How to Read a Book

“The store had a way of tidying the pitch-and-lurch of his feelings, forcing the past to recede, bracketing his days with the zeal of youth.”

Personification allows the store to “clean up” Frank’s feelings, as it has a calming, organizing influence on his emotions. The “pitch-and-lurch” metaphor describes Frank’s turbulent emotions, which create instability and inner turmoil, as a boat. The alliteration emphasizes him pushing away memories, a deliberate effort to move forward. The store provides structure to Frank’s life, offering a sense of order amidst emotional chaos and evokes a sense of vitality and enthusiasm, creating a rejuvenating effect on Frank and linking his present state to the vigor of his younger days.

“She’d fully committed to exposing the women to the open air of literature, to the sunshine of fresh ideas—an endeavor not unlike gardening after all.”

The metaphor compares Harriet’s exposing women to literature to the nurturing process of gardening, in that literature helps ideas and personal growth flourish just as sunlight helps plants grow. Since the women are trapped inside most of the time, literature provides a space for their minds to breathe and explore. The personification of literature conveys warmth, enlightenment, and the positive and transformative impact of new ideas.

“I could hear every breath my mother took, little saw blades shredding my insides, cut by cut.”

This passage captures guilt’s overwhelming and torturous nature, illustrating how it can manifest as a persistent, inescapable pain. Comparing her mother’s breaths to razor blades is a metaphor that describes Violet’s deep anguish over her mother’s death. Violet’s guilt is ongoing and cumulative, creating intense emotional suffering as each breath inflicts a new wound. The personification of the breaths heightens the sense of physical and emotional devastation, making the guilt feel tangible.

“Outside, I stand on the stoop for a while like it’s a diving board and the street is a twenty-foot pool.”

This passage illustrates the reality of The Effects of Incarceration as Violet struggles to cope with life outside prison. The simile compares walking out her door to leaping from an impossibly high place into a dangerously shallow pool. Her struggles with executive functioning and completing regular daily tasks exhibit the adverse effects of incarceration on her and the lack of support she receives in rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

“Maybe tears hide away in the body until such a time as they can spout safely. Freely. In the clear. I guess I’m in the clear.”

Personifying her tears attributes a human-like behavior to an emotional response. In prison, Violet must suppress her emotions, and being with Harriet is a safe moment for release. Harriet provides a secure emotional space where vulnerability is permitted. Safe in Harriet’s care, Violet experiences an emotional release, allowing her to confront her decisions and decide how to move forward. This passage demonstrates the pivotal role Harriet plays in aiding Violet’s journey toward Forgiveness of Self and Others.

“She’d begun their marriage as lead, soft and pliable, elastic and forgiving, but over the years she’d transformed herself into a high-carbon steel, strong and hard and resistant to wear.”

Frank often uses metal metaphors to describe emotions as he spent his life working with different types of metals as a machinist. He uses the metaphor to describe the way Lorraine changed throughout their marriage. She was once emotionally malleable, amenable to change and growth. Over time, she grew hard and cold, unwilling to work on herself or their marriage. Unlike the metals he can bend and shape with his tools, Frank couldn’t fix what was broken in their marriage.

“[T]he truth tumbled into the room like an unpinned grenade.”

Violet speaks frankly to Sophie about her lack of empathy, which she believes will make her a subpar social worker. The simile conveys the explosive and potentially destructive impact that the revelation of truth can have on a situation. Violet’s words come out suddenly and with a seeming lack of control. The metaphor of a grenade emphasizes the danger of Violet’s words as they could blow up her chance at a relationship with Sophie or Harriet. Fortunately, Sophie respects Violet’s truth about her experience and helps Violet land the lab assistant job.

“These words do not fly off my tongue. These words step out one by one, wearing shoes.”

In contrast to Violet’s previous explosive speech, she chooses her words carefully this time. The metaphor describes Violet’s cautious and deliberate speech, suggesting she carefully chooses each word, emphasizing a sense of restraint and precision in communication. It is a moment of introspection and measured speech in a complex, tense conversation. The personification of the words as entities that move deliberately conveys the gravity of the situation, where each word carries significant meaning and requires careful consideration.

“[I]nto my happiness God pours sadness in exactly the same amount, like he’s measuring it out in a Pyrex cup.”

The passage reveals Violet’s complex relationship with religion and God. The metaphor conveys a deliberate and calculated distribution of emotions. The imagery of God pouring sadness into happiness evokes a sense of the inevitability of divine control, implying that joy and sorrow are intrinsically linked and carefully balanced by forces out of her control. Violet believes that happiness and sadness are always in proportion, with one inevitably following the other, creating a sense of emotional complexity where her joy is always tinged with an awareness of sadness. The metaphor of God as a precise measure reflects Violet’s resignation to the inevitability of life’s emotional highs and lows.

“As he listened to the pleasing thud of books being shelved, the clickety-clack of books being ordered or reordered or searched for, the rattle of the jumbo-size cat-food bag.”

The auditory sensations of the bookstore are comforting to Frank. The familiar sounds evoke a sense of order and satisfaction, helping Frank find contentment in his work routine. The onomatopoeia enhances the scene’s realism, making the sounds feel tangible. The juxtaposition of the sounds of books with the bag of cat food introduces a contrast between the store as a place of business and a temporary shelter for cats. This passage highlights Frank’s appreciation for life’s small, rhythmic pleasures, revealing the bookstore as both a physical space and a source of emotional fulfillment.

“If a parrot can tell me my name, then why can’t three years drop through a hole in the universe? What’s one more miracle?”

Violet still regrets the time she lost in prison. She compares the feat of teaching the parrots to talk to being able to turn back time or regain the time she lost. Violet’s resigned rhetorical questioning expresses her frustration, disbelief in miracles, and disillusionment. She wishes she could escape or erase past events, signaling her ongoing struggle with her traumatic history.

“Her words dropped into the room before he could grasp their meaning. They merely landed, like an unaddressed package on a doorstep. Could anything be inside?”

Kristy’s revelation that Lorraine blamed Frank for the ending of their marriage leaves him in shock. The simile compares Kristy’s words to an unexpected delivery, emphasizing the uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding their meaning. Frank struggles to grasp the meaning of her words, adding to the tension of an already fraught conversation. The rhetorical question at the end suggests Frank wonders if there’s more to Kristy’s words such as a hidden meaning he’s meant to discover.

“Perhaps it’s an oddity of human nature to judge women more harshly. Or maybe we expect so little of men, their transgressions don’t register the same.”

Harriet addresses her recognition of the societal double standards that judge women more harshly than men. She emphasizes that this is an ingrained yet flawed aspect of societal behavior. This recognition of gender-based disparity underscores how men’s transgressions are often minimized or overlooked due to expecting little of them. Many of the women in the novel were more harshly judged than their male partners, examples of this inequality Harriet highlights.

“His name feels like chocolate on my tongue, and I taste it all day.”

When Dr. Petrov tells Violet to call him Misha, it marks a turning point in their relationship, as using his first name is more intimate. The simile suggests that Misha’s name brings Violet pleasure and indulgence, much like the taste of chocolate, evoking warmth and sweetness. Saying the name continues to bring her comfort and pleasure all day. Her love for him reawakens her desire and passion, though it’s a doomed love affair.

“He’s going to give me his sorrow, and it’s going to be heavy, and it’s going to be mine.”

This passage explores the burden of shared emotions through repetition and metaphor. In listening to Frank share his story, Violet prepares for the emotional heaviness it will bring. Violet willingly accepts the responsibility to bear it, as helping Frank carry some of his sadness helps relieve some of her guilt. The moment illustrates how one person’s sorrow can be transferred, distributing the burden between two people and uniting them together in emotional healing.

“Tomorrow, though: tomorrow was already a wonder-in-progress, a gift unwrapping, as if Frank, too, had just been released from prison.”

Getting Harriet’s phone number fills Frank with feelings of potential and possibility. By likening Frank’s situation to a released prisoner, the passage highlights his sense of liberation and renewal in that the future offers a fresh start or freedom from past constraints.

“Weeks of Yeats and his lyricism has sanded their edges, though; today Harriet sensed thinner, freer-flowing air between one body and the next.”

Studying Yeats’s poetry has a softening and transformative effect on the women, smoothing away harshness in their interactions and facilitating a more harmonious environment. Reading poetry has created a sense of openness and ease and breaks down the emotional barriers between Harriet and the women and between themselves, allowing for better communication and connection. This passage highlights the theme of The Healing Power of Books. It shows their ability to foster personal growth and improve relationships by creating a more empathetic and understanding space between individuals, even in harsh environments like prison.

“[H]er voice, and its ferocious calls for freedom, its evocation of ‘caged birds,’ spoke to them like no other.”

The reference to “caged birds” alludes to Maya Angelou’s famous poem “Caged Bird,” which symbolizes the struggle for freedom and the pain of oppression, something the women deeply understand. The passage reinforces that Angelou’s voice resonates deeply with their own experiences of confinement and limitation.

“Misha reaches out with one finger and traces my jaw, an electrical charge that feels like the trail of a falling star.”

The notion of Misha’s touch as electric captures his and Violet’s deep connection. The comparison to a shooting star implies a transitory but profound event, stressing the moment’s temporary excitement. Tactile imagery makes the scene more intimate and personal, expressing Violet’s physical pleasure from Misha’s tender touch.

“[T]hey laughed, and they kissed, and she gave up her whole self, and he gave up his whole self, and the world felt like a block of milled aluminum, it really did, glowing and durable and without flaw.”

Frank and Harriet’s physical union is a mutual surrender as they release the failures from their past relationships and embrace a hopeful future together. Aluminum is known for being solid and durable, and the metaphor suggests that their love creates a sense of solidity and permanence.

“The moat of bliss that surrounds me is far too wide for the truth to cross over.”

Violet constructs a fragile sense of happiness with Misha. The metaphor compares her sense of bliss to a barrier between her and the truth about Misha’s marriage. Moats protect and isolate castles; thus, the image portrays Violet’s need to defend herself against emotional harm. Violet focuses on physical pleasure and deliberately or subconsciously keeps herself distant from reality, choosing to remain in a state of denial over Misha being married. The personification of truth as something that attempts to breach the moat adds a sense of impending confrontation, foreshadowing that her emotional barrier will not hold forever.

“These two marvelous women, and this exceptional bird, were snapping a lid on that solitude. Or blowing the lid clean off.”

The unexpected family he suddenly has found in Harriet, Violet, and even Ollie delights Frank. Their presence simultaneously closes the chapter on Frank’s life of solitude and opens the lid, or door, to a new season of fullness and connection. This revelation liberates him as he’s felt trapped and confined by his solitude, and now connection and freedom have replaced loneliness.

“These yeses felt like power, like gateways, like love.”

After Frank proposes, Harriet remembers everything she has said yes to since Lou’s death. Each affirmative response gives Harriet strength and control over her circumstances. By saying yes, Harriet leads herself to new experiences and possibilities. These affirmations of her independence are empowering and connected to feelings of affection and connection. Her emphatic “yes” to Frank’s proposal epitomizes her choosing her path to happiness.