This
is the fifth post on Michael D. O’Brien’s novel, The Lighthouse: A Novel.
You
can find Post #1 here.
Post
#2 here.
Post
#3 here.
Post
#4 here.
Summary
Chapter
9: A Place Where We All Can Live
The
last item of the work room to complete was to varnish the wooden floor, and
with that done they moved in Ethan’s tools and carvings. Ethan was so taken by Ross’s generosity that
he left a thank you note upstairs. After
dinner they sat around and talked and Ross asked Ethan about his
background. With hesitation and sadness,
Ethan finally revealed about his upbringing by a single mother who later left
him. Finally it was time for goodbye,
and the two had grown so close that it was difficult parting. As a parting gift, Ethan gave Ross the
carving of the boy on the dolphin. As
Ross departed in his boat, Ethan had the insight that the girl he had made love
to when he was sixteen was Ross’s mother, and that Ross was his biological
son. As Ethan pieced together clues, the
puzzle seemed to fit. After debating if
he should let Ross know, Ethan decided against it. In October while in town Ethan stopped at
Biggs’s store and gave him the bell that had been on the wrecked boat his
ancestor had survived.
Chapter
10: The Storm
A
week later, Ethan found out that his lighthouse was going to be closed down by
the government and an automated beacon was going to replace it. Ethan, if he wanted, could be transferred to
another lighthouse. Ethan debated within
himself as to what to choose. By winter
he decided to quit, receive his pension, and use most of his personal savings
to buy the lighthouse from the government.
In the heart of the winter, isolated in the lighthouse carving more
statues of his “family” Ethan also wrote in his journal a note to Ross
explaining their biological relationship.
While writing he heard on his radio a call for help by a boat in the
midst of a storm sinking in the winter cold Atlantic. After coordinating how to find them, Ethan
jumped into his Puffin and raced to the
catastrophe. There were twelve people
clinging for life in the sinking boat.
The Puffin was able to carry
ten without sinking. Ethan told the
other two he would come back for them, and noticing that one did not have a
life vest, he gave him his. After
dropping off the ten, Ethan raced back for the other two. When he got back to the disabled boat, he
watched it sink into the ocean but he heard on his radio that the stranded two had
been picked up by a nearby ship. Ethan
then dashed home into the heart of the storm, but the Puffin capsized and Ethan drowned.
Chapter
11: The Sentinel
After
a brief statement noting that Ethan’s body and wreckage was never found, the
final chapter consists of a series of six brief scenes. The first is of Ross Campbell hearing the
news of Ethan’s death on the radio at his mother’s house. The second is of Catherine McGinnis hearing
the news of Ethan’s death on TV in Toronto just before playing a piano concerto
from Rachmaninoff. The third is of Elsie
meeting the man who Ethan gave the life vest to. The fourth, eight months after
the deadly storm, was of an old man and his granddaughter in Brazil finding washed
up on the beach the wooden Puffin statue from Ethan’s boat. The fifth scene, in the spring of a year
later, is of Ross, his newly married wife Rachel, and their infant son Ethan
coming to the lighthouse which they inherited from Ethan’s will. The sixth scene is of Ross, Rachel, and the infant
checking out the puffin nests
###
Thoughts and
observations on Chapter 9, “A Place Where We All Can
Live”
The two men complete
the construction project creating a place for Ethan’s “wooden family.” I
still find the “wooden family” the most absurd part of the story, the only
absurd part of the story. It’s not that he carves the wooden family
that’s absurd; it’s that he has some sort of relationship with them. If
O’Brien had just left it as carvings and let the reader make an inference to
Ethan’s psychology, that would have been fine. It’s weird to talk to
wooden statues as if they’re your family, even if you carved them
yourself. That O’Brien pursues the relationship shows he doesn’t think it
weird. He is trying to project a hole in Ethan’s psychology, a hole Ethan
is trying to fill with the wood carvings. A good psychological novel is
way more subtle than this.
What Ethan writes on
the back of the chart is a natural prayer for Ross’s well being and his
gratitude for all of Ross’s work performed in kindness. It’s something a
father would write to his son.
The blue whale
watching Ross on his dive seems to suggest the symbolism of God watching.
But it may be more than that. Ross shortly after recounting the blue
whale story discusses his absent father and says he prayed for him. The
missing father in Ross’s life haunts him to where he has a sense of a “Father”
watching him. I think the whale does double duty here in representing God
and Ross’s biological father. This is actually good representation of
psychology and good symbolism. I think there should have been more of
this for both Ross and Ethan, especially Ethan. It is talk of the blue
whale that leads to the discussion of Ethan’s missing father and then to Ross’s
missing father.
That Ross prays opens
up the religion question in the novel. O’Brien is overtly Catholic, and
Catholicism is clearly part of the undertones of the narrative. This is
one of the best scenes in the novel and deserves an extended quote. It’s the departing scene where Ross packs up
his boat to go.
After breakfast, they
carried tools and scientific equipment down to the Lund. The tent and other
gear came next, carefully stowed by Ross. The boat looked considerably emptier
than when she had first arrived.
“Well,” said Ethan.
“Yup, well.”
They shook hands.
But neither of the two seemed to know how to
bring the departure to a tidy conclusion.
“You never told me much about your life,”
said Ross.
“You haven’t asked me.”
“Okay, I’m asking.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Where’s your family? Parents, siblings?”
“I’m like you were,” said Ethan hesitantly.
“I had a single mother.”
Ross straightened and inspected Ethan’s
face.
“Well, it happens,” Ross said. “There are a
lot of people like us now.”
“Yes, a lot.”
“How’s your mother doing?”
“I haven’t seen her in many years. I’ve
tried to find her, but. . .”
“Oh. I’m sorry. And your birth father?”
“He went away when I was in the womb. I
don’t know who he was.”
Ross looked genuinely grieved by this.
“That’s pretty brutal,” he said. “I know how
it feels. My own birth father just disappeared into thin air—like he never
existed.”
“But your mother kept you, loved you.”
“Yes, she did. I love her too. And as I told
you before, my stepdad’s a great guy. Couldn’t have asked for a better father.
Still, I wonder about the guy who’s my biological father—whatever happened to
him, is he still around somewhere, that kind of thing.”
“Is it painful for you to think about?”
“No, not anymore. Now I just wonder who he
was. I was angry at him when I was a teenager—you know, the Invisible Man—but
that passed. I feel sorry for him more than anything. Maybe pity’s a better
word. And you?”
“I’ve felt angry in the past. Now it’s only
sadness.”
“Yeah, Ethan, I can see you’re sad. You look
sad just about all the time.”
Ethan struggled to find words to deflect the
probe. He had opened up far too much, and now it was time to shut down.
“You know how I got over my teenage gloom?”
Ross said. “Whenever I drifted into thinking about my origins, the old feelings
rising up, analyzing myself to death, feeling abandoned, I just started praying
for that guy. When I prayed for him, the mood went away, the sun started
shining again. Of course, it takes practice. My dad taught me this.”
“Your adoptive father?”
“That’s right. And my mum still prays for my
biological father all the time, whoever he was; she can’t even remember his
name after all these years.”
Ethan averted his eyes and started looking
around the beach for anything the boy might have neglected to pack.
They stood on the quay and shook hands a
second time.
“Well, it’s time t’ sail beyond the sunset
and the baths,” said the boy with his wry grin.
“Thank you for your help, Ross. I couldn’t
have done it on my own.”
“I’d really like to come back someday, if
that’s okay.”
“That would be fine.”
“Thanks for all the great experiences.”
Ethan dipped his head in acknowledgment.
“Right,” said Ross, suddenly all business.
“Time to go.”
“Wait,” said Ethan. He knelt and opened a
gunny sack he had ported down to the shore. “This is for you.”
It was the dolphin carving. Unpainted.
Oiled, glowing with natural tones. The boy received it into his hands, and
cradled it, pondering its every detail.
“A gift,” said Ethan.
Ross looked up, unable to speak. His mouth
tried to form words of thanks, but failed. Somber of face, blinking rapidly, he
stepped into the boat and carefully laid the carving in the folds of his
sleeping bag, snugged against a thwart.
“And this,” said Ethan, handing over the
nautical chart on which he had penned his parting message. Ross slipped it
under the carving, unread.
As Ethan untied the bowline and pushed him
off, Ross fired the motor. He wheeled his boat on the water, leaving an arc of
spume on the deep beyond the cove. Then he straightened out and headed directly
south to the headland and Brendan’s Harbour, to his future, to other people and
other tasks.
Then came a final wave of his hand, his red
wind-breaker like a splash of paint on the kingfisher blue and the dome of
cerulean above it, almost a quaint folk painting, the forms containing all that
was essential, man suspended above the abyss, the water and sky elegant, the
points of color making the whole greater than the sum of its parts, as a work
of art should do.
As he watched the little boat diminish,
Ethan felt anew all the losses he had known in his life. Yet he also pondered
the truth that this boy, this stranger, had also suffered loss and had risen
above it, like a dolphin leaping, a soul riding the waves.
Out of the fog of his past he remembered
that the girl he had loved when he was sixteen had borne the same surname as
this boy. And then, without knowing why, he felt the world turning, the
universe revolving around the polestar, the stars leaving a thousand wakes of
light. And when it had completed its round, when his heart ceased hammering and
his thoughts steadied, he knew. He knew who this Ross was.
This is the heart of
the novel, perhaps the climax of the psychological element to the story.
I think this is more powerful than the physical climax in the next
chapter. That Ross mentions he and his mother have prayed for his
biological father is ironic in that his biological father is standing there
right before him unbeknownst to all.
[Side note. As
some of you may know my son is adopted and since the day we brought him home at
one years old I have included his biological mother in my prayers. All I
have is a name and that she was seventeen years old when she had Matthew.
I need to suggest to Matthew that he should pray for her.]
The scene is infused
with spirituality. Ethan “kneels” down to take out the dolphin carving,
suggesting a prayerful stance and submission, a sort of unconscious apology to
having abandoned the boy and mother. What does the dolphin
symbolize? I think this is a direct allusion to William Butler Yeat’s
poem, “Byzantium.” Here is the closing stanza of that poem, lines 33-40:
Astraddle on the
dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after spirit!
The smithies break the flood,
The golden smithies of
the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing
floor
Break bitter furies of
complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn,
that gong-tormented sea.
“Byzantium” is Yeats’s follow on poem to his earlier
“Sailing to Byzantium,” and I think you should read the two
poems together. I’m not going to explicate the two poems—that’s almost a
book in itself—but simply Yeats’s theme is the tension between the physical and
the metaphysical worlds and an artist’s attempt to capture both. The
dolphin’s physical “mire and blood” (which for the first time after decades of
reading that poem could suggest Christ’s flesh and blood—it never occurred to
me before) is endowed with spirit captured by the smithies in the marble
floor. The hero in the poem, perhaps the poet himself, caught in the physical
flesh and blood world, rides the dolphin beyond this world. The dolphin
is the passage way to the spiritual world, connecting both worlds. As
Ethan watches Ross motor away, he has a vision of Ross overcoming the physical
hardships of life “like a dolphin leaping, a soul riding the waves.”
This brings me to an
interesting question: why does O’Brien make Ethan lack a religion? He clearly is naturally religious, and we see
his innate spirituality throughout the book.
I thought the novel was projecting to some sort of conversion and
acceptance of Catholicism. More on that
with my thoughts on the next chapter.
The next section of
the chapter is Ethan piecing together the clues that confirm his insight that
Ross is his biological son. The revelation that Ross is Ethan’s son is a
wonderful twist to the plot. Some might say it wasn’t prepared.
While I think I would have preferred Ross coming into the narrative earlier in
the plot, I think the discovery of Ross being his son is a natural development
and completely justified. We see them as father and son as they work
together, though the son here tends to have more skill than the father.
But the relationship is true. Where I might criticize is that all the
construction working together is just filler as an excuse to bring the two
together. As we see in the next chapter, all that construction work is
wasted and never put to use. So much of the narrative went into that
construction project and in the very next chapter Ethan dies. The
construction feels pointless. Nonetheless, the father/son connection was
a huge plus for the novel.
Ethan debating with
himself whether to let Ross know he was his biological father provides a nice
tension. I can’t help but feel that a better story could have been constructed
with the characters of Ethan, Skillsaw, and Ross integrated the length of the
novel.
Ethan going to Biggs
to hand him the bell from the wreck Biggs’ ancestor survived provides a
parallel story of a boy without a father making his way in the world. It
also connects generations of fathers down to Ross, which we will see as a
father in the epilogue. It brings a sense of closure to the Biggs
character and the history of the wreck from a hundred years before. I
guess it foreshadows Ethan’s coming wreck.
I
think this chapter and the Skillsaw chapter are the two best chapters in the
book.
###
Kerstin
Comment:
Manny wrote: "What
does the dolphin symbolize?"
According to the interwebs,
In Christian symbolism,
the dolphin is a multifaceted emblem representing Christ, salvation, and
spiritual guidance. Early Christians associated the dolphin with Christ,
viewing it as a symbol of the Savior who guides and protects believers, much
like the dolphin was believed to rescue sailors from peril.
This connection arose from the dolphin's reputation for saving drowning
individuals, paralleling Christ's role as humanity's savior.
The dolphin is often depicted in early Christian art, particularly in the
catacombs, where it appears alongside the anchor, forming a powerful symbol of
hope and steadfast faith.
Ellie
Comment:
I genuinely enjoyed the
"construction sequence", maybe because me and my dad are big on
woodworking and hobbies but I thought of it as... bonding experience for the
two men, especially seeing as the relationship between them. But I agree that
it should have been done completely differently, their entire relationship
actually. I feel like O'Brien should have based their relationship on
meaningful conversations rather than some detached building scenes that did
nothing to deepen the reader's relationship with the characters.
I also feel like the
revelation of Ross being Ethan's son was really predictable for me. It was the
only character that was recurring and stayed for prolonged periods of time.
But I totally don't
understand how this novel is Catholic at its core. I know that some of the
themes are there, but it just doesn't feel enough, even with the symbolism.
Kerstin Reply to Ellie:
Ellie
wrote: "But I totally don't understand how this novel is Catholic at its
core. I know that some of the themes are there, but it just doesn't feel
enough, even with the symbolism."
You're not the only one, lol! And I think you pointed to something significant,
there wasn't enough meaningful conversation or introspection on Ethan's part.
This is why he is so one-dimensional to me. This whole novel felt rather
secular to me. The reader is not really informed when or where the presence of
Christ is there, even if the character is unaware of it. We just have one activity
followed by another.
Ellie Reply to Kerstin:
Kerstin wrote: "This whole novel felt rather secular to me. The reader is
not really informed when or where the presence of Christ is there, even if the
character is unaware of it. We just have one activity followed by
another."
If I remember correctly, at the very end, when Ethan was drowning, he saw
Christ reaching out towards him (or something to the effect) and I feel like
this might be Ethan truly accepting God into his heart, and letting him guide Ethan
to the next part of his journey, but it just fell flat. Because we don't see
Ethan even thinking about faith that much! There were maybe two scenes? Again I
might not remember it correctly, but the question of his faith (or his doubt)
was never really discussed in depth.
Whereas if the novel was centered around him searching for
God, doubting God, searching for the meaning of his troubled life in the sea,
in the people that visited his island briefly, in everything that happened in
town- well it would be a different novel altogether. But unfortunately those
encounters told me nothing.
I feel like I'm criticizing this book so much, but I genuinely think it had
great potential.
My Reply to Kerstin and Ellie:
I
do think this is a Catholic novel. It runs along the logic of via negativa, what God is not but here a
world absent from the Catholicism the world should have. Ethan's heart is
portrayed as having natural religion, but given his upbringing and the apparent
overwhelming secularization of Canada (but we could insert any of the first
world countries here, but it is my impression that Canada is even more secular
than the US) he has not had any Christianity revealed to him, let alone
Catholicism. Side note, I did find it implausible he had so little knowledge of
Catholicism and Christianity in general given he was supposedly so well read.
You would think he would have read about some of it. Nonetheless, Ethan is an
example of a modern person who has good in his heart but lacks knowledge of the
transcendent, has a hole in his heart but is looking to fill it. God and
Christian values are an undercurrent in the novel and almost just a reach and
grasp away.
###
Thoughts
and observations on Chapter 10, “The Storm”
The
disruption to Ethan’s life with his lighthouse being shut down and replaced
with an automated beacon brings back the theme of anti-modernism. I think we saw the theme of anti-modernist in
a couple of places. We saw it in the
satirical portrayal of the young Japanese girl who came with her grandparents
the chapter “Tidal Wash.” We saw it with
the rude behavior of the group who came to the island for a picnic also in
“Tidal Wash.” We saw it with child abuse
Skillsaw Hurly experienced in childhood (priest abuse is associated with the
modern church in some Catholic circles) and in Skillsaw’s modernist angst which
leads to despair. We saw in the critique
of mothers needing a husband to function in the world. We see it of course in the fatherless
children in the novel, a state of the modern world. These may seem somewhat disparate motifs or
ideas but they are interconnected in the Catholic traditionalist
worldview. This anti-modernist theme has
been an undercurrent throughout the novel.
It comes to the fore with the replacing of the lighthouse with a
beacon.
I
don’t mind the imaginary conversation with Ross as his little son, but the
imaginary conversation with Catherine MacInnis is trite as writing and weird as
narrative. Here it is in the novel.
Dialogues with Catherine
were of a different order, consoling in a way, but leaving him lonelier than
ever, wondering why she had not returned.
There
is not much within me, Catherine, that a woman would want to spend a lifetime
with. I am a boring
Two
souls become as one, Ethan, she replied. How could that ever be boring?
Do
you make music now, out there in the world? he asked.
Yes,
I’m making music now. But we two could make music here, playing it for the
puffins and for the listeningness, the awakeness in existence.
Would
it be enough for you?
Yes,
it would be enough for me, she said, taking his hand, looking him in the eyes.
Don’t be afraid, Ethan.
I’ve
been afraid all my life, Catherine.
And
you’ve overcome fear all your life. I see you protecting children from the
violence of the blind and cruel. I see you as a boy in a forest, felling trees.
I see you pulling people from the sea when it is angry.
You
are the first to look inside me, and you still wish to know me.
Yes,
I still wish to know you. It is called love, Ethan.
Glancing across the room
at his artificial wife, he felt a momentary guilt of infidelity, but she gazed
at him as fondly as ever. He shook himself, forced a laugh, and turned his
thoughts back to real work.
“Glancing across the room at his artificial wife, he
felt a momentary guilt of infidelity”?
That’s just silly and awful. Why
does imaginary dialogue with Ross seem acceptable while with Catherine come
across as weird? Because we spent a
quarter of the book watching Ross and we learned he is Ethan’s biological
son. He only met Catherine once for
about an hour a couple of years before this moment. Can she mean that much in his mind and heart? If O’Brien was after some sort of psychological
epiphany to Ethan’s character, this is just poorly done. Yes, there is a way to get into Ethan’s
psychology, but this is just flat. He
feels infidelity to a wood carving in an imaginary conversation with a woman he
barely knows? There are things to like
about this novel but the attempt at psychological exposé of characters is definitely
not one of them.
The scene where Ethan meditates in the church is
nicely done. His natural religion
embraces his intuitive grasp of the holy.
There was a listeningness here,
not unlike that of the sea and sky, or perhaps the awakeness of
the universe, the bigger ocean. Timelessness too. At one point he sensed the
presence of someone with him in the church, and so strong was the feeling that
he quickly looked all around him, thinking that Elsie had come to find him. But
there was no one there. Strangely, he continued to feel that he was not alone.
Simultaneously, without reason, he wanted to let tears flow, but couldn’t at
first. When they came, they were silent. It had been so long since this kind of
thing had happened, maybe twenty years or more. Were these the overflow of
solace or the release of sorrow? He didn’t know.
I will come here again. I will rest here from time to time. I will listen to the
listening.
This is excellent for a short passage. The creation of a new word, “listeningness,” to
capture the transcendence is inspired.
And O’Brien lays out an expectation I have been anticipating for the
entire novel, a religious conversion. “I
will come here again.” “I will rest here
from time to time.” “I will listen to
the listening.” Doesn’t this seem like
the progression of the story is leading to a religious conversion? It would seem so. And then he destroys my anticipation by
killing Ethan off.
I could not believe this is how he brought the story
to a conclusion. By having Ethan die in
a happenstance storm? There are so many
unfulfilled lines of narrative. What
about Catherine MacInnis, or some other woman to be his wife? What about that hole in his heart for a
spouse and children? What about his
carvings and artistry? What about that
work room he and Ross spent a quarter of the novel constructing? What about his life in the purchased
lighthouse that he spent his life savings on and now has ownership? What about his relationship to his biological
son that he discovered and now loves? What
about Ethan’s nascent Catholicism? All
of these threads could have been tied together by his religious conversion and
perhaps wedding. All his internal demons
brought about by that childhood trauma that governed the length of the story
could have been brought to rest.
It was so startling an ending that I am wondering if
there is some philosophic idea behind it.
What am I missing that O’Brien implies?
Just as Catholicism is unmentioned in the novel to capture the modern
world, could such an ending have some meaning I am missing? Unfortunately, while I can come up for a
reason with the unmentioned Catholicism, I cannot come up with a rationale for
this sudden ending.
This ending had nothing to do with the story of the
novel. It is simply a Deus ex machina ending where the author by shear plot device brings the novel to a
conclusion. In addition, it is purely a
Hollywood movie type ending, packed with schmaltzy heroic action and a
self-sacrificing final act that makes the hero into a Christ figure. Ethan unintentionally even leaves behind a
note that Ross will one day read and learn the secret of their
relationship. This is Hollywood sentimentality.
I’m not saying that the drowning was unprepared. We saw Ethan as self-sacrificing hero
rescuing Skillsaw. But repetition is not
a natural conclusion to a story. The
concluding events, especially the climax, has to develop from the conflicts and
tensions of the story. The climactic
scene is artificially contrived and not a natural development. It is something right out of a movie. Ethan’s final moment of seeing Christ and the
Blessed Mother could have been a nice touch if what led to it was not so
artificially contrived. It comes across
as just a sentimental embellishment.
###
My
Comment:
I was just re-reading the
imaginary dialogue with Catherine with Ethan’s feeling of infidelity. Here’s
that sentence again, only this time the whole sentence: “Glancing across the
room at his artificial wife, he felt a momentary guilt of infidelity, but she
gazed at him as fondly as ever.” I guess I so grimaced at the first part of
that sentence that never noticed the second clause, “but she gazed at him as
fondly as ever.” Hahaha, I had to burst out laughing. Isn’t there a Twilight
Zone episode that runs along those lines?
###
Thoughts
and observations of chapter 11, “The Sentinel.”
Having
Ross, wife, and baby at the end is a natural coda to the story. As I looked back, Ross came into the story
almost exactly mid-way into the novel in chapter six of the eleven
chapters. He is the story’s Sancho Panza
to Ethan’s Don Quixote for four of the eleven chapters, chapters six through
nine. I think Sancho Panza and Don
Quixote are reasonable, though imperfect, analogies. The character who is best adjusted to real
life lives on.
The
vignettes in the closing chapter were good and provided the novel a certain
freedom it lacked. In this very manner
O’Brien could have had vignettes throughout the novel of Ethan’s childhood
trauma, perhaps vignettes of Skillsaw as we watch his nihilism grow and become
cynical with his Catholic faith, and vignettes of Ross and his mother adjusting
to life and growing in their Catholic faith.
Such vignettes would have added to character development and created a
richer theme.
I’m
sorry about me trying to rewrite this novel.
I don’t usually do that, but I don’t usually read poorly formed
novels. The last one I read was here on
Catholic Thought, Brian More’s Catholics.
We
find out that the man Ethan saved by giving him his life vest is a priest from
Nigeria. Those are striking
details. Again we have the undercurrent
of Catholicism and perhaps a look toward the future of the Church. In Western countries the Church has
diminished and is being infused with African priests. And Ethan’s sacrifice in saving the priest contributes
to the future of the Church. I think
these are very good details.
I
wasn’t a fan of the image of Elsie’s white hands over the priest’s black ones. It was presented rather starkly. I wasn’t a fan not because it wasn’t
warranted (it was) but because the image of white and black hands as a symbol
for unity has become a cliché, at least here in the United States. It’s been around for a long time. It’s a striking image but because it’s been
around it’s become somewhat hackneyed.
O’Brien could have strove for a more original image, but it’s ok.
What
was the point of the Brazilian old man and his great granddaughter finding the
wooden carving of the puffin on the shore in Brazil eight months after Ethan
drowned? It doesn’t say where in Brazil
but it’s roughly 5000 miles (8000 kilometers) away. For some reason I had the
inkling that the old man was going to be identified as Ethan’s biological
father. The old man is similarly named
as Esteban, but Esteban translates into Stephan, not Ethan. O’Brien doesn’t connect the characters in any
way. Brazil is the most populous
Catholic country in the world. Perhaps
there is a connection with that? The
narrative never says. It is left as a
connection between divergent and distant parts of the earth.
The
image of Ross and his son closing the novel provides a nice generational
continuity and resolves the disorder of Ethan’s childhood trauma.
###
Frances
Comment:
In connection with our
reading, I came upon a review in today’s WSJ which underscored the novel’s
issues. From the book Why Brains Need Friends: “Backed by research, endorsed by
doctors, the basics of healthy living have become part of a canon. . . An
essential tenet: engage with other people. Social connection improves health
and well-being, reducing the risk of conditions ranging from cardiovascular
disease and dementia to depression and anxiety. . . We are meant to be
together. . .Social interactions prompt the brain to release rewarding
chemicals, which is why engaging with others feels intrinsically pleasurable
rather than burdensome. Deprivation cuts the other way: isolation is agonizing,
one of the worst fates a human can experience.” (Why Brains Need Friends, by
Ben Rein, PhD)
The article raised in my
mind the question: what would a sixty, a seventy-year-old Ethan have been like,
had he lived? Perhaps dementia would have claimed him. We’ll never know, of
course, but it is one of those elements that lives in the background of the
narrative.
My
Reply to Frances:
Human connections are so
important. Thanks for that Frances. I don't think he would have remained
isolated for the rest of his life. I think the right ending would have been
Ethan's conversion to Catholicism, perhaps married Catherine or someone like
her, continued his relationship with his son, and perhaps found his birth
mother and repaired that relationship. That would have brought order to the
disordered world. That would have restored what had been damaged. That would
have been the Catholic worldview and story.
Ellie
Comment:
I will also say that I
thought most of the characters felt like stock characters: the lonely
lighthouse keeper, the young Japanese girl who was just incredibly rude and
seemed to me a portrayal of modern teenagers, as Manny said (as I was thinking
about this more, this just made me mad: her character needed so much more
nuance), the people who came to have a picnic depicted as those that disturb
Ethan's peace (again: rude and unwilling to have a conversation; while I admit
there are people like that, this was just unnecessary antagonism thrown into
the story) the long lost fatherless son, the kind and compassionate woman, the
wise elderly catholic woman, the mad sailor... I could go on. I don't know, it
just all felt one-dimensional, however good the intentions were.
I would have gladly read
a 600 page book if there was at least some development. But this felt static
and the ending just cut off all hope at redeeming the story for me.
Frances’s
Reply to Ellie:
It wouldn’t have to be
600 pages, Ellie. I’m thinking of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To
Find.’’ It has the uniqueness and nuance your intellect craved.
My
Reply to Ellie:
You know what is a good
little Catholic novel that hardly anyone knows about, try Not All of Me is
Dust. At the risk of embarrassing the author, I loved this novel.
Kerstin
Comment:
I do agree, Ethan's
drowning was jarring. It is as if the wrong ending was slapped on the story.
After all the effort to build something for the present and future there needs
to follow some reward for the main protagonist borne from these labors. Instead
we get an ending more fitting for a tragedy or a modernist, nihilistic story.
To be honest, I don't
think I would have finished the novel if it hadn't been for the group. It is
somewhat painful to point out the holes. Whatever the initial ideas for this
story were, it needed more percolating.
Kerstin Comment:
In the beginning Ethan
feels disconnected from anyone and anything, and in the end we have a number of
people proving him wrong, he did touch them in his lifetime. He even has a son
and his legacy will go on. Is that it? It doesn’t even satisfy on an emotional
level as the story arc is a bunch of snippets gathered over decades where the
character stays rather one-dimensional.
The book has a rather
high rating here on goodreads, and I can only assume O’Brien must be writing
for a different audience.
Frances Reply to
Kerstin:
Kerstin, if you
thought of it as a novella instead of a novel, would that make a difference? I
couldn’t put it alongside A Farewell to Arms or For Whom the Bell Tolls, for
example, for the reasons you mention. But I can appreciate it as a novella.
Otherwise, I think O’Brien would have to take about 60–80 pages more to add
depth. What do you think?
Kerstin Reply:
That is not a bad
idea, Frances, especially if you take out all the redundant filler.
###
Retrospective
Thoughts Post Reading of the Novel
Chapter
9, “A Place Where We All Can Live,” was the core of the novel. Everything before this was establishing the
context and projecting to this interchange between Ethan and Ross. The central theme of the novel is the
ramifications on the lives of fatherless men in contemporary society as a
result of society’s secularization.
Ellie’s
comment on the characters being stock characters is pretty accurate. My hunch is that O’Brien started with the
idea of his central theme and then tried to create characters from it. When you generate a story in that fashion,
you run the risk of stock characters.
O’Brien
is known for long novels. I have not
read them. Perhaps he felt compelled to
make this novel brief. Stock characters
overcoming their “stockiness” with length of story. The more we engage characters in varying and
complex events, the more real they become.
There are actually a very limited set of conditions we see Ethan engaged. We see him in and about town in a cursory
way, we see him with Elsie who is a mother figure, we see him refurbish the
boat that washes up and carve the wooden family, we see him dealing with the
intruders of the island, we see him save and interact with Skillsaw, and we see
him work with Ross. Only with Ross is
there any extended interaction, and I can’t say it enlightens Ethan’s character
much. What we know of Ethan’s character
at the beginning of the novel, we know after Ross. We gain extra knowledge, but does Ethan grow
in any way? I don’t think so.
The
path for growth was laid down in the story.
There was this budding of interest in Catholicism instilled. This is perhaps the only growth we see in
Ethan. But then O’Brien kills him as I
point out. The ending of the novel is an
unforgivable flaw.
