Goodbye, Columbus

by

Philip Roth

A young African American boy often visits the library where Neil works. He becomes obsessed with looking at a book of Paul Gauguin reprints, and is particularly captivated by his paintings of the Tahitian women. He comes back every day for over a week just to look at the book. At first, Neil empathizes with the boy and tries to ensure that the book will not be checked out by other people at the library. Neil also begins to share in the boy’s fantasies when he thinks about Brenda, describing Short Hills like a Gauguin painting. But at the end, Neil realizes the futility of the boy’s dreams because they are unattainable for a poor Black boy who lives in Newark. Thus, Neil emphasizes how self-reflection is necessary to face reality.

The Boy Quotes in Goodbye, Columbus

The Goodbye, Columbus quotes below are all either spoken by The Boy or refer to The Boy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Relationships, Competition, and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

The next day I held Brenda’s glasses for her once again, this time not as momentary servant but as afternoon guest; or perhaps as both, which still was an improvement. She wore a black tank suit and went barefooted and among the other women, with their Cuban heels and boned-up breasts, their knuckle-sized rings, their straw hats, which resembled immense wicker pizza plates and had been purchased, as I heard one deeply tanned woman rasp, “from the cutest little shvartze when we docked at Barbados.” Brenda among them was elegantly simple, like a sailor’s dream of a Polynesian maiden, albeit one with prescription sun glasses and the last name of Patimkin.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, The Boy
Related Symbols: The Gauguin Book
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Look, look, look here at this one. Ain’t that the fuckin life?”
I agreed it was and left.
Later I sent Jimmy Boylen hopping down the stairs to tell McKee that everything was all right. The rest of the day was uneventful.
I sat at the Information Desk thinking about Brenda and reminding myself that that evening, I would have to get gas before I started up to Short Hills, which I could see now, in my mind’s eye, at dusk, rose-colored, like a Gauguin stream.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), The Boy (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, John McKee
Related Symbols: The Gauguin Book
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Up on the beach there were beautiful bare-skinned Negresses, and none of them moved; but suddenly we were moving our ship, out of the harbor, and the Negresses moved slowly down to the shore and began to throw leis at us and say “Goodbye, Columbus…goodbye, Columbus…goodbye…” and though we did not want to go, the little boy and I, the boat was moving and there was nothing we could do about it, and he shouted at me that it was my fault and I shouted it was his for not having a library card, but we were wasting our breath, for we here further and further from the island and soon the natives were nothing at all.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, Ron Patimkin, The Boy
Related Symbols: The Columbus Record
Page Number: 74-75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

What had probably happened was that he’d given up on the library and gone back to playing Willie Mays in the street. He was better off, I thought. No sense carrying dreams of Tahiti in your head if you can’t afford the fare.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, The Boy
Related Symbols: The Gauguin Book
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
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Goodbye, Columbus PDF

The Boy Quotes in Goodbye, Columbus

The Goodbye, Columbus quotes below are all either spoken by The Boy or refer to The Boy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Relationships, Competition, and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

The next day I held Brenda’s glasses for her once again, this time not as momentary servant but as afternoon guest; or perhaps as both, which still was an improvement. She wore a black tank suit and went barefooted and among the other women, with their Cuban heels and boned-up breasts, their knuckle-sized rings, their straw hats, which resembled immense wicker pizza plates and had been purchased, as I heard one deeply tanned woman rasp, “from the cutest little shvartze when we docked at Barbados.” Brenda among them was elegantly simple, like a sailor’s dream of a Polynesian maiden, albeit one with prescription sun glasses and the last name of Patimkin.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, The Boy
Related Symbols: The Gauguin Book
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Look, look, look here at this one. Ain’t that the fuckin life?”
I agreed it was and left.
Later I sent Jimmy Boylen hopping down the stairs to tell McKee that everything was all right. The rest of the day was uneventful.
I sat at the Information Desk thinking about Brenda and reminding myself that that evening, I would have to get gas before I started up to Short Hills, which I could see now, in my mind’s eye, at dusk, rose-colored, like a Gauguin stream.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), The Boy (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, John McKee
Related Symbols: The Gauguin Book
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Up on the beach there were beautiful bare-skinned Negresses, and none of them moved; but suddenly we were moving our ship, out of the harbor, and the Negresses moved slowly down to the shore and began to throw leis at us and say “Goodbye, Columbus…goodbye, Columbus…goodbye…” and though we did not want to go, the little boy and I, the boat was moving and there was nothing we could do about it, and he shouted at me that it was my fault and I shouted it was his for not having a library card, but we were wasting our breath, for we here further and further from the island and soon the natives were nothing at all.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, Ron Patimkin, The Boy
Related Symbols: The Columbus Record
Page Number: 74-75
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

What had probably happened was that he’d given up on the library and gone back to playing Willie Mays in the street. He was better off, I thought. No sense carrying dreams of Tahiti in your head if you can’t afford the fare.

Related Characters: Neil Klugman (speaker), Brenda Patimkin, The Boy
Related Symbols: The Gauguin Book
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis: