How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I lost the only woman I ever wanted to love. I lost years. I lost books. I lost the house where I was born. And I lost Isaac. (10.43)
Leo presents these things as a simple list, but in fact each item and how he lost them were profoundly different. This just highlights the conflicted psychology with which Leo has emerged from his turbulent (to say the least) youth.
Quote #8
After Uncle Julian left, my mother became more withdrawn, or maybe a better word would be obscure, as in faint, unclear, distant. Empty teacups gathered around her, and dictionary pages fell at her feet. She abandoned the garden, and the mums and asters that had trusted her to see them through to the first frost hung their waterlogged heads. Letters came from publishers asking if she'd be interested in translating this or that book. These went unanswered. The only phone calls she accepted were from Uncle Julian, and whenever she spoke to him, she closed the door. (13.1)
As readers, we don't know so much about Uncle Julian, but what we do know tells us that he's sort of unhinged. Why would Alma's mother choose him as a confidante rather than someone who's a little more stable? Side note: it isn't difficult to read the image of the neglected flowers as representing Alma and her brother Bird. But we'll play Captain Obvious anyway.
Quote #9
Every year, the memories I have of my father become more faint, unclear, and distant. Once they were vivid and true, then they became like photographs, and now they are more like photographs of photographs. But sometimes, at rare moments, a memory of him will return to me with such suddenness and clarity that all the feeling I've pushed down for years springs out like a jack-in-the-box. At these moments, I wonder if this is the way it feels to be my mother. (13.2)
The reader initially feels Alma's sadness about the fact that her memories of her father are fading. But the correlation with her mother's grief suggests that the impermanence of memories might just be a blessing.