The first sentence of this book brought a wave of nostalgia along with it. I vividly remember playing this game as a kid, and considering that I had a crazy obsession with airplanes in general at the time, it was absolutely one of my fondest memories.
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| There's something immensely intimate about playing this seemingly dumb game. It's as if playing airplane is part of a "shared memory" that so many of us have enjoyed. Indeed, I can't wait to play it with my children some day. |
"And of course, my brothers and I were free labor. Dad considered us extensions of his own body, like precision robot arms. In this regard, it was like being raised not by Jimmy but by Martha Stewart" (13).
While the ending pun is obviously funny, this passage was amusing to me because it is exactly how my father, a do it yourself kind of guy, treated my siblings and me. However, my dad didn't seem to be as mean as Mr. Bechdel...
"I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture" (14).
I just thought that this was a strong, beautiful metaphor of a quote. I know what it's like to feel like a piece of furniture...
"My mother, my brothers, and I knew our way around well enough, but it was impossible to tell if the minotaur lay beyond the next corner" (21).
I loved this--Alison is clearly talking about the labyrinth of the house she lives in, but she's also referring to the instability and mystery of her father's psyche.
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| I believe that everyone has a minotaur hidden within their minds. For some, it manifests itself more often than for others. |
"It could be argued that death is inherently absurd, and that grinning is not necessarily an inappropriate response" (47).
I disagree with this. At my grandfather's funeral recently, I had a huge smile on my face when his brother went up to give a eulogy. They were both hilarious with each other, and I honestly couldn't even begin to feel sad. I feel like there should be some grief with death, but that mostly it should be celebrated in the sense that the now-deceased has lived a good life worthy of being happy about.
"But you would think that long nights employed in this scutwork of the flesh would make anyone reconsider the logic of not postponing the inevitable" (49).
Just another very vivid quote--"scutwork of the flesh" might just be my new favorite phrase.
