How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
And then Juan wasn't really aware of the words anymore. He was seeing; he was there. His mind floated above the little valley, scooted up the creek bed, had almost reached the foot of Pyramid Hill... when suddenly Robert Gu stopped talking, and Juan was dumped back into the reality of his place at the rear end of Ms. Chumlig's composition class. He sat for a few seconds, dazed. (6.29)
But then we get to this section in Chapter 6, when Robert struts his poetry stuff. And Robert may not be particularly impressed by what he can do, but look at the effect it has on Juan, one of those illiterates that Robert looks down on. Juan is blown away—almost literally, since his mind seems to travel virtually over the area that Robert is poetizing about. Notice how Vinge uses one long line to express Juan's virtual movement ("His mind floated") and how an ellipsis ("…") interrupts that virtual experience. Why not break that long sentence up? Why not use a dash instead of an ellipsis?
Quote #5
Sharif had filtered out the plagiarists and the sarcastic jerkoffs. That left very little. So much for high technology. He had spent the last two semesters propping up Blandings's career in Deconstructive Revisionism. In the remaining time, he worked at a 411 job for the American Poetry Association and did his best to craft a thesis out of vapor. He had come to America hoping for old-world insight into the literature that he loved. (10.40)
Sharif might be the second biggest lover of literature after Robert. But even though Sharif loves literature and came to America to study it, it's not working out so well for him. First, there are all the academic shenanigans that go on (plagiarists and sarcastic people); second, there's the professor who isn't very helpful; third, there's the job and the trouble doing his thesis homework. He sounds like a lot of graduate students we know now.
Quote #6
Juan Orozco was distinctly less able than the students of Robert's experience. By twentieth-century standards he was subliterate... except where he needed words to access data or understand results. Okay, perhaps he was not subliterate. Maybe there was some other word for these crippled children. Paraliterate? (14.51)
Finally, Robert is beginning to use "subliterate" and "illiterate" less frequently when describing people around him. By this point, Robert is willing to admit that Juan isn't much dumber than the people from Robert's time as a teacher. It sure is nice of him to recognize that these "crippled children" have certain skills that he doesn't, like silent messaging.