Enduring Love-Key Quotes

1. The balloon accident (Chapter 1, pg.8-16)
a) Active, dynamic verbs: "Then there was another gust, and the pilot was on his back, bumping over the rough ground, trying to dig his feet in for puchase, or lunging for the anchor behind him in order to secure it to the earth.. The towering balloon wavered and tilted and tugged, but the beast was tamed...The wind renewed its rage...Then it struck the balloon which ceased its innocent comical wagging and was suddenly stilled" (Chapter 1, pg.9)
b) Dramatic imagery: "A mighty fist socked the balloon in two rapid blows, one-two, the second more vicious than the first. And the first was vicious. (Chapter 1, pg.9)
c) Eerie, quiet final stage: "Mute helplessness...Our silence was a kind of death warrant. Or it was a horrified shame...And then he let go...We watched him drop. You could see the acceleration...Only ruthless gravity...He fell as he had hung, a stiff little black stick. I've never seen such a terrible thing as a falling man" (Chapter 1, pg.16)
2, The restaurant shooting (Chapter 19) "like walking into a storm...Their skin was a lifeless prosthetic pink, the colour of dolls, or of medical plasters, the colour of no-one's skin...The silenced bullet struck through his white shirt at his shoulder and lifted him from his chair and smacked him against the wall The high velocity impact forced a fine spray, a blood mist, across our tablecloth, our desserts, our sight... a dog-like yelp...It should have been me...This was in the time before the intervention of feeling, before the division of thought, before the pnic and the guilt, and all the choices"

1. In some ways, a straightforward thriller
a) Defined, dramatic opening:"The beginning is simple to mark", "This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map" (Chapter 1, pg.1)
b) Builds up to a climactic scene in the apartment

2. In other ways, a twisting and turning mystery
a) Immediatle Rose indicates his initial presentation of a 'simple' is undermined:"What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths" (Chaper 1, pg.1), " A beginning is an artifice" (Chapter 2, pg.17)

1. The field (Chapter 1)
a) Beauty of nature is connected to love and inner joy: "Each leaf seemed to glow with an internal light" (Joe with Clarissa, Chapter 1, pg.5)
b) Negative presentation of nature acts as a bad omen: "Branches creaked like rusted machinery" (Chapter 1, pg.5), "Paths that dipped across [fields] to sink into the darkness of the beech stands, neglected, badly drained valleys where thick iridescent mosses covered the rotting tree trunks" (Chapter 1, pg.6)
2. Jean Logan's house: "A perfect setting for sorrow...A cramped back room which gave on to an enormous walled garden dominated by a flowering cherry...The air was so thick that breathing was a conscious effort. There was a gas fire on, burning yellow and probably leaking carbon monoxide...Dried twigs, last year's buds...yellowing newspapers...layers of faded and thinning rugs...poisonous fire...[The tent's] struts had collapsed on one side and it was teetering into a flower bed. It had a sodden abandoned look...
3. The river

1. Joe- represents science
a) Joe's mathematical/ sientific/ rational/ scientific mind
i. There is security in facts: "comforting geometry", "reassuring clarity" and "mathematical grace" (Chapter 1, pg.2-3)
ii. The logic of the 'selfish gene': "Selfishness is also written on our hearts...The child was not my child, and I was not willing to die for it" (Chapter 1, pg.14-15), "Such is [Gadd's] genetic investment, I remember thinking stupidly" (Chapter 2, pg.19)
iii. The methodical deconstruction, the "obsessive re-examination" (Chapter 1, pg.2) of the accident: "A post-mortem, a re-living, a de-briefing, the rehearsal of grief, and the exorcism of terror" (Chapter 2, pg.28)
b) Arrogant/ selfish/ proud
i. He is too proud to back down even when he realises he is wrong to look at Logan's body: "The mania began to subside and I felt trapped in my decision...The fear...spread like a mist...I was walking into it without choice now, because they were watching me, and to turn back would have meant...a double humiliation" (Chapter 2, pg.21-22)
c. Emotional/ irrational/ unreliable; Joe is very open with the reader about his feelings
d. Caring/ empathetic

2. Clarissa-represents the arts
a) Empathetic/ emotional/ passionate
i. On Keats' love letters to Fanny Brawne: "He loved her so hard. It's ieasy to imagine him writing a letter he never intended to send" (Chapter 1, pg.7)
ii. When a friend's baby died, the "death cut her down. [Joe] had never witnessed such disaling grief" (Chapter 3, pg.31), "Mojorie's pain became Clarissa's" (Chapter 3, pg.32)
iii. She helps Joe to seek comfort and look at situations emotionally, pulling him towards her to crete strength from intimacy. Joe knows he nees her to balance him: "Why didn't I think like this? We needed love ...[She} made me feel that I belonged, that I was rooted and blessed" Chapter 3, pg.33)
b) Literary
i. References Milton to describe the accident: "Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Sky" (Chapter 3, pg.29)
c. 'Clarissa's' perspective (Chapter 9)

3. Jed- represents religion
a. Feels as if he has to 'make sense of things by believing in a divine plan
i. On the accident: "God has brought us together in this tragedy and we have to, you know, make whatever sense of it we can?" (Chapter 2, pg.25)
b. [Parry's voice] "Ahint of  whine", "sulkily", "urgently", "a series of gasps", "whisper", "wailed" (pg.62-64)
c. [Parry to Joe] "You want to hurt me and dominate me, but the fact is I come bearing gifts. The purpose is to bring you to the Christ that is in you and is you" (p.66)

"He was always there...like a dog tied up outside a shop" (p.77)

Parry's letter to Joe (Chapter 11): "I stand before you naked, defenceless" (pg.93)

Title
1. 'Enduring' as an adjective- love that endures (lasts): long-lasting, patient, permanent, continuing despite hardship/obstacles
a) Joe and Clarissa's marriage
b) Parry's love for Joe
2. Psychological thriller

1. Tension and drama
a) The balloon accident (Chapter 1, pg.8-16)

2. Tangents and avoidance
a) Joe is aware he is "holding back, delaying information...lingering" (Chapter 1, p.2) because as a narrator he is using the story as a way to work through the event, which shows he is not quite ready to tell the tale/ face the 'truths' of the situation
b) Denying the reader the satisfaction of the accident's immediate aftermath (Chapter 2, pg.17)

1. Basic, blunt, factual descriptions
a) Due to "ruthless gravity", John Logan's dead body is "a stiff little black stick" (Chapter 1, pg.16), "The skeletal structure had collapsed internally to produce a head on a thickened stick" (Chapter 2, pg.23)
2. Images of science
3. Images of art
a) John Logan's body is "a radical , Picassoesque violation of perspective" (Chapter 2, pg.23)
4. Images of religion

1. Joe
a) From Clarissa's point of view: "You're so rational sometimes you're like a child" (Chapter3, pg.33), "The rationalist cracks at last!" (Chapter 3, pg.35)
2. Clarissa
a) First introduction indicates her importance to Joe/ his love for her; her birthday present is the "most expensive single item [Joe has] ever bought" (Chapter 1, pg.3)
b) Physical description emphasises how Joe sees her as a radiant, almost otherworldly beauty: her "Celt's pale skin and green eyes...gleaming in an alien light" (Chapter 1, pg.5)
c. Passion for literature (Chpter 1, pg.6-7)
3. Jed Parry
a) First mention of Jed creates intrigue; to the buzzard in the sky, it seems Joe and Jed are "rushing towards each other like lovers, innocent of the grief this entanglement  would bring" (Chapter 1, pg.2)
b) Physical description: "His long bony face was framed round a painted question. He looked wretched, like a dog about to be punished" (Chapter 2, pg.19-20), "He was tall and lean, all bone and sinew, and he looked fit...His bones fairly burst out of him...skin which was white and stretched tight...His appearance was striking, even slightly threatening, but the voice gave it all away" (Chapter 2, pg.24)

4. John Logan
a) Brief introduction is very positive: "A family doctor...He had done a stint with a mountain rescue team...Logan was a mild, reticent man apparently" (Chapter 1, pg.12, pg.15), "In John Logan, husband, father, doctor and mountain rescue worker, the flame of altruism must have burned a little stronger" (Chapter1, pg.15)
5. Jean Logan
a) Her eyes look "small and dry, not reddened by grief, but sunk, and glazed by wearinss" (pg.108)
b)"She looked a long way off, out on her own in unspeakable weather, like a lone arctic Explorer" (pg.108)
c) She speaks "heroically animating her features" (pg.108) "smiling wonkily" (pg.110)
d)"Her hair was greasy and pulled back harshly across her scalp and held in a ragged bun" Signs of her self-neglect? (pg.110)
e) Her voice's "sourness surprised [Joe]", showing "anger ...suddenly" and "sarcasm...too thearical, too energetic" (Pg.110)
"I'll kill her. God help me, but I will" (Pg.117)

Final Chapter- Anti-climactic ending?- Opening was a catalyst

"Golden swathes of buttercups"
"Long winter of his obsession"
"Whatever it had done to us, she wanted to be there at its conclusion"

Appendices

"R and M were reconciled and later successfully adopted a child"
"I've never felt so free. I'm soaring, I'm so happy Joe"

1. Opening intrigue created through the foreshadowing and hints: "We were running towards a catastrophe" (Chapter 1, pg.3); Joe does not reveal what the "catastrophe" is for a number of pages, but does mention an 'inquest' (pg.12)

2. Jed's mania is suggested early on: "Everything, every gesture, every word I spoke was being stored away, gathered nd piled, fuel for the long winter of his obsession" (Chapter 2, pg.21)

gfgvdfg