“Is it odd to say that your lover reminds you of a tree?” (p. 29)
This question of the narrator is found in a passage where he/she introduces Louise as his/her new lover. The space, followed by “And then I met Louise” suggests that she is going to play an important role in the narrator’s life. To me, the beginning of the paragraph is Romantic in the sense that the narrator seems to have fallen deeply in love and is naively comparing her to butterflies (“a swarm of butterflies” (28); “a million Red Admirals” (29)) and to a tree (29). This association of feelings and nature reminds me of romanticism, an artistic movement from the 18th century, known for the confrontation of characters’ feelings and emotions to the beauties of nature. Here, however, I think the narrator mocks traditional writings about love. After the beautiful – and symbolic – comparison of a woman with a tree, the narrator wonders about his/her own writing, which makes this moment almost funny. He/she seems to be addressing the reader, as though saying “Hey, I am writing this book about someone who falls in love with a woman, do you think it’s cool to compare her to a tree?” Up until this passage, the novel has been about breaking up all the stereotypes about love and the disappointments it generates. The narrator has held one relationship after the other and he/she is quite critical about how love is said/supposed to be and how it actually is.