Vocabulary: thanks dictionary.com!

affixed-173 to secure with something
scrupulous-173 principled, precice, exact
premonitory- 175 giving premonition

Figurative Language

Quote: 172- "You couldn't hear a fly, although everyone knew they were there, some perched in safe places, others dying in the filthy spider'webs hanging from the ceiling."

Analysis: Metaphor: The Resistrar is speaking to the lot of them- really digging something in deep. Course, they have no idea what that thing is, but they all gobble it up anyway. Senhor Jose is the only one who really knows what the Registrar is talking about- he is the spider dying in the web.

Quote: 170- "What you could hear more clearly was a muffled sound that rose and fell, like a distant bellows, but Senhor Jose was used to that, it was the Central Registry breathing.

Analysis: Personification: The Central Registry is two things- living and dead. So it's interesting that Senhor Jose can hear it breathing... can any of the other clerks? The Registrar? Maybe he's the only one.

Quote: 168- "We were silent for about two minutes, she was looking at me reproachfully, as if i had made her a solemn promise..."

Analysis: Figurative Language: Here, Senhor Jose makes a switch to first person- and it's rather sudden, and confused me at first. It's him writing in a journal, actually, which leads us to presume that everything that we have read thus far is just notes in a journal.

Chapter Quote: "When I'd finished talking, she asked me, And what do you think you'll do now, Nothing, I said, Are you going to go back to your collections of famous people, I don't know."

Theme: Uncertainty is the theme. I'm sure that it's it. I believe that the writing style and the wordchoice and the action are all indicators of that.


Post B

I liked this chapter, you're expecting to say. But I really thought that it was interesting. It's quite odd to watch this character who's just floating in the beginning evolve into a criminal in his own mind, and one who takes huge chances and makes leaps and bounds of advances about this woman who he doesn't even know. I think Senhor Jose reminds me of myself in some ways. Uncaring about some things a lot of the time, but willing to work through it even if it doen't get him really anything. Everything has meaning- life is meaningful, and I guess in an odd twisted way I understand through this. There's death in a very bookish sense, which I think scares me more than gory death. Because then at least somebody flinches, this kind of death, nobody knows who you are. If life is meaningful, then what's the point if it, I wonder? I've been thinking, like I'm sure I'm not supposed to be thinking about life in general during this book. It's a book that makes you think about things like that, and what the point is if everybody is anybody and nobody is all bodies. It's confusing, but it's sensical. I think it portrays everyone's journey through life, but I don't really know the journey of life, and by the time I do, it'll be too late to live it.... twisted huh?