How we cite our quotes: (Part.Paragraph)
Quote #1
After a while he sat down before a blue Rico and lost himself. (1.11)
The "blue Rico" is probably a painting by Martin Rico y Ortega (1833-1908), a Spanish painter most famous for his paintings of Venice, Italy. This is a two-for-one: beautiful art and pictures of a great vacation spot.
Quote #2
He was always considerably excited while he dressed, twanging all over to the tuning of the strings and the preliminary flourishes of the horns in the music-room; but to-night he seemed quite beside himself, and he teased and plagued the boys until, telling him that he was crazy, they put him down on the floor and sat on him. (1.12)
This is…an oddly sexual response to music, particularly given that it ends with a bunch of boys actually sitting on him.
Quote #3
When the symphony began Paul sank into one of the rear seats with a long sigh of relief, and lost himself as he had done before the Rico. It was not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, but the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and potent spirit within him (1.14)
So, today Paul could just sit in his room and crank up the iPhone. In 1905, though, hearing music live was pretty much your only option. There was some primitive recording technology, but it hardly fit in a cabinet, much less your pocket.
Quote #4
It was at the theatre and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. (1.29)
This passage suggests that all the lying and hiding Paul is doing really is to cover his involvement in the art world, but it seems like there really has to be something more going on.
Quote #5
Several of Paul's teachers had a theory that his imagination had been perverted by garish fiction, but the truth was that he scarcely ever read at all. The books at home were not such as would either tempt or corrupt a youthful mind, and […] he got what he wanted much more quickly from music; any sort of music, from an orchestra to a barrel organ. (1.32)
So the way people think about violent video games and hip-hop music today? They (probably the exact same people) used to say the same-but-different things about novels: corruptors of the youth, destroyers of the social fabric. And now you can actually major in them!
Quote #6
He had no desire to become an actor, any more than he had to become a musician. He felt no necessity to do any of these things; what he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after blue league, away from everything. (1.32)
Maybe if Paul had any real artistic leanings, his life would have ended a little more happily—he'd have had something to work for. It's a little surprising that, surrounded by all these creative and artistic people, he essentially just said, "Yo, all I want to do is listen to music and watch movies when I grow up." So do we all, Paul.
Quote #7
The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theatre was warned not to admit him to the house; and Charley Edwards remorsefully promised the boy's father not to see him again. (1.35)
This seems to be a turning point for Paul. From now on, he's not obsessed with art and theater so much as he is obsessed with having money—and the power it brings.