How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Neither question nor answer was meant as anything more than a polite preamble to conversation. Both [Rahel] and [Comrade Pillai] knew that there are things that can be forgotten. And things that cannot – that sit on dusty shelves like stuffed birds with baleful, sideways-staring eyes. (5.36)
This is the first time Rahel sees Comrade Pillai since returning to Ayemenem. We get the idea that there is some experience in the past that they both share and remember but that neither is willing to discuss.
Quote #8
"The steel door of the incinerator went up and the muted hum of the eternal fire became a red roaring. The heat lunged out at them like a famished beast. Then Rahel's Ammu was fed to it. Her hair, her skin, her smile. Her voice. The way she used Kipling to love her children before putting them to bed: We be of one blood, thou and I. Her goodnight kiss. The way she held their faces steady with one hand (squashed-cheeked, fish-mouthed) while she parted and combed their hair with the other. The way she held knickers out for Rahel to climb into. Left leg, right leg. All this was fed to the beast, and it was satisfied. (7.55)
This moment is sort of like the sad, looking-back moments in movies that tug at our heartstrings. Even though Ammu changes significantly in the several years before her death, Rahel remembers the Ammu of her childhood as she watches her mother's body being dumped into the incinerator. She remembers Ammu as she and Estha knew her: the one who loved them ceaselessly, who inhabited the brightest memories and the happiest times of their lives.
Quote #9
Sophie Mol put the presents into her go-go bag, and went forth into the world. To drive a hard bargain. To negotiate a friendship.
A friendship that, unfortunately, would be left dangling. Incomplete. Flailing in the air with no foothold. A friendship that never circled around into a story, which is why, far more quickly than ever should have happened, Sophie Mol became a Memory, while The Loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. Like a fruit in season. Every season. (13.186)
One striking thing about this moment is the way Sophie turns into a memory. The narrator suggests that Sophie herself never becomes part of Rahel and Estha's story. Like them, we experience her as more of a shadow – a memory – than a real character. It's her death that lives on as the story in itself.