A God in Ruins

“It was impossible to instruct on the subject of beauty, of course. It simply was. You were either moved by it or you weren’t.”

Teddy is unsure of why Izzie is asking him so many questions about the flowers and skylarks, and he is unaware that she is basing stories on him. Teddy finds the skylark moving and beautiful and doesn’t understand how someone could see it as commonplace or dull. Teddy’s view foreshadows the relationships he will have with other women in his life, including his wife. He is never able to make himself feel more, or differently, than he wants to.

“The purpose of Art is to convey the truth of a thing, not to be the truth itself.”

A saying of Teddy’s mother, Sylvie. Sylvie believes that art is an attempt to express something inexpressible. Because art is a representation of a truth, seeing art as truth itself is illogical. However, she also makes it clear to Teddy that while art might be the only way to express certain truths, even art might ultimately fail: It can be the best attempt to express something but may still fall short of exactitude.

“You did not need a God (Sylvie was an unconfessed atheist) to believe in sin.”

Religion plays almost no role in the novel, but the characters all face moral quandaries that require them to act on faith. To sin is to make a mistake that warrants divine disapproval, or even punishment. Several of the characters spend their lives trying to atone for past mistakes, and although they do not believe in God, their desire to repent is genuine, as if they had sinned, rather than erred.