The Book of Goose

“Perhaps it is not his fault that I cannot get pregnant. The secrets inside me have not left much space for a fetus to grow.”

In this quote, Li uses symbolism to foreshadow Agnès’s reckoning with her childhood. The fetus represents life, and life can’t grow with Agnès’s secrets taking up space. This emphasizes society’s expectation for girls to become women who become mothers.

“This story of mine expired when I heard of Fabienne’s death. Telling a story past its expiration date is like exhuming a body long buried. The reason for doing so is not always clear to everyone.”

Because Agnès has long identified herself with childhood friend Fabienne, Fabienne’s death is a type of death for Agnès too. Though Agnès lives, her story is expired because Fabienne’s presence is what kept it alive. This quote speaks to the complex nature of storytelling. Agnès doesn’t know why she’s telling her story, introducing the push and pull of being a writer.

“This was how it had unfolded in my memory. It was possible that it did not happen exactly so, but between facts and memories I always trust the latter. Why? Because facts do not make myths. And I was made into a minor myth by that visit. If I told people that I was once a myth, nobody would believe me. But is it a myth’s job to make you believe in it? A myth says, Take me or leave me.”

In this quote, Li explores the validity of storytelling through the construction of mythology. Agnès addresses the contradiction between fact and memory. For her, memory is more important because facts do not create stories, or recreate real people. This also applies to creating a sense of self, and not concerning oneself with being accepted or rejected.

“What’s the difference between knowing a story and writing it out? But the questions I should have asked, which I did not know how when we were younger, were: Isn’t it enough just to know a story? Why take the time to write it out? I now have the answer, for her and for myself. The world has no use for who we are and what we know. A story has to be written out. How else do we get our revenge?”

In this quote, Li champions storytelling as a way of claiming autonomy in an apathetic world. Writing is important because the act is the construction of one’s place in the world. Without a written story, one’s place may be forgotten. The quote implies Agnès is revisiting her childhood through storytelling to bring Fabienne back to life.

“When I asked him, he told me to just be myself. That was of no use to me. I could be myself only when I was with Fabienne. Can a wall describe its own dimensions and texture, can a wall even sense its own existence, if not for the ball that constantly bounces off of it?”

This quote uses metaphor and imagery to emphasize how much Agnès’s identity is shaped by Fabienne. She can’t contextualize herself without Fabienne, as is symbolized through the wall (Agnès) and bouncing ball (Fabienne).

“All my life, since that day on, I have paid special attention to the sky when something important happens. People close to you at one moment may disappear the next moment, but the sky is always there, whether you have a roof over your head or not.”

The arrival of Parisian publishers in Saint Rémy marks the beginning of the rest of Agnès’s life. It propels change. By contrast, the sky is a constant, a means to ground oneself.

“People must have reasoned that a girl like me, innocent, ignorant, could not possibly make the world a mad and foul place. That world must have been mad and foul already, and all she did was tell the truth in her own words. Unflinchingly, they said. They must have thought that a girl like me knew too little about civilization to flinch.”

Agnès is underestimated by larger society because she is a girl from the impoverished countryside. Part of her marketability is her defiance of expectations, speaking to preconceived notions that destroy nuance.

“Life is most difficult for those who know what they want and also know what makes it impossible for them to get what they want. Life is still difficult, but less so, for those who know what they want but have not realized that they will never get it. It is the least difficult for people who do not know what they want.”

Li uses Agnès’s perspective to frame life as fleeting and unpredictable. The pursuit of happiness preoccupies Agnès, but she ultimately decides to not expect anything from life. Her lack of ambition ironically give her the opportunity to become famous.

“But were we not, in a sense, two blind girls? One would walk everywhere as though not a single mine were buried in the field. The other would not find the courage to take a step because the whole world was a minefield. Had they not been placed side by side by fate, they would have lived out their different lots. But that was not the case for us. Fabienne and I were in this world together, and we had only each other’s hands to hold on to. She had her will. I, my willingness to be led by her will.”

In this quote, blindness is a symbol for Agnès and Fabienne’s codependent relationship. They are not literally blind, but each has different blind spots when it comes to navigating the world. Thus, they are each other’s eyes. The quote also emphasizes how Agnès doesn’t believe she has her own will.

“My life was, up till then, separated into two parts: when I was with Fabienne, and the rest of the time—what happened then did not feel important to me. School and home were just for me to endure. They kept me away from Fabienne. But her life was continuous, unless she considered time spent with me and time spent without me as two distinct parts, and that she, too, had to endure our separation. Dared I hope for that? Not in a million years.”

Agnès identifies her life through her time with Fabienne, but she knows Fabienne doesn’t reciprocate this sense of merged self. This quote emphasizes her love for Fabienne, a love that she can’t even pretend is reciprocated. Fabienne is the center of her life, but this quote foreshadows their inevitable separation.

“By myself? Nothing would be good if Fabienne was not there. But even as I said that to her, I felt a tinge of unease. I was not being entirely honest.”

This quote marks a shift in Agnès and Fabienne’s dynamic, with Agnès starting to develop autonomy. Agnès always wants Fabienne around, but for the first time, considers a life without her as interesting.

“I had never spent much time thinking of anyone but Fabienne, and even a made-up boyfriend seemed to me an intrusion. On the other hand, I thought, Jacques would think more highly of me than Fabienne. He would never call me an imbecile, and he would be willing to listen to me a little more than she did. He might even love me.”

Agnès doesn’t have experience with boys, and her idolization of Fabienne is so intense that boys can’t hold her interest. On the other hand, the girls’ friendship is different from a friendship or romance between a boy and girl due to gendered expectations. By picturing Fabienne as a boy, as Jacques, Agnès can romanticize their relationship. She wants her love to be reciprocated, but Fabienne is disinterested, feigning emotions for her own amusement.

“When I mentioned America to Fabienne, she had been dismissive, and had said sharply that I dreamed big, but it was also the first time she had looked at me with alarm and respect in her eyes. Why? Because I had come up with the idea of America before she did.”

This quote further captures Agnès’s development of autonomy. By earning Fabienne’s respect, she changes their dynamic, because Fabienne won’t regain the same level of control. Agnès is starting to come up with her own dreams, which separates her from her beloved Fabienne.

“That I welcomed the girls’ attention was a new discovery to myself. Can a zoo animal feel happier being observed in a cage than being allowed to roam among other animals in the forest?”

Agnès is surprised that she enjoys the attention of girls who tokenize her background. This type of attention is dehumanizing, as implied by the metaphor of a zoo animal in a cage. On the other hand, this attention sets Agnès apart from family and friends, and earns her awe that she herself only reserves for Fabienne.

“Days and nights make a week, a month, a life. Drop me into any moment, point me in any direction, and I could retrace my life. Details beget details. With all those details one might hope for the full picture. A full picture of what, though? The more we remember, the less we understand.”

Through the novel, Li explores the nature of memory and its role in the human experience. To Agnès, seemingly insignificant memories are what create the story of someone’s life. However, memory doesn’t equate to understanding. Living in the past doesn’t necessarily reveal one’s present or future. Agnès is trying to apply meaning to her memories, which teaches her that memories are not reliable even though they are crucial to one’s sense of self.

“I had always thought that was because we held utmost contempt toward the villagers around us. But where does the line lie between contempt and fear? People coming too close can always do something to us.”

Agnès and Fabienne relish their time together and away from other people because they believe others are unworthy of their attention. However, this contempt is disguised fear. This quote speaks to not just Agnès and Fabienne but the human experience of protecting oneself from potential harm.

“I was not Fabienne. Her mind was like a bird. My mind was like a train, and someone had to lay the track down for me.”

This quote suggests Fabienne is freer than Agnès. Agnès compares Fabienne’s mind to a bird, a literary symbol of freedom because it can fly. By contrast, Agnès requires a foundation to build her mind upon. This quote highlights her self-perception and the irony of her having more upward mobility than Fabienne.

“I was not the first trespasser in paradise, but unlike other violators, my punishment was not banishment. Rather, my sentence was to testify to its marvels. It soon became my belief that my only hope for escape was to write the book that everybody wanted.”

The use of the word “paradise” is ironic because Woodsway is only a paradise in its idyllic appearance. For Agnès, it is a prison, in which she is forced to push Mrs. Townsend’s agenda.

“Fabienne and I had raised ourselves to be the best make-believers. The world was often inconvenient or indifferent to us, and it was our ingenuity that made what was inconvenient and indifferent interesting.”

In this quote, Li revisits the nature of storytelling. Agnès and Fabienne created a world based on fantasy because they needed a way to deal with their painful reality. Their games, fantasies, and lies are coping mechanisms, survival tactics.

“Saint Rémy felt like such a strange place, but it was strange in a way that my old gum boots were strange. Surely my feet, after the leather shoes with shiny buckles, after the satin dancing flats, would no longer fit? And yet the moment I slipped them on I was back to that peasant girl, Agnès. The smells of the barnyard surrounded me; the fields and the alleys, the villagers, my parents—all of them were here. The world of Saint Rémy was like the warm, shapeless mud after a summer rain, waiting for me to settle in again.”

Saint Rémy is an imperfect setting, but it is idyllic because it is Agnès’s home. Agnès has changed in many ways, but can still fit in at home due to it being core to who she is.

“Fabienne had no words to describe her exultation and despair, and I had no way to grasp them, but she was not alone in her extremes. The lucky ones have waited out the storms. The really lucky ones who have learned a few tricks to tame the untamable—however momentarily—have made their names. I am not sophisticated enough to claim that I understand those geniuses, but I know what they have put in their symphonies and concertos, what they have put on their canvases or in their books, is what made Fabienne shriek in the cemetery. Through her hands I had heard her pain: there was something immense in her, bigger, sharper, more permanent, than the life we lived.”

Again, Li criticizes society for failing to nurture genius. Fabienne was beaten down by a society that couldn’t cope with her brilliance. She had depth that Agnès didn’t, this quote being an ode to what could have been.

“Imagination of happiness, after all, is more fragile than most other imaginations.”

In this quote, Li highlights imagination as powerful but not always sustainable. Likewise, false happiness is framed as less sustainable than other fantasies, making true happiness a worthy pursuit.

“The real story was beyond our ability to tell: our girlhood, our friendship, our love—all monumental, all inconsequential. The world had no place for two girls like us, though I was slow then, not knowing that Fabienne, slighted, thwarted, even fatally wounded, tried to make a fool of that world, on her and on my behalf. Revenge is a story that often begins with more promises than the ending can offer.”

In this quote, Agnès revises the history that attempted to erase her and Fabienne because of their lack of power as girls from the impoverished countryside. She gives voice to her past self and the deceased Fabienne—celebrating brilliant, angry girls through cathartic writing.