Chapter 8

     This chapter has a new narrator - Oskar's grandmother, and she writes with a completely resigned sadness in her heart.  She is writing about her past and a bit of her present with Oskar's grandfather.  The story correlates with the story of the old man in previous chapters, confirming that the old man is Oskar's grandfather and Oskar's grandmother is the sister of the woman, Anna, the old man pines for.  This chapter paints a picture of two people who say they don't know how to live and therefore live in routines and rules and habits.  They never really talk about the real things in their relationship - such as the fact that the old man has been pining for her sister for their entire relationship and has been trying to mold her sister into Anna but can't. 
      It is an interesting relationship because they seem to really care for each other but not in the way that a typical married couple would.  They seem to be people who have had similar pasts and trauma's and therefore have bonded on a different level than typical people.  They have a very dynamic and slow moving relationship made up of rules, somethings, and nothings.  It is a very resigned way to live.  Some quotes to demonstrate this resigned sadness are below.

"Why are you leaving me?
He wrote, I do not know how to live.
I do not know either, but I am trying.
I do not know how to try" (page 181).

"I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it somthing worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness" (page 180).

"When I said goodbye to him, before he left for the airport, I lifted his suitcase and it felt heavy.
That was how I knew he was leaving me" (page 178).

"It was the first time I had ever cried in front of him.  It felt like making love" (page 178).

"I would have done anything for him.  Maybe that was my sickness. We made love in nothing places and turned the lights off.  It felt like crying. We could not look at each other.  It always had to be from behind.  Like the first time.  And I knew that he wasn't thinking of me" (page 177). 

Thank you,

Olivia