When Jess Walter describes the place, Porto Vergogna, which is where the story first takes place, it gives the reader the image that its a remote place that's in the middle of nowhere, at least that's how i interpreted it. After Dee arrives to this place in Italy and she tells Pasquale that she has cancer, Pasquale gets very worried because he could see how bad her health was getting. His cousin, Gualfredo, teases Pasquale about how he is crushing on this "American"and is very condescending about how he is going to save her from this illness in a place like Porto Vergogna.
Pasquale feels the need to prove to him that they do have doctors around and so he calls one of the doctors to come and check up on Dee. "'I don't know what she has. Certainly there is a family history of cancer. And maybe American doctors have tests that haven't reached us. Im just telling you that I couldn't determine that someone has cancer based on those symptoms.'(Walter 70). The doctor thinks that Dee is pregnant yet her symptoms, even if they are very similar to pregnancy, are on a much different level and are much more severe than the symptoms of pregnancy.
It couldn't have been by accident that she arrived at Porto Vergogna. Why did she arrive to this remote place? Was it destiny for Pasquale and Dee to meet and fall in love? They even spoke two completely different languages...I mean, Pasquale could barely understand Dee's English! How did they get along so well and then eventually fall in love?
I think it was some kind of destiny. There are some events that are just too wild and too weird to be anything else. I get that feeling in my stomach when something crazy happens and I just know it had to be destiny. That's what I felt like when I read about Pasquale and Dee(even though it's not real)..
ReplyDeleteWhat are the chances that Dee would be one of the two Americans to come to The Hotel Adequate? The town was so little and remote.
"After she disappeared inside the hotel, Pasquale entertained the unwieldy though that he'd somehow summoned her, that after years of living in this place, after months of grief and loneliness and waiting for Americans, he's created this woman from old bits of cinema and books , from the lost artifacts and ruins of his dreams,"(Walter 13)
The fact that Pasquale thinks that Dee could be a dream also makes me believe that there is divine intervention at work. At that time Pasquale really needed Dee to give him a direction and Dee needed Pasquale to be there for her through such a rough time her life.
Then Pasquale goes searching for her 50 years later and despite her cancer she is still alive and unmarried. It is just to many coincidences not to be fate.
I think one of the main reasons Pasquel and Dee got along so well was because Pasquel was so invested in their relationship. He had never truly been with another girl besides Amedea, and Dee was the first beautiful woman he had seen since then. In addition to Dee being a beautiful woman that captivated Pasquel's interest, Pasquel had been waiting for an American to come to Porto Vergogna.
ReplyDeleteEver since his father died, he had made it is duty fix up the village and make it a place where Americans would long to visit. Having Dee, an American, come to the island, was something he had been dreaming of, and the fact that she was beautiful was a plus.
Pasquel had always been a gentleman and he treated Dee with the same respect and care as he treated his mother. Although they did go their separate ways, and have relationships with different people, it was very clear that they both had big impacts on each other's lives. "I was living in dreams when I met you. And when I met the man you loved, I saw my own weakness in him. Such irony, how could I be a man worthy of your love when I had walked away from my own child? That is why I went back. And it was the best thing I ever did." (Walter 336). Here, Pasquel explains to Dee how she truly changed his life, and was partly responsible for the relationship he rekindled with Amedea.
In some ways, it must've been fate that brought them together, and allowed them both to pursue their dreams, find the ones they truly love, and in the end they ended up together again.