Is there a quote or scene in the novel that stood out for you? Why do you suppose it resonated?
“I believed what my father told me. Stories do more than comfort. They take you away and bring you back better made.”
Isn’t that why we read??
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I copied the same quote as Roberta (among others). I will add that stories in the context of the novel and in our lives don’t have to be written. Opal Viola for example draws great comfort snd support from a story her mother told her about the stars—which helps explain how the author titled this story:”Stars are our ancestors…” (Another quote I love. And astrophysicists would say this is true.)
Having read There There, I was especially interested when we returned to Orvil’s story after the Big Oakland Powwow. The quote that struck me because of what happened to Orvil, and for the deeper meaning attached to this novel’s title:
“One of the doctors … told him the bullet shard in him was shaped like a star, like that was some cool shit. … The doctor said they would keep an eye on it, the star shard, because, he warned, they’ve been known to wander …”
There is so much to unpack with this quote.
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The quote “surely there was a story he was part of that spoke to the purpose of his life.” This quote makes me feel very sorry for Charles who was simply attempting to put his past in perspective as it related to his present and history. Where does he belong in this life? This quote can be applied to many people as they try to find there place.
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“But surviving wasn’t enough. To endure or pass through endurance test after endurance test only ever gave you endurance test passing abilities. Simply lasting was great for a wall, for a fortress, but not for a person.”
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“Life must be sweet like a bird waking you up in the morning with a song, and then it’s that one under the window with its neck broke 'cause it coulda swore there just had to be more sky there.”
This sentence!!! It brings tears to my eyes for its language, its poetry, and for how beautifully it conveys Orvil’s situation and character. Tommy Orange, how’d you do that?
“You are from a people who survived by making their surviving mean more than surviving, who did their best to stay together.” I felt this sentence summed up all of these character’s lives: in spite of everything they’ve had to endure as Indians, most of them kept going to live the life they were born into as best they could.
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“He wanted to feel normal again. All those years ago. They seemed so good. You wish for normal , even if normal was never all that good in the first place”. this was Orville when he was trying to recover from the shooting and his hospitalization. It just struck me that isn’t that what we all want when something goes wrong- just to get back to where we were before.
Although there were several quotes in the book which hit a cord this one really made me think "America’s longest war… How true that is and I never thought about it that way.
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