she is fascinated by this imperial culture, loves it, but is also fundamentally horrified by it. This! In fact, thinking of it today of all days, that's my fundamental ambivalence with the US. I used to feel envious and disdainful when I saw people put their hands on their heart of the anthem. Like, it was so foreign to me to have pride in your country and display it openly and I was in turn envious and disgusted...

And I think not only does the protagonist feel this way, but so do we. We don't hear the poetry but through hear we get the feelings and there's something utterly mesmerizing in having a code, for example, built on ancient poetry. So yeah, great description of a lot of the feelings this novel seems to inspire...