How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Page)
Quote #7
"Was the greatest battle/in naval history, which put the French to rout,/fought for a creature with a disposable tail/and elbows like a goalie? For this a redoubt/was built? And countrymen died? For a lizard/with an Aruac name? It will be rewritten/by black pamphleteers, History will be revised,/and we'll be its villains, fading from the map/...And when it's over/we'll be the bastards!" (XVII.i.92)
Major Plunkett has, perhaps, gotten just a little too much sun in his re-tracing of the battle throughout the island (hint: he's fighting with a lizard). His rant shows bitterness toward history: Who decides what is written? And who decides which people/nation was in the right? Major Plunkett knows the British are likely to come out as the bad guys—and in his heart, he knows that's probably fair—and yet, he loves the island and is British. He's in a frustrating position.
Quote #8
He had no idea how time could be reworded,/which is the historian's task. The factual fiction/of textbooks, pamphlets, brochures, which he had loaded/in a ziggurat from the library, had the affliction/of impartiality; skirting emotion/as a ship avoids a reef (XVIII.i.95)
Major Plunkett once again asks the big questions about the recording of history. He finds it difficult to approach his history of the island with impartiality, because he feels such passion for its beauty (think: Helen the island and Helen the woman). In the end, he realizes that such impartiality is a fiction—historians might "skirt" emotions, but they are the ones who focus historical memory.
Quote #9
Smoke wrote the same story/since the dawn of time. Smoke was time burning. It snaked/itself into a cloud, the wrinkled almond trees/grew older, but lovely, the dry leaves were baked like clay in a kiln. Their brightness was a disease like the golden dwarf-coconuts. It was the same/every drought. (XXII.ii.122)
We've seen how quickly smoke can transport Walcott from an ordinary day on the beach to the ancient shores of Troy and the destruction of a race. In this case, he sees smoke as a kind of vehicle for natural memory—the burning of leaves and rising of smoke are indications of seasons moving and time passing, and of life passing from one stage into the next.