Beautiful Ruins

“Weren’t movies his generation’s faith anyway—its true religion? Wasn’t the theater our temple, the one place we enter separately but emerge from two hours later together, with the same experience, same guided emotions, same moral? A million schools taught ten million curricula, a million churches featured ten thousand sects with a billion sermons—but the same movie showed in every mall in the country. And we all saw it! That summer, the one you’ll never forget, every movie house beamed the same set of thematic and narrative images—the same Avatar, the same Harry Potter, the same Fast and the Furious, flickering pictures stitched in our minds that replaced our own memories, archetypal stories that became our shared history, that taught us what to expect from life, that defined our values. What was that but religion?”

This quote builds on Shane’s discovery that his personal motto is not from the Bible but from a movie and waxes poetic on the concept of film as not just a new religion but a universal one that binds all moviegoers together. While there are multiple different sects within other religions, film provides a singular experience since “the same movie showed in every mall in the country. And we all saw it!” Films like Avatar, Harry Potter, and Fast and the Furious become scripture since they endow moviegoers with a new mythology, life lessons, and other things which determine modern America’s values. This quote is important because it shows how cinema has become more than just a source of entertainment as it was when Dee and Richard Burton performed on camera in 1962. Furthermore, it demonstrates the cinema industry’s control over the American zeitgeist.

“To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can’t afford, and when they’re caught in the arms of the wrong person, pitch unlikely explanations. Hospitals pitch birthing centers, daycares pitch love, high schools pitch success…car dealerships pitch luxury, counselors self-esteem, masseuses happy endings, cemeteries eternal rest…It’s endless, the pitching—endless, exhilarating, soul-sucking, and as unrelenting as death. As ordinary as morning sprinklers.”

A cynical Claire reflects on how many different aspects of life resemble film pitches. Desire, the most prominent force in Beautiful Ruins, relies on pitches. Consumers come to desire the “success,” “luxury,” “self-esteem” other people offer them based on what these people emphasize in their pitches. In addition to this, the quote highlights how Claire, under Hollywood’s brainwashing influence, now sees the world in terms of the film industry.

“He’d never seen a face like this, a face that looked so different from every angle, long and equine from the side, open and delicate from the front. He wondered if this was why she was a film actress, this ability to have more than one face.”

Pasquale looks upon Dee’s face and notes that it is multifaceted. Dee’s multifaceted face reveals the complexity of her character (she simultaneously hates the pressure and superficiality she finds in Hollywood but dreams of starring in films with Richard Burton long after she leaves her Hollywood acting career behind). Her “ability to have more than one face” also speaks to her ability to play different roles: Dee Moray the Hollywood actress and Debra Moore-Bender the drama and Italian teacher.

“For years. It was like I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.” 

Dee explains that she and others tend to expect life to resemble the plot of a movie and are let down once they realize life is quick, subtle, and mundane without the dramatic climax of movies. In this quote, Dee processes her mortality and realizes that she and others do not appreciate life as it happens. The quote ties in with the novel’s overarching theme of time and the pain of regret since Dee worries that she will regret not being in the moment as her life reaches its end.

“When I found out how bad it was…I decided that from now on I was just going to say what I think, that I would stop worrying about being polite or imagining what people thought of me. That’s a big deal for an actress, refusing to live in the eyes of others. It’s nearly impossible. But it’s important that I don’t waste any more time saying what I don’t mean.”

Believing that she will die soon, Dee decides to live a more authentic life and not censor herself. Her decision is a bold rejection of what the film industry and Hollywood celebrity culture demand from actors: superficiality. She does not want to pretend to be someone she is not for the sake of having a good reputation. Instead, she wants to live her life as she chooses without having to worry about how the paparazzi and moviegoers perceive her. In this way, she plans to live a life that runs counter to the dark side of Hollywood with as few regrets as possible.

“Stories are people. I’m a story, you’re a story…your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we’re lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we’re less alone.”

Alvis compares stories to lives and claims that stories, like lives, can merge into one expansive story. This quote is important given the structure of the novel. Beautiful Ruins brings the perspectives, or stories, of characters like Pasquale, Dee/Debra, Michael Deane, Alvis, Claire, Shane, and Pat together to make one encompassed narrative that speaks to the unity of these characters as humans possessing universal emotions and existing within one world.

“I see what people want. I have a kind of X-ray vision for desire. Ask some guy what he wants to watch on TV and he’ll say news. Opera. Foreign films. But put a box in his house and what’s he watch? Blow jobs and car crashes. Does that mean the country is full of lying degenerates? No. They want to want news and opera. But it’s not what they want.”

Michael Deane explains that people have desires they would rather not have such as the desire to see blow jobs and car crashes. They know that polite, sophisticated society would rather them be interested in more cultured, high-brow things like opera and foreign films, and they wish they could fulfill society’s request of them. Unfortunately, desires, especially those of the id, cannot be thwarted. This quote connects with the theme regarding the nature of desire. It also ties into the high-brow/low-brow dichotomy drawn in Chapter 2.

“And sometimes I see the moon here…yes, is for everyone…all people look at one moon. Yes? Here, Firenze, America. For all people, all time, same moon, yes?”

Pasquale muses about how the moon is an object that can be seen by everyone and therefore “is for everyone.” The moon, for Pasquale, is something with a democratic quality that links everyone together. In this way, the moon points to the notion that all people are connected in the same way the novel’s characters are connected.

“The better players don’t miss so much, but every point ends with someone missing, or hitting it into the net or over the line. There’s no way to avoid it.” 

Tommaso explains the game of tennis to Pasquale, who does not realize that someone must either miss or score a point. Life is like tennis in the sense that some succeed while others fail. Furthermore, it is a law of nature with “no way to avoid it.” Pasquale, wrapped up in his dreams of making Porto Vergogna a tourist destination with a tennis court in the cliffside and winning Dee, does not fully understand the improbability of him achieving his goals until Tomasso explains how some people win and some lose. This moment foreshadows Pasquale’s epiphany in Chapter 11.

“William Eddy has simply…survived. As he faces the horizon, we realize that maybe it’s all any of us can hope to do. Survive. Caught in the raging crosscurrents of history, of sorrow, and of certain death, a man realizes he is powerless, that all his belief in himself is a vanity…a dream. So he does his best, he squirms against the snow and the wind and his own animal hungers, and this is a life. For family, for love, for simple decency, a good man rages against nature, and the brutality of fate, but it is a war he can never win. Every love is the same love, and it is overpowering—the wrenching grace of what it is to be human. We love. We try. We die alone.”

Shane waxes poetic about the human condition at the end of his Donner! pitch. He claims that like William Eddy, all a human being can do is survive whatever lies in front of them, and what lies in front of him is brutal reality that renders all faith in oneself “a vanity…a dream.” People do their best to survive and take a futile stand against nature. In addition to saying that humans are doomed to their fate, Shane points out that humans are also all bound by love, a kind of desire they all share. People can only do three things: love, try, and die alone. This quote emphasizes the grittiness and somber tone present at the end of Donner!, shows that Shane has some awareness of the nature of existence, and gives credence to the idea that desire is universal and binding.

“Strange how a musician’s very survival made him suspect—as if all the crazy shit of his heyday had been just a pose.”

This quote demonstrates how music fans have a morbid interest in the tragic rock star archetype and expect musicians like Pat to die young since it is a common trope and narrative pushed by celebrity culture. These fans are disappointed by his survival and feel as though his past self-destructive actions were all for show if they could not even render him deceased. This quote points toward fans’ discomfort with artists who break away from expectations fans get from celebrity culture.

“The whole world is sick…we’ve all got this pathetic need to be seen. We’re a bunch of fucking toddlers trying to get attention. And I’m the worst. If life had a theme, you know…a philosophy? A motto? Mine would be: There must be some mistake; I was supposed to be bigger than this.”

Pat monologues about the narcissistic desire to be famous or “seen.” He presents it as a sort of affliction and likens it to a small child’s desire for their parents’ attention. He shows a moment of self-awareness when he admits that he is “the worst.” This moment shows that Pat is coming to grips with his fame addiction and sense of entitlement though he does it in a pathetic, self-deprecating way.

“I tell you, Pat, this is one damn strange picture.”

Richard Burton delivers this line while looking at the sign on The Hotel Adequate View as he prepares to rescue Dee. The word “picture” is a reference to movies, or “moving pictures.” Richard Burton likens the situation to something out of a movie, which fits with the idea that the film industry influences people to think of their lives in terms of movies.

“They crashed into each other’s arms and Pasquale had to look away or risk betraying his deep envy and embarrassment that he’d ever imagined that she could want to be with someone like him. He was a donkey watching two Thoroughbreds prance in a field.”

Pasquale watches Dee and Richard Burton embrace, and he realizes that he never had a chance with Dee. Richard Burton, who plays the leading man in all of his films, conquers Dee while Pasquale can only serve as an extra because, according to the rules of society, which are influenced by cinema, he is the lesser man. Pasquale knows that actors are superior to him as thoroughbreds are superior to donkeys, and he feels inferior.

“This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.” 

Pasquale chides himself for imagining a life with Dee, a woman he just met, and hating Richard Burton for doing the same thing he did. Pasquale realizes that dreams obscure the reality of who he is and what he did. He “[sleeps] right through his life” by living in a fantasy and ignoring truth. This quote is salient because it indicates that Pasquale possesses some amount of self-awareness. It also relates to Walter’s message regarding staying in the present and not ignoring the world around you.

“This, he decided, was also the problem with the book he hoped to write. He could never write a standard war book; what he had to say about the war could only be told upside down, and then people would probably just miss the point and try to turn it right side up again.”

Alvis sees an eclectic portrait that inspires him to format his novel in a similar fashion. His experience in WWII is so far removed from the account given in standard war books that it can only be told in an eclectic fashion that reflects chaos and disregards expectations and traditions. While he commits to writing an “upside down” book, he anticipates readers “miss[ing] the point” and trying to bring order to the work when Alvis eschews order. This quote relates to readers’ expectations and how postmodernist, experimental books tend to be misunderstood. In addition, the kind of book Alvis imagines writing slightly resembles Beautiful Ruins in its format. Beautiful Ruins features a non-chronological plot and refuses to be a standard romance novel just as Alvis’s book refuses to be a standard war novel.

“We want what we want. Dick wanted Liz. Liz wanted Dick. And we want car wrecks. We say we don’t but we love them. To look is to love. A thousand people drive past the statue of David. Two hundred look. A thousand people drive past a car wreck. A thousand look.”

Michael Deane elucidates the nature of want. He defines want as a morbid desire that a person is unable to control. When a person wants something, especially when it is a want driven by the id, there is no way for a person to internally stop it. People “want car wrecks” because of some primal desire or morbid curiosity that cannot be reasoned with. To want car wrecks is taboo, and the average person realizes this, but they cannot help but look when they see a car wreck. They would prefer to see one over seeing a great socially acceptable work of art like Michelangelo’s David. Michael Deane’s definition of want fits with the notion that desire is uncontrollable and often base.

“Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. These are first-person memories—I memories. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.” 

Walter describes two kinds of memories: one where you can connect with yourself and another where you are disconnected from yourself and can only look on in confoundment. Debra’s memory of seducing Ron falls under the second category since “even recalling it is like watching a movie” (259) starring herself at her worst. Debra cannot reconcile the fact that she and not some cinematic alter ego seduced Ron, and—in this moment—she is unwilling to confess that she manipulates the men in her life. This quote sets up the Debra’s epiphany about her relationship with Alvis later in the chapter.

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character—what we believe—none of it is real; it’s all part of the story we tell. But here’s the thing: it’s our goddamned story!”

Alvis comforts Dee after Ron points out her character flaws. Alvis asserts that humanity is incapable of truly grasping reality and “all we have is the story we tell,” or the narrative one designs regarding “every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character.” These things are technically unreal since they are fragments of one’s internal narrative and not objectively experienced, but only the person who crafts the internal narrative has a say in what belongs in the narrative. Ron tries to alter Dee’s narrative by casting her as selfish and exploitative, but Alvis tells her not to let him since only she can create and define her story. This quote exemplifies Alvis’s adoration of Dee and his desire to comfort her. It also points toward his earlier assertion that people are stories.

“But aren’t all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos—we know what’s out there. It’s what isn’t that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet lags—four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon—but true quests aren’t measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope.”

Walter expresses that all quests come down to being follies because people in modern, technologically advanced society know what to expect from quests. They know there is no “El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth” and that we cannot possibly know if there is life in space. However, people are drawn to quests because they have hope that something might be there though they know it is not. Hope is the true measure of quests and adventures now that rapid advances in technology have reduced physical distance to a non-issue. This quote is pivotal because hope is a form of desire, a major theme in the novel. People want to believe that the fantastic exists despite reality; they cannot help wanting this.

“And while his mother’s lecture had gone over his seven-year-old head, Pasquale saw now what she meant—how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.” 

In this instant, Pasquale experiences an epiphany and finally understands what his mother meant during his childhood, when she created a dichotomy between what one wants to do and what one should do. When one desires the right thing, their life becomes easier since choosing the wrong thing often leads to having a bad character or some similar difficulty. At some point in the novel, Pasquale’s desire changes, and he decides that he will do the noble thing, which would be to choose Amedea over Dee and fulfill his duties as a father. He knows that his decision is the right one because it would make him a man worthy of Dee’s love, and being that sort of man makes him happy.

“He believed he could spot an American anywhere by that quality—that openness, that stubborn belief in possibility, a quality that, in his estimation, even the youngest Italians lacked. Perhaps it was the difference in age between the countries—America with its expansive youth, building all those drive-in movie theaters and cowboy restaurants; Italians living in endless contraction, in the artifacts of generations, in the bones of empires. This reminded him of Alvis Bender’s contention that stories were like nations— Italy a great epic poem, Britain a thick novel, America a brash motion picture in Technicolor— and he remembered, too, Dee Moray saying she’d spent years ‘waiting for her movie to start.’ And that she’d almost missed out on her life waiting for it.”

Pasquale compares Americans to Europeans. He notes that American, with “that stubborn belief in possibility,” tend to be more optimistic than Italians, and he wonders if the difference in the ages of Italy and the United States plays a role in the differences between Italians and Americans. From his perspective, Americans are the young builders while Italians are living “in the bones of empires.” Pasquale also thinks of motion pictures, the sophisticated, modern medium of storytelling, as the symbol of America, rendering America a land of invention and novelty. However, as he thinks of movies as symbols for America, he remembers that movies have the power to ruin a person’s life, as they set expectations for what life should be like and cause people to ignore the present. He realizes that Americans have just as many problems as Italians, and no country is truly better than another. This quote is pertinent since it shows Pasquale moving away from his idealization of America.

“Sometimes, now, when she sees how content Pat and Lydia are, she feels like a spent salmon: her work here is done. But other times, honestly, the whole idea of being at peace just pisses her off. At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?”

Dee thinks of how the people around her want to know if she is “at peace,” and she feels mixed feelings. On the one hand, she feels as though she can pass away now that her son and his girlfriend are “content” and living prosperous lives. On the other hand, she does not believe that she or anyone else can truly be at peace if they have a lust for life. There will always be something that passes a person by and leaves them with “the sweet ache of regret.” This quote shows Dee’s conflicting emotions and points toward the theme of time and regret.