How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
And this is all [...] I am going to think about it. I am going back to Grandmother's nineteenth century, where the problems and the people are less messy. (3.1.75)
Lyman lays out his mission statement so clearly that he pretty much does all of our work for us. C'mon, dude. Basically, the guy is delving into his grandparents' past because his life in the present is way too much for him to deal with. Unfortunately for him, he'll soon learn that the past isn't all that neat and tidy, either.
Quote #2
It all looks as it looked in my boyhood [...] My eyes have not changed, the St. Paul's boy is still there. (3.7.5)
Lyman feels seriously nostalgic while he's back at his grandparents' Zodiac Cottage. But that's just the half of it: being there also makes him feel more connected to the little boy he was back then, the little boy who admired his grams and gramps more than anything in the world.
Quote #3
"I'm not writing a book of Western history [...] I'm writing about something else. A marriage, I guess." (4.1.53)
The more Lyman writes his book, the more he understands his own motivations. What he doesn't yet realize is that his own broken marriage drastically affects the way he understands his grandparents' lives—though that realization will come soon enough.