blood and alive in the world that offers so few joys other than this running.

But it's hard to choose just one.  The entire book is filled with beautiful, lyrical passages and sometimes it's difficult to stay with the plot when you're being swept up in the language.

[Cycling_Chef]

The first paragraph of this book is raw and gripping. I've read through page 127 and I can see the theme of blood introduced in the second word in the book is important to the story, theme and plot. The references to blood make me wonder what will come next.

[jillhubbs]

p 52

"With eyes affixed only to afuture worth forsaking the present for."

p 85

"and she's beginning to understand how you can come to see in your children only what they've left you without."

[jillhubbs]

p 90

" There are times, goddamn them, that won't turn loose of you any more than they'll permit you to take hold of them."

[Atreyu59]

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Rachel-K wrote:

If you have a few favorite lines or a passage from Wake of Forgiveness, please share it with the group by posting here! 

---

page 4:  "Let him get what's left of her if he can.  He's done taken the rest."  

 This pretty much set the tone for how Karel would be viewed by his father thru-out the book

[sorele]

"My father says that if we look for ourselves in others, we're likely to find someone we don't recognize".

Sue Carre

[sorele]

"My father says that if we look for ourselves in others, we're likely to find someone we don't recognize".

[literature]

Page 127, I like the humor in this.  Graciela to Karel...

"My name.  It's Graciela...Now follow me," she says, pulling her hand away and nudging the horse out into the creekwater.  "Follow you?  Hell, I have been."  Without turning in the saddle, she clicks her tongue loudly at the horse and calls back, "You ought to be accustomed to it then.  Come."

Page 126, (Karel has the habit of always speaking what's on his mind.  Too bad it wasn't said in front of her father.)  Karel to Graciela after the horse race...

He recalls her fall, feigned or not, the ease of her ascension back into the saddle, and it is this memory that worms itself around in his mind with enough torsion and convolution that he's somehow firmly and unexpectedly sure of his suspicions.  "I don't doublt it, but then again I don't reckon much of anything seems dangerous to you, Miss.  You make falling off a horse look like a game at a play party."

[Cycling_Chef]

This sentence resonated with me, too!