What stands out to me in repeated readings of this story is the unusual method of revealing character. Anders appears to be a flat character--stuck in his witty, critical way of distancing himself from others. It seems like he can't help himself. Even when he stares up at the ceiling, he's a witty critic. He reacts to the robber's speech as if it is cliched dialogue from a novel he's reviewing (savagely).
Up until the bullet enters his brain and we go into "brain time," the narrative is 3rd person limited; everything is seen thrugh Anders' sensibility. But then it shifts to 3rd person 'omniscient.' The narrator now can tell us, God-like, what precisely is occurring, physically and psychologically, in Anders' head. The narrator also knows what Anders did not remember at that moment. This method allows the narrator to give us a pretty full sense of what Anders' life was like--his family life as well as work--through a series of touchstones that he does not think of. Interesting twist.
The scene he does recall is significant to me because it's a key to his obsession with language. We know that he memorized hundreds of poems as a teen. How did this get started? This scene with his ecstasy at "they is"--notably without judgment or condescension--shows us the pleasure at language that drove him.
Do you think we are supposed to consider his present orientation to language in contrast to the purity of this moment?
I think his present orientation to language is more of a complement to the purity of this moment rather than a contrast. Because it was established early on in the story that he had a love, almost an obsession, with language, the purity of this one memory he has is enhanced by the fact that he has more or less escaped to his "happy place." His first love and his wife are not included in this happy place because the qualities of Sherry, his first love, came to irritate him; and his wife "exhausted him with her predictability." This escape is somewhat of a revelation of the things that a stolid, cocky man loved unconditionally--sandlot baseball games in the neighborhood and the way different people utilize the English language.
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