How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
At night, [Yankel] would reread the letters that [his wife] had never written him. (7.34)
Yankel has his own version of How I Met Your Mother, and it involves forging letters from his dead wife to create a happy marriage so that Brod thinks she had a loving mother. Surprise twist ending (for Brod, at least): the wife actually divorced him. The act of writing and reading the letters makes this fake life feel real to Yankel. Just like Trachimbrod, she comes alive through the act of writing.
Quote #5
I know that you asked me not to alter the mistakes because they sound humorous, and humorous is the only truthful way to tell a sad story, but I think I will alter them. (9.6)
Does Alex's language make you giggle? And do you feel a little guilty about giggling through a book about genocide? This quote lets us know that it's okay: humor is the only way to tell a sad story.
Quote #6
The deceased philosopher Pinchas T, who, in his only notable paper, "To the Dust: From Man You Came and to Man You Shall Return," argued it would be possible, in theory, for life and art to be reversed. (13.1)
We'd love to read this paper. Well, on second thought, it would probably be a lot like this book, which seems to be questioning whether art imitates life or the other way around. (Or does life just imitate TV?)