How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
One child broke away from the others and raced along the golden fire, somehow guessing just where and when it would flare up. The girl gave an odd, flailing kick — and landed on her rear. For an instant there was a light in the nearest goal, so sharp and intense it was as if all the fog had suddenly coalesced into the fuzzy image of a soccer ball. Everybody was shouting, even the phantom adults in the bleachers.
Robert made a grumpy noise. Even something as simple as a schoolyard game didn't make sense. (14.124-5)
Egan soccer is a new form of an old game. (How old is soccer? Let's put it this way: some of the earliest players probably wore togas.) Robert doesn't understand the game—heck, we're not sure that we do, either. At least we can all agree that this game involves a lot more technology than just a ball and a goal. Even supporting your kid has changed some, as you see some of those "phantom adults" are only there virtually.
Quote #8
"The wonders of nano-fluidics. A decade of old-time bioscience done in every shifting of the lights. How do you represent a trillion samples, and a billion trillion analyses? How can art deal with that?" (23.26)
This is Rabbit, so maybe he's just being a pain in the neck when he asks Robert this question. But maybe he has a point: with science and tech getting so complex (what are nano-fluidics and where can we get some?), where does art fit? Can Robert write poetry to capture the human condition when tech and culture are changing so much, and so fast?
Quote #9
"And now— " Juan grabbed for still greater import "—and now, ladies and gentlemen, the Orchestra of the Americas will perform their very own adaptation of Beethoven's EU Anthem, with lyrics by Orozco and Gu, and network synchrony by Gu and Orozco!" (33.92)
First, let's note that, like Robert's mysterious poetry, we never get to hear Juan's poem. How does that change your reading experience? (Frankly, we are curious what the poem is even about.) Second, even without knowing Juan's poem, we do like this project as a symbol of culture (music, poetry) coming together with technology (synching). This final project seems pretty "symbolic" of that type of collaboration.