She smiled. “It is easy to know someone in a week. You need only listen.”
Ties back to earlier when Mary says to learn about ogres you need only listen. Mary recognized Alibhai as being a friend of the ogres from the start or even just an ogre. Also ties into when she refers to him as her brother.
scarlet thread, plaiting something, perhaps a necklace.
Foreshadowing to the necklaces later in the story.
He is allergic to lead.]
On second reading, ties into the idea that the ogres are no different than us. Just our physical differences that separate us really.
The world is composed of Mary and myself and the sky about Mary and the trees about Mary.
And maybe the wind cried Mary too.
“If I went to a mission school, I’d burn it down! I have always been a free woman!”
Goes back to the idea that maybe her education was religious and they tried forcing women into typical homemakers however Mary strives to be bigger than that. Maybe why she is privy to information on ogres and such and working with an exotic hunter.
[Mary has had, I suspect, a mission education. This would explain the name and the calico dress. Such an education is nothing to be ashamed of
The mission education I think refers to her being educated by foreign missionaries. Often religious schools tend to have better academics.
Note to self: Call Greenway, have them take ugly thing away.
From worrying about the cost to wanting the rack to be taken away.
Try to extend positive feelings associated with Scratch-Off win into all areas of life.
I feel like the main narrator is always trying to be positive when maybe he would be better off spending his money better?
Very depressing birthday party today at home of Lilly’s friend Leslie Torrini.
Immediate disdain for upper class people.
Next day a portion of the work was heedfully uncovered. All seemed right. Upon the third morning, with equal satisfaction, it was bared still lower. At length, like some old Theban king,
Like the work being uncovered, it was previously unknown like many Theban Kings. Due to the overwhelming amount it is hard to know how many there were.
And so pride went before the fall.
One of man's fatal flaws. Much like Aylmer thinking he could change Georgiannas, their pride in themselves leads to their inevitable down fall.
the appearance, at least, of intelligence and will.
The description of Bannadonnas creation has been relatively vague but I imagine that he modeled it after himself. This would tie it back to what bannadonna said about the laws of art.
tower was titanic
unintentional but interesting to note how the word has changed meaning since the boat disaster. Back then it was used to describe grand and large things now I feel as though the word has lost that meaning and is used to refer to the scale of how bad something has gone.
And so, for the interval, he was oblivious of his creature, which, not oblivious of him, and true to its creation, and true to its heedful winding up, left its post precisely at the given moment, along its well-oiled route, slid noiselessly towards its mark, and, aiming at the hand of Una to ring one clangorous note, dully smote the intervening brain of Bannadonna, turned backwards to it, the manacled arms then instantly upspringing to their hovering poise. The falling body clogged the thing’s return, so there it stood, still impending over Bannadonna, as if whispering some post-mortem terror.
Reminds me a lot of Icarus. Banadonna created something so grand and ambitious and in the end it was his downfall.