His younger brother Paul (which the book hints to have alcohol issues, betting problems and a violent streak as a result of drinking) is eventually brutally murdered. The family's love for Paul is strong. Yet, as with many families, they grapple with the fact that while they loved him, they never really understood him. Or, perhaps, they did not have the chance to understand him.
Here are some excerpts that have particularly touched me...
I watched the road carefully, saying to myself, hell, my brother is not like anybody else. He is my brother and an artist and when a four-and-a-half-ounce rod is in his hand he is a major artist. He doesn't piddle around with a paint brush or take lessons to improve his short game and he won't take money even when he must need it and he won't run anywhere from anyone, least of all to the Arctic Circle. It is a shame I do not understand him.
Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as "our brothers' keepers", possessed of one of the oldest and possibly one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting of instincts. It will not let us go.
and...
For some time, though, he (Paul's father) struggled for more to hold on to. "Are you sure you have told me everything you know about his death?" he asked. I said, "Everything." "It's not much, is it?" "No," I replied, "but you can love completely without complete understanding." "That I have known and preached," my father said.
and finally, this statement by Paul's father haunts me the most...
"It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us."
2 comments:
now get the movie! The younger Brad Pitt looks really good in it! heehee.
hee hee yar tempted....but is the storyline as good as the book? aiya don't want to spoil the feeling i have after reading it leh, if the movie is not nice, that is
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