Partita

“It tilts you on a slant, to walk your whole road with a question like that and no answer to balance it out.”

This opening line establishes the theme of The Importance of Rethinking the Past through the metaphor of being tilted “on a slant.” The image aims to let readers feel the off-kilter weight Livia carries as she strives to understand her family’s history despite incomplete information. The extended metaphor of life as a “road” she must “walk” suggests grief is not a single event but a journey, while the word “balance” introduces imagery of weight and counterweight that will echo throughout the novel. By opening with second-person “you,” the narrator pulls readers directly into her unsteady perspective.

“The Planets Suite is about how we feel looking out at other places. Exploring them, imagining them. So it’s all about us, really. But we can’t see ourselves while we do that. The ground we’re standing on is taken for granted, I guess.”

This analysis of Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets works as an extended metaphor for Livia’s own life. The contrast between “other places” and “the ground we’re standing on” creates irony: We look outward while failing to see the ground we are standing on. The idea foreshadows how her artistic ambition and growing passion for Sigurd prevents her from appreciating her present life, which will soon be catastrophically derailed.