How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Page)
Quote #13
And the one thought thudding in him was, I can deliver/all of them by hiding in a half-circle, then I could/change their whole future, even the course of the river/would flow backwards, past the mangroves. (XXVII.iii.148)
Achille thinks he's being given the chance that we'd all kill for: the opportunity to change the atrocities of the past. But he learns that you just can't make the River of Time flow backward (pesky river).
Quote #14
Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched/roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church/above a bleached village. (XLV.ii.228)
When the narrator returns to St. Lucia, he reflects on the selfishness of the poet's gaze. He admits that he wants the island to stay undeveloped—not to preserve cultural integrity, but to inspire his poetic endeavors. The larger indictment here is of art, which prefers the idyllic to the reality of existence. Hey, reality can be hard…
Quote #15
All the pain/re-entered Philoctete, of the hacked yams, the hold/closing over their heads, the bolt-closing iron,/over eyes that never saw the light of this world,/their memory still there although all the pain was gone. (LV.iii.277)
Philoctete has already been healed of that smelly wound, but there's still a deep spiritual pain that wells up when he dances the paille-banane with Achille on Boxing Day. The more he remembers the suffering of his ancestors, the fresher the wound becomes. No rest for the weary, yo.