“He’d lived with this story for so long, and kept telling himself it wasn’t real. It was a myth, a story told and repeated and embellished over and over and over. Around fires just like theirs.”

The Brutal Telling begins with a foreboding tone and a mythlike story being told over a fire at night. This image evokes a primitive yet modern truth of human nature: the experience of telling stories. This story foreshadows the investigation and tension to come.

“Olivier looked into a fire that had been alive for more than a decade.”

In this quote, the fire is used as a symbol. In literature, fire often burns a concept, structure, or thing to allow for renewal, a reemergence from ashes. This implies that something must be destroyed in order for something better to be built. This quote also ties Olivier Brulé to Jakob/the Hermit’s cabin for “more than a decade,” which will help develop dramatic irony later in the novel.

“People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn’t buy every one.”

Myrna’s discernment matches the attitude of Inspector Gamache and his homicide team. She is an acute observer and avid reader, but this quote’s “stories” are literal and figurative. When Penny writes that Myrna doesn’t “buy every one,” she is referring to not only literal books but the stories people tell about their lives. Myrna knows better than to take everything at face value. This skill is also important to Gamache, who listens to various versions of the truth while trying to solve a murder.