"She had, in addition to her books, a modest shelf of tapes and CDs that served a similar, though narrower, function…she was aware that her collection was comprised largely of mainstream choices that reflected—whether popular or classical—not so much an individual spirit as the generic tastes of her times: Madonna, the Eurythmics, Tracy Chapman from her adolescence; Cecilia Bartoli, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mitsuko Uchida; more recently Moby and the posthumously celebrated folk-singing woman from Washington, DC, who had died of a melanoma in her early thirties, and whose tragic tale attracted Danielle more than her familiar songs."
Danielle is sort of a conservative. Interested in prioritizing security, she has devoted her attention to career. This is demonstrated through little things like her music collection, which she had neglected to develop over the years. Danielle's one advantage in life is her self-perception. She knows that her CDs are generic and untasteful, but she's focusing on one task at a time, gradually improving herself.
"An inchoate mass of ambition, Julius knew that he had soon, soon to find something to be ambitious for; otherwise, he risked terminal resentment, from which there was no return."
Julius is eager for meaning in his life. He's working jobs that he hates, so he spends all of his time doing something he resents. It's a recipe for disaster, but Julius isn't qualified to do much else. He desperately considers his options, seeking a lifestyle change.
"It all came down to entitlement, and one's sense of it. Marina, feeling entitled, never really asked herself if she was good enough. Whereas he, Julius, asked himself repeatedly, answered always in the affirmative, and marveled at the wider world's apparent inability to see the light. he would have to show them - of this he was ever more decided, with a flamelike conviction. But he was already thirty, and the question was how?”
When Bootie, her younger cousin, moves into her parents' house, Marina finds herself in the midst of an absurd rivalry. She's incredibly jealous of Bootie because he represents all the things she didn't accomplish but took for granted in her 20s. He earns her father's respect; meanwhile Murray is discouraging her from even finishing her book. Here, the author explains that Marina is negatively affected by Bootie's potential because she resents his having accomplished what she failed.
“From anywhere: where once he had feared that this immense city would set him adrift, a spinning atom in the ether, and where once he had seen in this the ultimate terror of insignificance, he now, and suddenly, and so clearly, saw that his fate had led him here. His fate had taken him off two trains this morning, had raised him to the surface at Whitehall Street, had shown him the spinning atoms, unraveling, the end of life, all of them people tethered by love, and habit, and work, and meaning, tied into a meaning suddenly exploded, because contrary to all he had imagined, being tied, being known, did not keep you safe. Quite the opposite: this, surely, was the meaning of Emerson, which he had so willfully and for so long misunderstood: great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Even their cousins know nothing about them. He had never been known rightly - how could he be, in the carapace of his ill-fitting names - but had thought that this imperfect knowledge was to be worked upon, bettered, but of course: mutability, precisely the capacity to spin like an atom, untethered, this thrill of absolute unknownness was not something to be feared. It was the point of it all. To be absolutely unrelated. Without context. To be truly and in every way self-reliant. At last.”
Bootie is a young man of passion. He's intent on accomplishing greatness and reads purpose into his history. Having dropped out of college, he benefits from the seeds of intellect planted by what portion of school he finished. Now he's reconciling his education to the "real world." Bootie concludes that he wants to completely independent, to stand for himself and behind himself, rather than relying on relatives who seem all to eager to compromise their values.
