How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Something tells him that none of this is for his benefit, that this is the way the Ratliffs eat every night. Gerald is a lawyer, and Lydia is a curator of textiles at the Met. They are at once satisfied and intrigued by his background, by his years at Yale and Columbia, his career as an architect, his Mediterranean looks. "You could be Italian," Lydia remarks at one point during the meal, regarding him in the candle's glow. (6.24)
Weirdly, Gerald and Lydia seem to appreciate Gogol as yet another ornament in their massive collection of fancy things There's something disturbing about the way Lydia appreciates his "Italian" looks, as if looking Indian wasn't somehow posh enough.
Quote #5
He has fallen the tiniest bit in love with Lydia and with the understated, unflustered way she entertains. He is always struck by these dinners: only a dozen or so guests sitting around the candlelit table, a carefully selected mix of painters, editors, academics, gallery owners, eating the meal course by course, talking intelligently until the evening's end. (6.54)
During his relationship with Maxine, Gogol is seduced by the way her family entertains: it's an elite, cultured, sophisticated lifestyle, in contrast to the way his parents indiscriminately collect Bengali friends just because they are Bengali. But really, which couple is shallower in the end?
Quote #6
Donald and Astrid are a languidly confident couple, a model, Gogol guesses, for how Moushumi would like their own lives to be […] Their decrees drive Gogol crazy. But Moushumi is loyal. She regularly goes out of her way, and thus out of their budget, to buy bread at that bakery, meat at that butcher. (9.45)
Donald and Astrid are basically younger versions of Gerald and Lydia. They are high-class couples who live lives of luxury and aren't afraid to admit it. Or flaunt it, for that matter.