A few more notes on The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

Chapter 5 Goat Songs

• The title is a reference to an earlier comment where it is said that this is a literal translation for a Greek word that we translate as tragedy (in the sense of a play).
• The chapter itself describes the events immediately following the arrival of Vina Apsara and Ormus Cama to the Merchant household.
• Here are a few quotations:
• "She was a rag-bag of selves, torn fragments of people she might have become." [p. 122]
• "I can still give no credence whatsoever to systems of belief. They seem flimsy, unpersuasive examples of the literary genre known as 'unreliable narration'". [p. 123]
• "A woman who can sing is never entirely beyond salvation. She can open her mouth and set her spirit free." [p. 124]
• "Ormie da Gama, your great explorer, discovering you like a new world full of spices." [p. 125]
• On page 127 there is reference to Vina reading "On the Road". This is the book I just bought last weekend!
• More quotations:
• "you came to India and caught a dose of Wisdom-of-the-East-itis, a.k.a. gurushitia, our incurable killer brain desease." [p. 130]
• "The best of our natures is drowning in the worst." [p. 131]
• "But how may I believe in the perfectibility of the universe, when in my small backwater there are so many slippery slopes?" [p. 133]
• "Reason and the imagination, the light and the light, do not coexist peacefully. They are both powerful lights. Separately or together, they can blind you. Some people see well in the dark." [p. 147]

I appear to have developed a rhythm of about a chapter an hour. But the chapters and reflections are a joy. Rushdie says much in this novel, but it is often hidden under humorous and punny leaves.

I m also enjoying typing in the quotations that struck me, reflecting and musing about them for minutes at a time. There is a place for slow thinking.