But on this day, the day after Thomas was born, the octopus walked out of the sea and they watched it. Every one of these ocean people stood back, amazed to see it walk, the eye of it looking at them, each one seen, as if each one were known in all their past, all their future. Its skin paled at the sight of men smoking cigarettes and women in their cardigans pulled tight, with their dark windblown hair. One child stepped toward it as if to speak before his mother grabbed his arm and pulled him back to her, claiming him as a land dweller and no communicator or friend of any eight-legged sea creature.
This moment occurs at the beginning of the book. When Thomas is born, an octopus comes crawling out the sea. Everyone is astounded by this moment, shocked by the unusual nature of this occurrence. They greet the octopus with a mixture of reverence and fear. This passage characterizes the seemingly magical quality of the octopus, as the narrator describes the way in which its eye seems to see both the past and future of the entire tribe. This moment sets up the book's view of nature as being connected to a spiritual realm.
There were times when the light of the moon had gone out and she felt a great loneliness. It wasn't for herself. It was for what had happened to the grasses of their land, their waters, not just the massacre there, the slavery, but the killing of the ocean.
In this moment, Ruth grieves for her tribe. Beyond her personal tragedies, she is struck by all of the historical wrongs that have befallen her people. She reflects on the years of violence and servitude inflicted on them, as well as the destruction of their home. She is described as being afflicted by "a great loneliness," because she has the sense that things have not only gone wrong from her, but have been dire for centuries. She sees that she has been trapped in cycles of historical oppression, and that their land reflects that.
The people her own age had not ever recovered from the war. The older people are still in the pain of history. Some say it is over, the A’atsika way. It isn’t, Ruth wanted to tell the world that she hangs by her strength. Alone. Don’t be fooled. This is just America happening to us again. She would like to keep them from ruining themselves altogether. All together. That is what a tribe is. There was an old person watching her. She felt it. That person had wisdom and pride and the beauty that came with their history, and that person or spirit or ancestor loved Ruth.
This passage describes the way that Ruth is trying to hold onto the traditions of the past. She feels as though her tribe was permanently damaged by years of conflict. She expresses concern that, because of the damage done, the tribe will lose its sense of identity. This moment occurs as she is taking a stand against the men who want to undertake a whale hunt but is met with fierce and frightening opposition from the community. She believes that her efforts, while not appreciated by the people around her, are viewed favorably by her spiritual elders. This moment reflects the selfless nature of Ruth's sacrifices, as she makes choices that do not benefit her in the short term but, she believes, will protect her identity and customs in the long run.
Ruth knew there would be consequences against her. Already the anger, the hatred, the fallout from her protest was as alive as if another creature had grown and pervaded the tribe, a monster as in the stories of the past, the cannibal that wanted to eat the people, and she felt that she alone stood in its path. Some saw her as their ruin. They blamed her for the news coverage, the loud protests of the activists, and even the storm that later arrived, as if she had more power than she herself had ever known.
Elaborating on the previous quote, this passage deals with the fallout from Ruth's attempts to stop the whale hunt. She objects to the hunt because she believes it is being done for money and will not abide by any of the traditional practices of the tribe. She believes it is as if a "monster" had come along and was trying to destroy them. She feels torn, as she receives blame for things beyond her control (negative press) while also feeling completely alone in the struggle. This quote gives insight into Ruth's isolation within the community, which is poignant given the fact that she is one of the only people actually trying to preserve its history.
All stories live in our bodies, he thinks. Every last one.
This moment comes when Thomas is home in America and reflecting on the state of his body. What he means literally is that he carries numerous scars and wounds from his time in Vietnam. More abstractly, he is referring to the fact that he is unable to let go of his traumatic past memories, as they live on inside of his body. This quote is significant in that it provides meaningful insight into the pain that Thomas lives with physically and psychologically and how it prevents him from resuming his former life. His body carries the past with it.
The lone survivor sees his daughter running toward him when they find him. He remembers. For him, it all became one thing, the many pasts, the present, all one memory; a kite in the sky attached to a string, his daughter Lin running, he and Ruth once running together with a kite across a field near the river, an eagle with its wings spread, a fish in its talons. There were the sheer curtains blowing in a breeze, blowing inward as in the summer at their little newlywed house, their green fruit box house by the river. Everything falling, wind in a plastic bag floating down. Fishing weights in water. Bombs. Ruth with skinny legs holding up her skirt filled with fresh-picked apples and then letting them drop, watching them fall on the very bed where he now lay, at Witka’s where they hoped they’d live together one day, the house willed to them.
In this moment, Thomas is remembering his daughter Lin running towards the helicopter that takes him away from Vietnam. It is a memory that recurs throughout the book, as it fills him with guilt and sorrow. As the passage goes on, it details the way that he does not live in the real present but instead inhabits "many pasts'' that blur into "one memory." His mind flits through images of Ruth, explosions from the war, fishing, Witka's house, and many others. This moment effectively demonstrates how Thomas not only relives painful memories, but has no real control over his sense of time. He cannot live in the present with Ruth because his past feels too immediate.
Thomas should reach out and pull Lin toward him right away. He should hold her and love her. He should say to the young woman fighting back tears, I’m so proud of you. Because she lived, if for no other reason. He’d spent years thinking of what he’d left her to. The boy-warriors from the Thai border. Cambodia. He stands up, but as soon as he sees her, Thomas thinks Lin looks like her mother. His chest aches, but he does not go to her.
This quote indicates the gap between what Thomas "should" be doing and what he actually does. This scene occurs when his daughter from Vietnam, Lin, visits his home. Ruth takes her to Thomas and Thomas is unable to speak to her. The use of the word "should" indicates the painful absence of pride or tenderness in his behavior, as he lets her down with his silence. This moment, one she had imagined so clearly over the years, ends up being a crushing disappointment as he finds himself unable to "go to her" and express his love and regrets. Likewise, he had spent many years thinking of this instance, but ended up being inexplicably paralyzed.
“I don’t want them. The past doesn’t rest. They were smoking dope, they were killing the people’s pigs, they were planting land mines all around the place, killing innocent people. They shot at anything. The…cries, they were going to kill children. Rape and kill them. I looked at their faces. I looked at the children. I turned and shot them. There wasn’t even a look of surprise on their faces. They weren’t even that clear. I hated them. I hate myself.”
“You only won this war if you stayed alive. You should have left well enough alone. You’re more a hero in my book. Sir, is there anyone we can call to come get you?”
This quote is from a scene late in the book when Thomas admits to killing the other soldiers in his platoon. He goes to the Pentagon to return his medals and becomes very agitated. He is restrained by two men and later finds himself in a doctor's office. He talks about wanting to return his medals and explains that he feels like he was not a hero for killing other Americans, but also that the men he served with were going to commit horrible acts of violence against civilians. The doctor tells him he should leave the past behind and that he did the right thing, in his view. This passage is central to the book in that it reveals why Thomas is so traumatized by what he did and also why he felt he had no other choice. What the doctor's comments then reveal is that while what he did may not have been morally right in an obvious way, he was doing the best he could given the circumstances.
"Like the water, the earth, the universe, a story is forever unfolding. It floods and erupts. It births new worlds. It is circular as our planet and fluid as the words of the first people who came out from the ocean or out of the cave or down from the sky. Or those who came first from a garden where rivers meet and whose god was a tempter to their fall, planning it into their creation along with all the rest."
This passage highlights the book's view of how things in the world are naturally connected. This moment validates Ruth and Thomas's view of nature as sacred, as it highlights how people share common bonds throughout the world. Additionally, it describes the biblical story of Adam and Eve ("those who came first from a garden") in unfamiliar terms to suggest that all these stories are linked and go beyond different belief systems. This moment is important as it takes a wider view of things and pulls the reader out from Ruth and Thomas's story to show how they fit into a larger narrative of the natural world.
Some say the day he died, the day Dwight shot him in the chest or heart, that they saw him moving above water, dead, as if it was his soul, carried straight out to sea. Others say his body traveled to land. Some are certain a wave took him under and there was a great stillness on his face that made them less afraid of death, therefore of life. They saw a whale carry him, and some saw an octopus tentacle wrap around him like a snake and hold him into the air.
Some just say the spirit world searches for us. It wants us to listen.
These are the last paragraphs of the book. It describes the various ways that people have talked about Thomas's death and reincarnation. The variable nature of these descriptions implies that no single one is wholly reliable, but something mystical, whether or not it involved a whale or octopus, was clearly involved. The final lines suggest that regardless of how Thomas was brought back to life, his rebirth shows that the natural world clearly has powers that people can appreciate, should they choose to "listen."
