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- Feb 13, 2022
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I encountered the expression "the face he looks at each day and has no clue what’s inside it", but am struggling to understand it. Could you please let me know what it means? Here is the excerpt:
“I am so tired of him. He’s the healthiest man in the world, and I’m the worst thing for him. There are days when, I swear, all I want is to seize the pumice stone in my bathroom and bash my face in with it, because it reminds me of the face he looks at each day and has no clue what’s inside it, no clue, no clue. He made me stop being who I am; worse yet, I stopped knowing who I was.”
- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, First Night
This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. It is narrated by a nameless male protagonist. He meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. Now Clara is speaking about her ex-boyfriend Inky, as to how she is tired of him.
I wonder what the underlined expression means.
I first thought that Inky ("he") is looking at the face of Clara, but then it seemed to me that Clara is exasperated at Inky's face because she had no clue about his face...
So I wonder "the face he looks at" means "the face Inky gazes at", or "the face Inky shows".
And I also wonder whether the subject of "has" in "has no clue what's inside it" is "he (=Inky)".
“I am so tired of him. He’s the healthiest man in the world, and I’m the worst thing for him. There are days when, I swear, all I want is to seize the pumice stone in my bathroom and bash my face in with it, because it reminds me of the face he looks at each day and has no clue what’s inside it, no clue, no clue. He made me stop being who I am; worse yet, I stopped knowing who I was.”
- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, First Night
This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. It is narrated by a nameless male protagonist. He meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. Now Clara is speaking about her ex-boyfriend Inky, as to how she is tired of him.
I wonder what the underlined expression means.
I first thought that Inky ("he") is looking at the face of Clara, but then it seemed to me that Clara is exasperated at Inky's face because she had no clue about his face...
So I wonder "the face he looks at" means "the face Inky gazes at", or "the face Inky shows".
And I also wonder whether the subject of "has" in "has no clue what's inside it" is "he (=Inky)".