How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
In all his travels the Bishop had seen no country like this. From the flat red sea of sand rose great rock mesas, generally Gothic in outline, resembling vast cathedrals. (3.3.1)
Latour has never seen anything like the landscape of New Mexico. But notice here how he tries to make the unfamiliar seem more familiar by comparing the rocks to "vast cathedrals." Here, we see a good example of how the human mind will always try to convert new information into familiar terms. The only problem is that New Mexico is so, so foreign that Latour has to really struggle to make some of these comparisons.
Quote #5
Something reptilian he felt here, something that had endured by immobility, a kind of life out of reach, like the crustaceans in their armour. (3.3.28)
It's not just the landscape of New Mexico that confuses Father Latour, but the people who have always lived there, too. He can't help but feel as though there's some hidden force in these people that he'll never really understand. Which makes sense, really, considering that this culture is way different from anything that the European Latour has ever seen.
Quote #6
When this strange yellow boy played it, there was softness and languor in the wire strings—but there was also a kind of madness; the recklessness, the call of wild countries which all these men had felt and followed in one way or another. (6.1.14)
When he hears a boy playing the banjo, Latour once again can feel himself in a strange land with strange customs. There's something about the plinking sounds of the banjo that captures the giddy, half-crazy beauty of New Mexico.