How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"He got hit pretty hard with something fairly flat, Art. Puts me in mind of a type of gun butt wound I saw a few times in the war. One of those kendo strikes the Japs used." (5.52)
Memories of war haunt several of the characters. Here, such memories (and a good dose of prejudice against the Japanese) inspire Horace Whaley to tell Art Moran that he should be looking for a Japanese killer—when it isn't even established that a murder has been committed.
Quote #2
Judge Fielding called for a recess then, seeing that her emotions had overwhelmed her, and Etta followed Ed Soames into the anteroom, where she sat in silence, remembering. (9.10)
We're not sure how anyone has any mental energy to devote to the court proceedings, given how much time they're spending offering us detailed flashbacks. Etta has been testifying for the prosecution, and in the process we got to go back in time and see events as they occurred more or less through her (xenophobic) eyes.
Quote #3
Ishmael Chambers was out walking aimlessly in the snow, admiring it and remembering. The trial of Kabuo Miyamoto had brought that past world back for him. (12.2)
Ishmael, too, has been overwhelmed by the past and memories as a result of the trial. In particular, he's thinking about Kabuo Miyamoto's wife, Hatsue, who was his girlfriend as a teenager. They parted under painful circumstances, and Ishmael has never really gotten over it, so these memories sting and are pretty debilitating for him.
Quote #4
"We've known each other forever," she said. "I can hardly remember not knowing you. It's hard to remember the days before you. I don't even know if there were any." (14.70)
This is Hatsue speaking to Ishmael inside their beloved hiding place, the cedar tree. In this moment, Hatsue is trying to reconcile her strong feelings for Ishmael with a gnawing sense that she might not actually love him. She looks at their shared history—a history that blots out memories of anything that preceded it—to fight her doubts.
Quote #5
He had come home from the war and seen in his own eyes the disturbed empty reaches he'd seen in the eyes of other soldiers he'd known. They did not so much seem to stare right through things as to stare past the present state of the world into a world that was permanently in the distance for them and at the same time more immediate than the present. (11.3)
Kabuo is thinking about the war and its impact on him. Like many other characters who experienced combat, he expresses not being completely able to live in the present, given what he experienced in wartime (and can't forget).
Quote #6
The courtroom was empty except for Ishmael Chambers, who sat in the gallery with the look on his face of a man willing to wait forever. (22.13)
Ishmael is paralyzed by his memories throughout the novel; apparently, he can often be found staring off into space thinking about Hatsue. This paralysis is a big problem for him; as his mother remarks, he hasn't really been able to live his life since he returned from the war. Of course, his mother chalks it up to his war experience, not knowing that Hatsue has a ton to do with it.
Quote #7
He was alone then with the fog of his breath in the lantern light and the crates of maritime records. The room smelled of salt water and snow and of the past—it was full of the scent of lost days. Ishmael tried to concentrate on his work, but the image of Hatsue in the backseat of his car—her eyes meeting his in the rearview mirror—carried him away into his memories. (23.22)
Does the combo of Ishmael's propensity for daydreaming + Hatsue in a rearview mirror + Ishmael behind the wheel make anyone else nervous? It seems like Hatsue, her father, and Ishmael made it to their destination without incident, but afterwards Ishmael remains his same-old paralyzed self in the face of his memories.
Quote #8
"I'm putting an article together on this storm. I'm wondering if you have archives of some kind, weather records from way back, maybe, something I could take a look at. Go through old logs, something like that, try to make some comparisons. I can't remember a storm like this one, but that doesn't mean it never happened." (23.4)
Here, Ishmael is talking to an official at the local coast guard office, trying to get information to use in a story about the current snowstorm. His suggestion that the past continues to have ramifications for the present—and, in fact, might teach us something about the present—seems important given the novel's larger thematic concerns, no?
Quote #9
"Look," she said. "You know I can't. I can never touch you, Ishmael. Everything has to be over between us. We both have to put it all behind us and go on, live our lives. There's no halfway, from my point of view. I'm married, I have a baby, and I can't let you hold me. So what I want you to do right now is get up and walk away from here and forget about me forever. You have to let go of me, Ishmael." (23.34)
Of course, while the past can be instructive, it can also just be a means of regressing or stalling yourself. That's the kind of nonsense Ishmael can't seem to avoid (despite Hatsue's pleas). This moment comes from a flashback to one of Hatsue and Ishmael's first conversations after the war, in which he suggests that if she just allows him to hold her, he'll (probably) be able to develop into a functional human being. Three cheers for Hatsue for calling shenanigans on that one, we say.
Quote #10
He did not want to tell his mother about Hatsue Miyamoto and how he had, many years ago, felt certain they would be married. He did not want to tell her about the hollow cedar tree where they'd met so many times. He had never told anybody about those days; he had worked hard to forget them. Now the trial had brought all of that back. (24.50)
Regardless of Ishmael's contention that he had managed to forget his past with Hatsue until the trial, the fact that he's been totally unable to develop a meaningful personal life and move beyond his post-war numbness indicates his memories and the past have been very much present for him all along.