More notes on "The Ground Beneath Her Feet":

Quotations from Chap. 3

• "Cities are not immortal; nor are memories; nor are gods. Of all the deities of childhood's Olympus, hardly any now remain." [p. 57]
• "We all have to deal with the uncertainty of the modern. The ground shivers, and we shake." [p. 62]
• "It is possible I'm pouring the wine of several beach weekends into the bottle of a single day." [p.64]
• "My parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear, assuming in fact, like my parents, they weren't interested in gods, and that this uninterest was 'normal'. You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again." [p. 70] This has an autobiographical ring to it.
• "... in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race ... the phenomenon may be as 'natural' a manifestation of human nature as its opposite ... for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform." [p. 73]
• "Ava, that palindromic goddess who looked just as good when seen from the back as from the front." [p. 74]
• "... at my worst, I have been a cacophony, a mass of human noises that did not add up to the symphony of an integrated self." [p. 75]
• "From the heights you see only pinnacles. I yearned for the city streets. ... I yearned for life." [p. 80]

Making notes like this certainly does slow down the speed of one's reading. Is it worth it? Yes! The enjoyment that comes from a more thoughtful reading is in fact the point. The journey is the goal, not the last page.