Still Life

“The squeal of birds overhead delighted him. He and they had traveled hundreds of miles north against all odds to arrive at that place in time—swifts at the end of March and him in June—and the catalog of near misses and lucky escapes that had accompanied his journey across Africa, Sicily and up the Adriatic would have astonished priests and astrologers alike. Something had been watching over him. Why not a swift?”

Ulysses Temper and the birds are paralleled in this quote as symbols of the beauty of life. Both the birds and Ulysses have miraculously survived much conflict in their lives. Despite all the terrors they’ve seen, the birds still sing, and Ulysses is able to still appreciate the natural beauty of the world around him. This quote provides a tone of hope in the context of a horribly destructive war. The allusion to the species of the swift is important; this bird is also called “the devil’s bird” because of their inaccessibility. Spotting them is rare, so Ulysses seeing a swift is a sign of unexpected beauty.

“All this is a response, Ulysses. It’s not more complicated than that. Of course, we can then throw in execution of the craft—how well one paints—and the history of the piece, its provenance, and we can come up with value. But always the value for me will be response. How it moves one.”

Through Evelyn Skinner, Ulysses learns the value of art. In a time of war, when people are dying, it’s easy to think of art as insignificant. But Evelyn highlights its importance by characterizing art through its power to move the human being. Humans are complex living creatures, whose feelings and inspirations are as important as their physical survival. To Evelyn, art can be about craft, but it’s mostly about the capacity to move people. This is a quote that celebrates art as intrinsic to the human experience.

“It’s what we’ve always done. Left a mark on a cave, or on a page. Showing who we are, sharing our view of the world, the life we’re made to bear. Our turmoil is revealed in those painted faces—sometimes tenderly, sometimes grotesquely, but art becomes a mirror. All the symbolism and the paradox, ours to interpret. That’s how it becomes part of us. And as counterpoint to our suffering, we have beauty.”

Evelyn sees art as a way to combat suffering. The human experience relies on balance, and the beauty that art provides can balance human suffering and make life worth living. Art can be a mirror to human experience, teaching people things about themselves they may not otherwise know how to access. Lastly, art is a response to mortality, as great art long outlasts the artist.

“And they listened with hearts instead of ears, and in the candlelit kitchen three floors up in an old palazzo, death was put on hold. For another night or day or week or year.”

This passage emphasizes the human capacity for empathy. Though Ulysses and Arturo are enemies in the war, they come together and connect over the experiences that transcend alliances, the experiences that make them both humans. In being able to connect with one another and see each other for the people they are, they leave their deaths for a future date. They will not kill one another, instead, they will sit and talk and share, highlighting the fallacy of how war divides people into enemies.

“And it was this she would remember: his voice resonant in the stillness. People listening to him, not laughing. She stood up, marched over to him and held his hand. Her exquisite moment of ownership. The day when he became hers.”

This quote foreshadows the relationship between Alys and Ulysses turning into a tighter father-daughter bond. Here, Winman reveals that the moment in which Ulysses speaks up at the gallery is formative to Alys’s understanding and admiration of Ulysses as a father figure. She is proud to hold his hand and be connected to him, even at such a young age, which emphasizes her love for him.

“In years to come, it would cower as the wrecking ball swung, would face its own demise as many a tree had done before, with grace and humility at the same old same old of human disregard.”

In this quote, Winman foreshadows the cherry blossom tree’s demise. Like all living things, the cherry blossom will die, and its beauty will fade. No matter how little attention most people pay to the tree, it will continue living its natural life without a care for them. This highlights the tree as symbolic of a human beings’ smallness in the grand scheme of things. It also highlights the tree as representative of life cycles and transitions.

“Those two words had confused Cress because not much love had ever come his way. The deep satisfaction of hearing those words, mixed with the sorrow of never having heard them before, made for an uncomfortable alliance, and prompted him to say, Nothing’s forever—a trite and clichéd response to a young man’s declaration of care.”

This quote is important because it marks the beginning of Cress’s character development. Cress has long been a lonely man with no one to love or to be loved by. His kindness and compassion are wasted until he decides to follow Ulysses to Italy, where he finally feels like part of a family. Cress takes a risk in leaving everything he’s known for the unknown, but it’s a risk that is prompted by love and ends up working out. Cress experiences new things in Italy and continues to change his life for the better.

“We’re embarking on a world of new language and new systems. A world of stares and misunderstandings and humiliations and we’ll feel every single one of them, boy. But we mustn’t let our inability to know what’s what diminish us. Because it’ll try. We have to remain curious and open.”

Here, Cress expresses Winman’s message about adventure and adaptation. By being flexible, a person can leave themselves open to the world. In making themselves open to the world, people can have amazing experiences. Winman emphasizes curiosity and patience here because moving to new countries and learning new languages are not easy. But the characters who change settings change for the better, emphasizing the importance of risk and adaptability.

“Sunlight dazzled, casting rays onto the pale cream stucco of the church. The sky was blue, the roofs were red, the trees green. For years they’d moved about in a palette of gray and deprivation. And now this…”

Winman juxtaposes the imagery of Italy with the imagery of England: Where England is gray, Italy is dazzling sunlight. These depictions of setting symbolize the emotions associated with each place. In London, where the landscape is deprived of color, people suffer. In Florence, where colors abound, people flourish. This juxtaposition emphasizes Winman’s message that it’s important to change settings and environments in order to develop character.

“He felt the rise of those who had gone before. The poets Browning, Everly, Shelley. In time, Cress hoped to lose his fear of poetry, especially the stuff that didn’t rhyme. Cress was a facts man, and facts were stone. Poetry, though, was sand. Ever compared to stars in its granular infinity. Ever shifting.”

Part of Cress’s character development is a new interest in literature. Cress has never been taught to appreciate literature before, so he has to work hard to give in to the interpretive value of literature, which is not about facts but rather is about projections of the human experience. This quote is also important because Winman’s novel is inspired by literature about Europe and development, such as E. M. Forster’s novel. She alludes to poets and poetry as another art form that can move the soul and change a person.

“Queer identity hid itself in the shadows of these dark streets and both women had, at some time, left an imprint of their body upon some unfamiliar bed; an addendum of promises, made for a lifetime but meant only for a night.”

Winman’s novel explores queer love in a time period in which LGBTQ+ people had to stay publicly closeted. Because Evelyn has been in touch with her sexuality for the majority of her life, her memories of the loves she had to keep a secret in her tightly-knit friendship group are important to her. In this quote, she thinks back to the way she had to hide from society and express her queer identity in isolation from that society.

“A conspiracy of beauty everywhere. The city threw aside its cloak and introduced itself to her, and she met it with eyes wide and heart thumping and openmouthed. She stumbled clumsily from the cab into the vestibule of the hotel. She couldn’t speak. It wasn’t being struck dumb by beauty per se, but the acknowledgment that if such beauty existed, then so did the opposite.”

Winman’s novel explores beauty in many forms, chief among them the beauty of architecture and art. Beauty is often highlighted and experienced through its juxtaposition; beauty cannot exist without its antithesis. This can be both good and negative. Where there is ugliness, there is always the hope for beauty. But as Evelyn has experienced, one can compare themselves to beauty and see themselves ugly in comparison.

“The power of still life lies precisely in this triviality. Because it is a world of reliability. Of mutuality between objects that are there, and people who are not. Paused time in ghostly absence.”

This quote includes the title of the novel—Still Life. Still life paintings capture the minute details of everyday life, such as bowls of fruit or cutlery on a table. They provide a reflection of symmetry in the world, demonstrating how small objects are nonetheless connected in important ways.

“Why it’s left her diminished when not long ago she felt like a conqueror. And here am I thinking what words can give the experience value. How to explain to her that the improbability of love, which she feels will last forever, will one day shine its light again. What words of consolation can be offered? What words of reassurance can I give her that a life lived without the object of her love is still worthwhile and hers for the taking?” 

In this passage, Cress articulates the pains and beauties of being in love. Love can be fleeting, but it always teaches the lover something valuable about themselves. Alys is too young to know that she can and will love again and too young to understand that her life can be meaningful even if she never finds love. Cress has endured a life with and without love, and he is only now learning how to appreciate the twists and turns of love.

“Her mother-want became a mother-please and crushes on teachers became evening tutorials of charcoal and perfume. And she read wise words over and over and yet when she closed the book it was still her, unchanged…”

Though she has a relationship with her mother, Alys is acutely aware that Peggy never wanted her, and their relationship is one of distance. Alys projects her desire for a mother onto the women that she falls in love with, especially her older teachers. No matter how hard she tries to open herself up to the lessons these women can teach her, she struggles with being emotionally closed-off. Alys sees herself as static because she can’t see the small changes that are happening in her life all the time. This quote highlights the complexity of youth, especially one unguided by a maternal figure.

“Cress stayed on the terrace with his citrus tree, surrounded by scent and blossom. Tree said few words and together they watched the pungent flare of dawn, the glare of the midday trope, the drift of dusk. Cress slept a lot. Cress kept dreaming of butterflies.”

Trees provide comfort to Cress because he can appreciate their reliability and their beauty. At the worst moments of his life, Cress turns to the serenity of nature. This emphasizes the importance of nature, natural beauty, and having access to that beauty. Because Cress has the tree as a refuge, he is able to heal himself when life deals him difficult blows.

“And they couldn’t believe how so many roads had either led to him or led to her. And for Evelyn, there was equal sadness as there was delight at hearing how close they’d been to one another, how touchable, if only—the preciousness of time, you see.”

When Ulysses and Evelyn are finally reunited after more than two decades, they celebrate the unpredictability of time and chance. Their reunion emphasizes Winman’s message that life is full of beautiful surprises. Here, Evelyn notes the mixed emotions of their reunion. Chance kept them apart, even though they could have met each other many years before. The moment of their reunion therefore is bittersweet.

“A blue marbled sphere, amplified by the lunar horizon, precious and beautiful and vulnerable, floating in the eternal darkness we all shall face. That’s how Evelyn described it whilst gazing at the cover of Cressy’s Life magazine. Cress thought Evelyn had something of the poets about her, but didn’t everyone that year, Cress? Loss and love. The only ingredients required.”

One of the formative historical experiences of the 20th century was when the first photograph of Earth was taken from space. This photograph is awe-inspiring to people and shows them the proof of their celestial smallness. There is a metaphor here about the “eternal darkness,” which is both literal, because of the darkness of the galaxy around Earth, and symbolic of the dark times a human being must endure. This quote also emphasizes the duality of loss and love. Where there is love, there is necessarily loss. There is always, therefore, a melancholy bitterness intertwined with beauty.

“Nature is an ample gift, Ulysses. With art, my mind interacts in a very different way. It is often taxed by the history or by the analysis. And yet here—this tiny yellow flower asks for nothing more than to be appreciated.”

There are many forms of beauty explored in this novel, chief among them the beauties of nature and art. For art lovers like Evelyn, these types of beauty impact inspiration in different ways. Art requires analysis, maybe even knowledge, but nature, such as the tiny yellow flower, is a simpler beauty that demands nothing from the admirer.

“Ochre walls appeared more golden as the sun softened. Lights appeared throughout the city and took their place on the surface of the river. The rower slipped through this spectacle of light. Water dripped off the blades of his oars, and momentarily, I was in that drip. Falling into the green twilight depths of history.”

The minute details of the view from her room highlight Evelyn’s connection with Italy. She experiences the beauty of Florence as though she is literally a part of that beauty. She understands her role in the grand scheme of history and sees the reflection of herself fully realized within that history. This attitude reflects Winman’s focus on all the characters in her novel as individuals existing within the long and multi-layered dynamics of Italian love, beauty, and history.

“They said nothing more on their walk back to the pensione. Forster glancing at men, Evelyn at women. Their respectability and middle-class Englishness a perfect foil for their hidden desires.”

E. M. Forster is included in this novel as an allusion to an iconic Englishman who captured the beauty and freedom of Italy. In this quote, Winman also emphasizes Forster’s role as a male parallel to Evelyn. Both Forster and Evelyn keep their sexuality a secret, and both are tied to conservative English values in their youth. Forster’s novels will explore the intimacies of hidden sexuality and love as freedom. This quote reveals the origins of the experiences that turn into Forster’s classic stories.

“The disparity between their lives ever more obvious. She stood at the window to center her breathing. When she turned, Livia had undressed on the narrow bed. There was an equality in that. In the discarding of clothes. Evelyn put down her glass. She loved her even more.”

Evelyn and Livia fall in love immediately and instinctively, but there are several societal influences that challenge this relationship. The foremost among these is that they are women in a romantic relationship at a time when this was taboo. The second is that Livia and Evelyn are of two different social statuses; Livia is a maid and Evelyn is the inheritor of middle-class wealth. If they were a heterosexual couple, this relationship would still be impossible outside of the confines of their secret rendezvous because their difference in social class. These challenges emphasize that multiple layers of discrimination exist to maintain society’s status quo.

“She chose not to return to Florence for a few years. She thought the world would end, but it didn’t. Thought her capacity to love would remain unfulfilled, but it didn’t. She moved her allegiance to Rome and took to her bed, some days, like Keats. Didn’t die (her appetite was far too robust) and she grew stronger and more handsome until heartache went into remission. Livia became a memory. Livia became a piece of art.”

Evelyn keeps a distance between herself and her two first loves: Florence and Livia. For a long time, Florence is too much of a reminder of her lost love with Livia for her to return. With time, Evelyn can appreciate the love she has for the city without feeling the pain of her lost love. This means that Livia becomes a happy memory for her. Evelyn learns to love again, and she also learns that the pain of heartbreak can make a person grow to be a better individual and partner.