How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Antonina wondered if humans might use the same metaphor and picture the war days as "a sort of hibernation of the spirit, when ideas, knowledge, science, enthusiasm for work, understanding, and love—all accumulate inside, [where] nobody can take them from us." (11.1)
Although many people might wish they could have napped through the war, we're not sure if they'd share this idea that war is somehow healing in the long run. War does have a habit of squashing out art and science, after all.
Quote #8
By associating any tune with danger, one never again hears it without adrenaline pounding as memory hits consciousness followed by a jolt of fear. She was right to wonder. As she said, "It's a terrific way to ruin great music." (19.17)
The songs played on the piano during the war become PTSD triggers for the residents of the villa after the war. It's like this: if a bomb went off every time you heard "Who Let the Dogs Out," then you'd feel pretty much exactly like you do whenever you hear "Who Let the Dogs Out" on a peaceful day. (Yes. We jest.)
Quote #9
For people attuned to nature and the changing seasons, especially for farmers or animal-keepers, the war snagged time on barbed wire, forced them to live by mere chronicity, instead of real time, the time of wheat, wolf, and otter. (26.2)
War changes everyone's lives; it even changes the lives of the animals in this book. Who will think about the otters during the war? Who?