marítimo

first of all i loved it... i was half expecting having to pull through at least some of the book but it really was overall enjoyable and this is coming from someone who is relearning how to read. highsmith is insane etc etc. i'm gonna try not to say too much just because i've barely organized my thoughts about it and i really want to share quotes mostly.

i loved therese... i'm a very big fan of the 'young unknowngly selfish girl' trope apparently. she is soooo fucked up and kind of horrible at times but she is allowed because i love her. i specially liked the parts where carol was like "actually, [starts listing therese's faults]" it was always funny and refreshing TO ME. and the way you can tell that what therese is thinking is fucked up and just plain wrong but you also get why she assumes the things she does... genius. all the expectations she projects onto carol are soo delicious... "if carol doesnt stand her ground like i know she can i will be disappointed" and such things...

all the mommy/girl vibes were excellent i feasted on them. i love lesbian age difference i don't give a fuck... also T__T i really was convinced that they were meant to be together and i was tearing up in the subway reading the part where therese turns carol down... im soooo glad that they actually got a happy ending it made me emotional not gonna lie.

overall it's probably one of my favorite books and possibly in my top 3 gay books ? i don't actually read gay novels as much as i should though so maybe that's why. time to quote dump! i'm too lazy to contextualize a lot of them so if you know you know. i only started highlighting shit after 1/3 of the book though thats on me </3.

How would its salt come back?

She looked at the chunky figures of the two Italian workmen standing at the bar, and at the two girls at the end of the bar whom she had noticed before, and now that they were leaving, she saw that they were in slacks. One had hair cut like a boy's.
Therese looked away, aware that she avoided them, avoided being seen looking at them. (p. 83)

Half an hour later, Therese saw Carol look up at them from a table near the center of the room, and almost like the first time, like the echo of an impact that had been tremendous, Therese was jolted by the sight of her. (p. 84)

If Carol had to go home now, Therese thought, she would do something violent. Like jump off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Or take the three benzedrine tablets Richard had given her last week. (p. 85)

It was so easy for a man and woman to find each other, to find someone who would do, but for her to have found Carol— (p. 89)

"They called me up. They want somebody from Philadelphia."
"Oh, baby. I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's just this business," Therese said. Carol's hand was on the back of her neck, Carol's thumb rubbing behind her ear as Carol might have fondled a dog. (p. 94)

Therese took a sip from Carol's half-finished coffee on the kitchen table, drank from the place where the lipstick was. (p. 100)

"I wonder if you'll really enjoy this trip," Carol said. "You so prefer things reflected in a glass, don't you? You have your private conception of everything. Like that windmill. It's practically as good as being in Holland to you. I wonder if you'll even like seeing real mountains and real people." (p. 102)

"My little orphan," Carol said.
Therese smiled. There was nothing dismal, no sting in the word when Carol said it. (p. 107)

"What're you standing there for?" Carol asked. "Get to bed, sleepyhead."

"Carol, I love you." (p. 109)

Then she kissed Therese on the lips, as if they had kissed a thousand times before. (p. 109)

And she did not have to ask if this were right, no one had to tell her, because this could not have been more right or perfect. (p. 110)

"My angel," Carol said. "Flung out of space." (p. 110)
 

She watched the land and the sky for the meaningless events that her mind insisted on attaching significance to, the buzzard that banked slowly in the sky, the direction of a tangle of weeds that bounced over a rutted field before the wind, and whether a chimney had smoke or not. (p. 129)

Carol was crying, silently. Therese looked at the downward curve of her lips that was not like Carol at all, but rather like a small girl's twisted grimace of crying. She stared incredulously at the tear that rolled over Carol's cheekbone. (p. 131)

She had seen just now what she had only sensed before, that the whole world was ready to be their enemy, and suddenly what she and Carol had together seemed no longer love or anything happy but a monster between them, with each of them caught in a fist. (p. 134)

"Though all we have known is only a beginning. I meant to try to tell you in this letter that you don't even know the rest and perhaps you never will and are not supposed to— meaning destined to." (p. 148)

"[...] that the rapport between two men or two women can be absolute and perfect, as it can never be between man and woman, [...]" (p. 149)

Now the same kind of street filled her with a tense excitement, made her want to plunge headlong into it, down the sidewalk with all the signs and theater marquees and rushing, bumping people. (p 159)

"Anyway, it's a living and I'll like it. The apartment's a nice big one—big enough for two. I was hoping you might like to come and live with me, but I guess you won't." (p. 162)

Once that had been impossible, and had been what she wanted most in the world. To live with her and share everything with her, summer and winter, to walk and read together, to travel together. (p. 163)

And now she saw Carol's face changing, saw the little signs of astonishment and shock so subtle that perhaps only she in the world could have noticed them, and Therese could not think for a moment. (p. 163)

Therese knew suddenly that Genevieve Cranell would never mean anything to her, nothing apart from this half hour at the cocktail party, that the excitement she felt now would not continue, and not be evoked again at any other time or place. (p. 166)

The air was cool and sweet on her forehead, made a feathery sound like wings past her ears, and she felt she flew across the streets and up the curbs. Toward Carol. And perhaps Carol knew at this moment, because Carol had known such things before. (p. 167)

Carol raised her hand slowly and brushed her hair back, once on either side, and Therese smiled because the gesture was Carol, and it was Carol she loved and would always love. Oh, in a different way now, because she was a different person, and it was like meeting Carol all over again, but it was still Carol and no one else. It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell. (p. 167)

and that's it! sorry for basically telling the whole book through quotes i couldn't resist myself, and i even cut a bunch of highlights that were some same scenes. <3 getting emotional again.