Annotation of Against Jo de Viore

There were many lines/passages that jumped out at me in "Against Jo de Viore" (APE).  Here are the ones I chose to annotate:

1.) "She wanted to seduce me, like a stranger on a plane. But I was too easy, so we ended up seducing others. Then we turned back to each other and with one last desperate attempt, before our marriage fell to pieces..." (pg. 729)

- Throughout this entire class, I said "show me, don't tell me," and that is exactly what Phillip Lopate does here. He could flat-out say that their marriage didn't last becasue they slept with other people and didn't desire each other the same. Instead, he gives us visions and - sometimes uncomfortable - scenarios to describe a delicate topic. This is something I understood and enjoyed.

2.) "It's odd, because there seems to be a contradiction between the curmudgeonly feeling inside me and my periodically strong appetite for life." (pg. 723)

- I found this to be a very interesting line. Curmudgeon is defined as "a person (especially an old man) who is easily annoyed or angered and who often complains."I found this funny, as just becasue someone complains about life and the changes and as Lopote says, "social injustices" - it doesn't mean there isn't a reason to still live life fully. Lopote does a great job of capturing his mixed-upedness and it's something to admire.

3.) "For a moment all become quiet, except for the sounds of eating. This corresponds to the part in a church that calls for a silent prayer." (pg. 721)

- These lines come after a passage describing the dinner party Lopote is at and the people he meets. He talks about how they marvel over the food and who made what and how the entirety of the conversation is around the food. He's saying that the dinner party seems very serious by the way it's exaggerated. And he hates it. This is a hilarious way to describe it.

4.) "It is interesting that society's two most powerless groups, children and the elderly, have both been made into sentimental symbols." (pg. 719)

- I never really have been brought to this conclusion before the line in this passage about the elderly. While I'm aware that both of these groups are socially looked at as "fragile" and "little babies" or "little old folk," it never fully occurred to me that they held such contrast but overlap to each other. This is another thing Lopote does well. He makes his readers stop reading to think Oh, that is true...hmm and then move on with this new light shed on a subject forever.

5.) "I don't really know what I am waiting for. I know only that until I have gained what I want form this life, my expressions of gratitude and joy will be restricted to variations of a hunter's alertness. I give thanks to a nip in the air that clarifies the scent. But I think it's hypocritical to pretend satisfaction while I am still hungry." (pg. 731).

- This is my favorite phrase in the whole story. Lopote does an excellent job of wrapping up his overall topic of being against the phrase joie de vivre (the knack of knowing how to live). I identify the most with the last sentence in this phrase, as I myself see no reason to proclaim myself happy/satisfied with something that I truly want to get more out of. Lopote gives a great metaphor here with the hunter's alertness - and I think it's a great ending to his story.