Once More Lake
September 31, 2012
Once More to the Lake
In this story the author relives his childhood memories on a lake in Maine where his father used to take him and his siblings. In the story the author has moments where he “seemed to be living in dual existence” where he sees himself as his son and sees himself being his father at the same time. The author says “I would be in the middle of a simple act, I would be picking up a bait box, or laying down a table fork, or I would be saying something, and suddenly it would be not I but my father who was saying the words or making the gesture”. He states in the story “I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father” and he also says “Everywhere we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, the one walking in my pants”. I also conclude from this story that in reliving this scene of boyhood the author feels like he is getting older and coming closer to death. He says in the ending paragraphs “Afterward the calm, the rain steadily rustling in the calm lake, the return of light and hope and spirits, and the campers running out in joy and relief to go swimming in the rain, their bright cries perpetuating the deathless joke about how they were getting simply drenched”. The adjective deathless kind of catches the reader of guard and changes the tone slightly and then he says in the ending sentence “As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death”.
The author parallels his vacation on the lake in present time with the vacation he went on with his father giving very detailed illustrations. In the story he tells the reader some of the things that had changed and things did not change on his camping trip. For instance he says “The small waves were the same, chucking the rowboat under the chin as we fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color green and the ribs broken in the same places, and under the
Once More to the Lake
In this story the author relives his childhood memories on a lake in Maine where his father used to take him and his siblings. In the story the author has moments where he “seemed to be living in dual existence” where he sees himself as his son and sees himself being his father at the same time. The author says “I would be in the middle of a simple act, I would be picking up a bait box, or laying down a table fork, or I would be saying something, and suddenly it would be not I but my father who was saying the words or making the gesture”. He states in the story “I began to sustain the illusion that he was I, and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father” and he also says “Everywhere we went I had trouble making out which was I, the one walking at my side, the one walking in my pants”. I also conclude from this story that in reliving this scene of boyhood the author feels like he is getting older and coming closer to death. He says in the ending paragraphs “Afterward the calm, the rain steadily rustling in the calm lake, the return of light and hope and spirits, and the campers running out in joy and relief to go swimming in the rain, their bright cries perpetuating the deathless joke about how they were getting simply drenched”. The adjective deathless kind of catches the reader of guard and changes the tone slightly and then he says in the ending sentence “As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death”.
The author parallels his vacation on the lake in present time with the vacation he went on with his father giving very detailed illustrations. In the story he tells the reader some of the things that had changed and things did not change on his camping trip. For instance he says “The small waves were the same, chucking the rowboat under the chin as we fished at anchor, and the boat was the same boat, the same color green and the ribs broken in the same places, and under the