Noa talks about earning your own failures when she says, "Failure is not something you can impress upon another. It is something earned, something realized with piquant reward." Do you agree?

On page, 79, Noa talks about earning your own failures when she says, "Failure is not something you can impress upon another. It is something earned, something realized with piquant reward." Do you agree? Why or why not?

I do agree with this statement. While we are all influenced heavily by our parents, our childhood, our circumstances, I believe our choices are our own and we are responsible for them. Therefore, choices that lead to failure are "earned" so to speak by our decisions.

The word "piquant" is an interesting choice, however. Does this mean that there is some element of pleasure in receiving the consequences of our failures?

In Noa's case it was enviromental not heredity that made her who she was.She had no father and a habitual liar as a mother who "ran" around alot. Many people can be able to lead happy lives with this kind of background but not Noa.
Noa had no pride in herself and believed the good in people when she was younger. As she aged and things turned grim she had no support system to help her.

It is a shame, that with her brain under different circumstanes she coul have made a good life for herself.

To second point, She took onous for what happened to her. I thought it took alot of guts to do that. She had so many people to blame for what happened.

I think Piquant means spicy, provacative, sharply critical - so there is no "reward" I think she earned hers when she killed Persephone

I don't understand that statement, that failure can be earned. I have a hard time thinking of committing a crime as a failure of something. A crime is a success of a negative thing if you accomplish it. I think of failure as temporary, something you can redo until you succeed. Maybe she thinks she failed to think things out correctly before she acted?

Actually, I thought this was one of a number of flowery yet meaningless statements in the book.

I agree with Sally H. I don't have a clue what the author was trying to convey.

This seemed to me to be another of the author's unbelievable and ridiculous statements. There were times when I was literally stopped after reading a sentence. I almost wish I had kept an inventory on some of the most incredulous. I didn't because this was an uncorrected proof and I hoped a really good editor could turn this into something readable.

I think that a person has to take responsibility for her life, but things beyond our control can cause us to fail. A business can be destroyed by fire or all kinds of different things. How a person responds to failure makes a big difference. Many people go on to succeed after many failures. So I don't agree with the statement.

I also agree with Sally H. Did not understand the meaning.

Stacey, you have a point! I think the reward is "spicy" as in bitter/sweet maybe. One may do something that is wrong, yet not really understand it. Or you may be conditioned for failure in life, and actually expect it, so the reward comes in the form of- yes, you failed to do good again, just as is expected of you.

Thanks, anka! It is a sentence I had to really think about - both for the author's meaning and for whether I thought it was true.

I think Sally is totally on target with what kept this from being a really great book. I would have enjoyed the book so much more if I didn't find that I was constantly struggling with how I felt about numerous passages that I felt were over written. Part of me attributed this to an attempt to be in character but It was defi Italy a distraction.