So in an attempt to draft a paper comparing the writing styles of Jhumpa Lahiri and Ernest Hemingway I am making a list of relevant quotes from one of my favorite novels.
Possible themes: Spaces, the passage of time seen in a novel vs. a short story, loss/death/rebirth (the usual suspects).
I found this phrase entertaining: "the Austrians seemed to want to come back to the town some time, if the war should end, because they did not bombard it to destroy it but only a little in a military way" (11).
"This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were. It was all right with me" (34).
"I wish that I was with the British. It would have been much simpler. Still I would probably have been killed. Not in this ambulance business. Yes, even in teh ambulance business. British ambulance drivers were killed sometimes. Well, I knew I would not be killed. Not in this war. It did not have anything to do with me. It seemed no more dangerous to me myself than war in the movies" (39).
"I put my Saint Anthony back in the capsule, spilled the thin gold chain together and put it all in my breast pocket" (45). (relate this to Hema's bracelet from her grandmother? Maybe?)
"I felt him in his metal box against my chest while we drove. Then I forgot about him. After I was wounded I never found him" (45).
Rinaldi says to Henry: "Now you see. Underneath we are the same. We are war brothers. Kiss my good-by" (66).
Similarity in observational style between Lahiri and Hemingway: "He waved from the doorway, his mustaches went straight up, his brown face was smilin. There was a star in a box on his sleeve because he was a major" (95).
Banter is always fun:
"Come back then now."
"No," she said. "I have to do the chart, darling, and fix you up."
"You don't really love me or you'd come back again."
"You're such a silly boy." She kissed me. "That's all right for the chart. Your temperature's always normal. You've such a lovely temperature."
"You've got a lovely everything."
"Oh no. You have the lovely temperature. I'm awfully proud of your temperature."
"Maybe all out children will have fine temperatures."
"Our children will probably have beastly temperatures." (97).
"I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them...had read them...now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it...Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the number of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates" (169).
"The wounded were coming into the post, some were carried on stretchers, some walking and some were brought on the back of men that came across the field. They were wet to the skin and all were scared" (170).
The two disobedient sergeants. Bonello "he walked down to where the sergeant of engineers lay face down across the road. Bonello leaned over, put the pistol against the man's head and pulled the trigger...he cocked it and fired twice" (186).
"Bonello...was looking through thep ockets of the sergeant's coat" (187).
"You certainly shot that sergeant, Tenente," Piani said. We were walking fast.
"I killed him," Bonello said. "I never killed anybody in this war, and all my life I've wanted to kill a sergeant."
"You killed him on the sit all right," Piani said. "He wasn't flying very fast when you killed him."
"Never mind. That's one thing I Can always remember. I killed that ---of a sergeant."
"What will you say in confession?" Aymo asked.
"I'll say, 'Bless me, father, I killed a sergeant.'"
They all laughed (189).
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