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Muss
In “Somewhere Along the Line the Pearl Would Be Handed to Me,” the mussel Gallos is Sel’s best friend. He grew up in Hudson Bay and is a poet. When Muss arrives from the West Coast, Gallos is enchanted by his talk of how life is meaningless and his insistence that experience is everything. At first, Gallos and Muss talk for hours straight about everything. Like Sel, Gallos agrees to follow Muss across the continental U.S. for San Francisco. He joins Muss in several endeavors, as when Muss goes to tie up a predatory dog whelk on the battleship they attach to. However, once the mussels arrive in Pearl Harbor, Gallos is old and stops writing. Eventually, he becomes so depressed that Sel and Muss stop visiting him.
Gallos Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Gallos or refer to Gallos. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Somewhere Along the Line the Pearl Would Be Handed to Me: Soul of Mussel Quotes
Muss said [the zebra mussels] were halfway to covering the whole bottom of the lakes too, that there was not a single native mussel left to tell us stories.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Gallos Character Timeline in Only the Animals
The timeline below shows where the character Gallos appears in Only the Animals. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Somewhere Along the Line the Pearl Would Be Handed to Me: Soul of Mussel (Died 1941, United States of America)
The mussel Sel first meets Muss after he decides that everything is dead. Sel’s friend Gallos introduces him to Muss; Gallos had taken up residence on Sel’s pier in the Hudson...
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At first, Muss and Gallos talk for 8 or 10 hours straight. Gallos laps up everything Muss says. Sel listens...
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Muss, Gallos, and Sel hitch a ride on a cargo ship. Muss says they have to move...
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...feels like he’s starting to dry up and thinks about names of native pearly mussels. Gallos works the names into a little poem, which he recites by shouting.
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...says that Muss and his young friends shouldn’t take chances. Muss howls with grief, so Gallos and Sel lead him out into the water and avoid the seagulls at night.
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Muss and Gallos aren’t certain about attaching to a U.S. Navy vessel, but Sel doesn’t care. He just...
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...and Sel get into a fight over the nature of reality. Bluey gets sad and Gallos gets jealous, but Muss and Sel forgive each other later. Muss makes Sel repeat, “Experience...
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...to tether it, but Bluey insists it’s wrong to starve another creature. Both Muss and Gallos support the cause, but Sel doesn’t know what he feels. He stays put while Muss...
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...he’s his own little world. The girl moves on and not long after, Muss and Gallos return. They’d tied up the dog whelk and left it to die. Hearing this, Bluey...
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...with his family and knowing he can latch onto something for good. Sel, Muss, and Gallos don’t understand Bluey’s feelings, but they sadly let him go. After Bluey’s departure, Sel gets...
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Sel, Gallos, and Muss talk about nothingness. Muss insists they turn bright orange when they’re cooked. He...
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...drifters settle down as juveniles amongst the other mussels. It dawns on Sel, Muss, and Gallos that they’ve wasted their freedom—now, they’re the elders in the colony. The juveniles keep coming...
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...to make his body implode. The water heats up from the oil fires. Remembering what Gallos said about surviving in boiling water, Sel tries to close his shell. He can’t; half...
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