In a Free State Compendium- Mirza

Moves in the prose:

- "But he pretended to fumble the words"

- Page 50: An amazing paragraph 

- page 150 - a tender moment. Inevitable intimacy between two people who share the same space in isolation. 

Nice moments between people. Moments of connection, communication:

"Bobby looked up and held the Zulu's gaze. The Zulu didn't flinch. It was Bobby who looked away."

" Bobby, looking at his beer, sipping his beer, not hurrying himself, refusing to meet Zulu's eyes, was glad that the talk had at last touched sex."

"neither of them wanted to say anything that the other might have heard before or anything that was too fanciful." 113

"And Bobby knew he had already been described to Carter by Linda." 

"If she sighs again like that, Bobby thought, I'll give her a piece of my mind." page 143 Yes! People think like this. 

"If she uses that word again, Bobby thought, I'll hit her." Love how this shows the relationship between characters changing, love how it is funny as it does this, too. 

Noticings:

"The furniture looked used but not recently used."

Thoughts:

- The characters seem to take turns being gloomy. ( In a free state)

- They are about growing in awareness- of oneself, of others, of the climate of the place. 

Lovely Lines: 

"Blacks stared, whites looked away. Conversation faltered, then recovered." 

- "absurd chivalry overcoming him.."

- "The evening was over, the week was over."

- "He had been missed: she sounded lonely and waiting."

Dialogue

"I couldn't bear looking at this if I didn't know I was going to look at it again."

- "You do terrible things to prove to yourself that you are a real person."