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From: Charlezzzz@aol.com
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:49:11
EDT
Pallid the leash men. Didn't Ezra start his poem, "See, they return... " Hero clearly has had some troubles in his life; same as the four-pounder has, working against the hook. Hero is returning, weakened, lost. (Is it fair to assume that the youngish POB had read everything? Yes.) Hero wipes the mold off the bridge stone where his third woman's initials are carved. Symbolic, symbolic, quite in tune with the post war short story, so much influenced by Dubliners. (If the unachieving Dubliners are taken off the streets and plunked into the steam.)
Mold on the gravestone, of course, and he is remembering as he wipes off the mold. Grief unstated. Tenderness shown. One, if one is willing to stretch, sees an artist's life forecast here: the women, the losses, the battles to write well. Nothing mystical: a generic artist. Hemingway, for instance. Or POB, as it turned out.
That big fish, like trying to land a perfectly written short story, like Santiago the Fisherman, like Papa's Big (Great?) two-hearted river. Lands two little fish, tickles another--wch he earns the right to eat--and then is ready for the real battle. Bet POB read Hemingway as well as Joyce. Look how the word "lost " defines the road on which the hero travels.
Oh dear, and here's an echo from Frost. The road less traveled. And the stream wch is life. And how all of this is hidden, suppressed, not said but shown depending on the reader's ability to read closely and to work with symbolism--Joycean--a young man's story (nobody is older or more lost (oh lost, and by the wind grieved ghost, return) than a young short story writer) and how well the older, the old, POB has learned to brutally hide emotion away in THD...as it's all hidden (in a more symbolic way) in this story, typical of the 1940's kind of fiction.
From: Charlezzzz@aol.com
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 00:03:08 EDT
Reread for the third time: noted how the first para is about birth and death. And eating. Noted how the word "lost " is in the nub para where POB sums up the character's feelings about his life, and where he chokes up. Noted how, testing his casting, he aims at and breaks a dandelion (if I remember right about dandelion) clock. A clock. (A new use of the word for me.) A clock.
From: Charlezzzz@aol.com
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999
22:00:14 EDT
Main difference between most of the POB stories and his novels lies in what's important. In the novels, it's the story. The conflict. Somebody wants something, can't get it, then either gets it or doesn't: that's a story, and the reason for the "wanting " and the nature of the "obstacles " are clear.
In most of the novels, Jack has a naval situation to resolve, sometimes also a Sophie situation; Stephen has a Diana situation. The stories in the novels are extremely well told, full of incident and of characterization, and are echoed at a below-surface level, often by an animal metaphor--like the beautiful self-destructive sea snake that Stephen captures just before he finds Diana. But most of the short stories are more like poems.
In Returning we never know the cause or even the nature of the hero's situation. We see his actions, and the actions are clearly symbolic. Every paragraph contributes to some part of the underlying situation--as, in the first para, we find life and death limned clearly out as the trout feed, and the cannibal big ones are--for now--not eating the smaller ones. (But note that the hero eats three of them.) Death and loss runs through this story, and the hero comes to some sort of resolution when he lets the big trout go (a rather sentimental action--what a poet wd call "too easy. ")
The pleasure in a story like this comes not in the first reading but in the second or third or tenth; while in the novels, the first reading has many pleasures right out in front of the reader.
From: Charlezzzz@aol.com
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 13:25:01 EDT
2. New incoherent note. This time a question: How is the hero's experience a pilgrimage? (Word used by POB.) What's the good of a pilgrimage on a "lost " road?
I'll start off with a question, which will immediately reveal that I'm no amazing scholar. There was a sentence at the heart of the story that I read over and over and could not make sense of it! I feel so stupid, because I feel sure the idea expressed in this sentence is at the very heart of the story. But tell me for all love, how do you parse this sentence (p. 10 in my paperback):
"The march of the years between those times and now effaced the unhappy days of his boyhood and adolescence, and now that he knew the value of the happiness of the days that remained to him that his former, smaller self had lived in a golden world. "
It's the last bit that throws me - too many "thats ". But I see that he's saying of Jeremy that with the passing of the years and with living through many adult disappointments, the unhappiness of his childhood has faded, and now in reminiscence his childhood seems "golden " - like another, happier world.
And I think this is what is refered to on the last page as "an undefined symbolism that worked upon him too " - that kept him from killing the fish, which is vital and fine in its prime.
Elizabeth
--- "Mccullough, Elizabeth W "
I had also underlined that sentence fragment - it's not a sentence at all.
I thought it meant: his childhood was unhappy, but compared with his adult life
it was golden? I notice that this story was published in 1950. Was this an autobiographical
clue? POB had not reached his current level of success. I don't want to read
too much of his personal life into the stories, but we know that his own childhood
was unhappy - sickly, deprived of companionship and social opportunities, not
allowed to pursue interests and activities open to healthy youths. His adult
life was even harder to that point - an unsuccessful marriage, a spina bifida
daughter who died at age three, his best manuscript shot to flames during the
war, which probably meant the house was destroyed as well, and I doubt that
"he was in good hands with Allstate " - I don't think insurance would rebuild
his home. A very poignant thought in the short story - self-reflective? Is THIS the sentence that reflects
the title, "The Return? " Jeremy's returned to his old fishing
hole, all the memories of his youth are still there, etched in the stones?
DID he get what he came for, I wonder, fulfill his pilgrimage? I think
he didn't recapture his youth in this visit - he went as a grown man, with
competence as a fisherman, self-confidence, purpose. This wasn't the meandering
of a boy - he knew exactly where to fish, how to cook his catch, how to
release the captured fish responsibly. He let the fighting fish go free
- does he wish someone would let HIM go free? And I think this is what is refered
to on the last page as "an undefined symbolism that worked
upon him too " - that kept him from killing the fish, which
is vital and fine in its prime. What was the symbol? The release
of the fish? Is THIS what the title is about - the return of the fish to
enjoy its life? Is the symbolism that the fish returned
to their natural state and the man did also? And as long as we're raising questions,
I have a few on page 8: He was urbanized now. What was that
about? POB was in the middle of describing Jeremy's physical appearance
- how did urbanized get in there? What is its relevance? and We don't know anything about the
girls whose initials are carved there - do you suppose these were unilateral
boyhood loves? The one that he cleaned the moss off called him "Jeremy "
in full. Did the others even know who he was, this boy who maybe daydreamed
about them and carved their initials with his own? ? What an inconvenient time for gunroom
to be down! - Susan ===== Ok, here are my first random thoughts
about "THE RETURN ". I have a lot more questions about it than
answers. Susan says we should just toss out some posts, get some responses.
So what did the rest of you think?
-----------Rowen It reads like a writing exercise
, a theme for class. It's a very -polished- piece of writing. Gives it
a sterile effect. POB voice does not come through -
anyone could have written this - where is the personality? Very anonymous.
Cold, objective, As though the author
wanted to remain in control, to not allow much of his real voice to come
through, to have no emotional contact with the reader, only intellectual
contact. The story is handled almost as a
verbal, rational, intellectual experience, yet few words are used by the
character. -Does this emphasize the dichotomy of the intellectual who kills
for sport with a cold blooded, concerted plan and the "hunter/predator/of
nature " - primitive man who kills for food? Book says copyright 1950 - first
printed in "The Last Pool "; perhaps should be considered along
with 'The Dawn Flighting' as of a kind? Was it written then, or much earlier
and only printed then? Title's significance?: the return
of the man to activities of youth; the return of the fish to the water
(and life); the return of a world-weary? feels-old? mid-life-crisis? man
to his life after a rejuvenating experience. Plot:? none? Catch a fish? (no) Catch
-recapture- a past? How I spent my holiday? Tone: lyric quality - consciously
descriptive, much of the writing "feel " is kinesthetic and tactile.
To me it's not evocative nor visual, but factual, very tactile stark description.
Much use of fingers, hands, knees, feet, slipperiness, cold on skin, feet
on stones and moss, specific feel of casting, line with fish play, all
"touch " words. When he includes visual images they
sometimes jar, seem contrived, false - ( "where it sprang and curved
in the sun. " p. 11) On the other hand, the tactile imagry flows elegantly,
naturally. This is POB's touch: (pun intended) Description of cooking the fish -
very contrived paragraph - reads like a writing class exercise: ok, students,
practice using adjectives - how many ways can you evoke emotion with color?
"...thin blue smoke of his fire....a red heart....green (w. 2 meanings)
withy...fire's black circle...skins wrinkled and golden...pink flesh showed
through... (p. 11-12) Theme - control? precise control
of rod, fly; control of fish when caught; luck at maintaining control "did
not deserve this "; Angler has control of life or death- return-redemption?
Second theme - strength? Frees the
fish because? "It was the day and an undefined symbolism that worked
upon him too " (p. 15) ???? I don't understand this. "He saw its strong shoulders..
and could not find it in his heart to kill the fish. " (p. 15) Admires, respects, honors? the strength,
not the anima. Many hints of middle-age concern
with aging, concern with weakness by the fisherman, "last time, "
"lost " "He had so little to show for all he had lost "
"knew the value of the happiness of the days that remained to him. "
(p. 10) "dying light " (p. 15) Is he testing to see if he should
continue to "live " (symbolically not literally)? as he allowed
the fish to continue because it was strong? Euthanasia when no longer strong?
When one is weak, or not strong enough, then one gets 'eaten'. No desire
to end his life, though. Some fear of dying, ending, loss.
Some time back one of the lissuns
posed the question, "Did POB ever write an awkward sentence? "
and no one could come up with an example. Might I suggest this line from "The
Return ": Rowen
Tone: lyric quality - consciously
descriptive, much of the writing "feel " is kinesthetic and tactile.
To me it's not evocative nor visual, but factual, very tactile stark description.
Much use of fingers, hands, knees, feet, slipperiness, cold on skin, feet
on stones and moss, specific feel of casting, line with fish play, all
"touch " words. When he includes visual images
they sometimes jar, seem contrived, false - ( "where it sprang and
curved in the sun. " p. 11) On the other hand, the tactile imagry flows
elegantly, naturally. This is POB's touch: (pun intended) One line that caught (no pun intended)
my eye was: (p13) "the trout jerked against the
pull and sent the hook right home. The reel screamed, . . . " At the image of the hook sinking
in, a scream would seem appropriate, but having the REEL scream is a wonderful
image, I thought. - Susan =====
-----Original Message-----
I had also underlined
that sentence fragment - it's not a sentence at all.
Well, that makes
me feel better!
I thought it meant: his childhood was unhappy,
but compared with his adult life it was golden? I notice that this
story was published in 1950. Was this an autobiographical clue?
POB had not reached his current level of success. I don't want to
read too much of his personal life into the stories, but we know that
his own childhood was unhappy - sickly, deprived of companionship
and social opportunities, not allowed to pursue interests and
activities open to healthy youths. His adult life was even harder
to that point - an unsuccessful marriage, a spina bifida daughter
who died at age three, his best manuscript shot to flames during the
war, which probably meant the house was destroyed as well, and I
doubt that "he was in good hands with Allstate " - I don't
think insurance would rebuild his home. A very poignant thought in
the short story - self-reflective? Is THIS the sentence
that reflects the title, "The Return? " Jeremy's returned
to his old fishing hole, all the memories of his youth are still there,
etched in the stones? DID he get what he came for, I wonder,
fulfill his pilgrimage? I think he didn't recapture his youth in this
visit - he went as a grown man, with competence as a fisherman, self-confidence,
purpose. This wasn't the meandering of a boy - he knew exactly
where to fish, how to cook his catch, how to release the captured
fish responsibly.
Did he come to recapture his youth, and realized it wasn't
possible, but went away satisfied with a new understanding nonetheless,
perhaps? A reconciliation to what was past and done? Hmm. Also a contrast
with tickling for trout, as a boy would do, and the practiced skill with
which he fly fishes. Someone who knew something about flyfishing might
have a lot to say on this topic.
He let the fighting fish go
free - does he wish someone would let HIM go free?
And I think this is what is refered to on the last page as "an
undefined symbolism that worked upon him too " - that kept
him from killing the fish, which is vital and fine
in its prime.
What was the symbol? The release of the fish? Is
THIS what the title is about - the return of the fish to enjoy
its life?
I think there was an "undefined symbolism " in
the day itself - returning to the boyhood scene, struggling with the fish
- hard to put one's finger on in an exact way, thus undefined.
Is
the symbolism that the fish returned to their natural state and the
man did also? And as long as we're raising questions, I have
a few on page 8: He was urbanized now. What was that about?
POB was in the middle of describing Jeremy's physical appearance
- how did urbanized get in there? What is its relevance?
Yes, a very
odd word. Have you ever heard anyone refer to a "city haircut "
- that is, not done at home in the kitchen by mom? That's what that word
brought to mind - a slick, businesslike exterior that perhaps belied his
rustic roots - tickling for trout with simple Ralph.
and
We don't know anything about the girls whose initials are carved
there - do you suppose these were unilateral boyhood loves? The one
that he cleaned the moss off called him "Jeremy " in full.
Did the others even know who he was, this boy who maybe daydreamed
about them and carved their initials with his own?
"Jeremy "
and not "Jerry, " as his childhood sweethearts might have called
him?
I have to admit that when I prepared to re-read this story in preparation for this thread, I didn't remember it all; not a thing about it, and with good reason, in some ways. It's not to a quick reading a very memorable thing at all: a story of a man who comes back to a place where he used to fish as a boy and who catches a few fishes and remembers bits of his past. Well written, certainly, but not the most dramatic sort of thing in the world. But even a minor work by O'Brian is worthy of study, and I had the gnawing suspicion that the fact that PO'B chose to begin his short story collection with this work suggests it must signify for something, and since I was reading now with focus, and not rushing on to the next story, it became clearer that there's a great deal more here than may appear at first.
The most interesting thing about this story is the beginning: where it begins, I mean. The obvious place to begin a story is at the beginning, but "The Returns" begins BEFORE the beginning. If you think of the main thrust of the story -- a man comes to the stream, goes fishing, etc -- you'll see that it really doesn't begin until a page and a half into the nine page story, with the sentence: "A little while after a man came down the lost road through the wood." There's a full five paragraphs (long O'Brian paragraphs at that) before.
And what's the subject of these beginning paragraphs? Natural history, it seems, with descriptions of the stream, and the bridge, and the different fishes and birds and insects, and their inter-relations within their environment. Some of PO'B's stories, it seems, are largely character studies, which, if they were paintings, would be portraits. "The Return", I think, is a landscape, like one of those large canvases that take up most of a wall in a museum, with broad skies and trees and waterfalls, and way off in the foreground, or the corner somewhere, the artist has put a few people to lend perspective or give added variety to the picture as a whole. So there's at least two stories here: the outer story, which is the natural history of the stream and the woods around it, and the inner story, the story within the story, of the man and what happens to him in his brief sojourn within the environment.
Of course, there are many more inner stories within the inner story itself. The man thinks of some of his first loves, and there are whole worlds of possibilities here, but we only get a brief glance, a hint, of it. There are many more examples of this kind within the story. There are all sorts of undeveloped hints about the man and of what's going on in his life. We know the man's first name, Jeremy, and his initials, J.S.B. (Johann Sebastien Bach? I suspect PO'B may be having fun with the other initials as well), but not his last name, or very many other basic details about him, and these omissions seem in no way accidental. After all, there was no reason PO'B had to give the man a first name at all, but he did, and he gave him initials as well: the obvious question we as readers will ask then is: well, what's his last name? and we're likely to spend some time, with at least a part of our attention, coming up with hypotheses (Bentley? Bush? Buchanan? Barbarino?). Multiply this by all the similar hinted at, but not revealed facts in the story, and you'll see that even a casual reader is reading the story at several levels: there's the basic fishing story, but then there's all these other things going on at the same time.
A few other observations on the story: the ebb and flow of JSB's struggle with the fish at the end of his line is very well done and reminiscent of POB's descriptions of sea chases and battles. Also interesting is the whole scene on p. 11 where JSB strokes the fish's body with a few fingers, calming and soothing it, until, when the fish least expects it, he snatches it and throws it on the shore, where it flops about in fruitless deperation, until he, "[g]rinning like a boy", comes over and kills it. Thus trust leads to betrayal and destruction. This is something that has many parallels in O'Brian's work (the scene of Maturin watching the paraying mantis comes to mind).
Finally, I haven't read any of the other reactions to this story yet (though I certainly will, and with interest), except I did have a chance to see Charlezzzz'z post. Charlezzzz points to the "lost" theme: the "lost road" at the beginning (what I'd call the beginning of the inner story) and the end, the "dying light" at the end. I agree: this is an arresting feature of the story as a whole, the Eden-type story of having something once, something pure and beautiful and better in some way, that's been lost for some reason and can only be seen now in bits and glances. My question (to myself as much as anyone) is: is this something we're going to see in the short stories as a whole, and, in particular, is the last story in the collection going to hearken back to this (or other "Return" themes)? I can't say I remember from my previous (and only) reading of the short stories before, but I look forward to finding out as the short story thread continues.
John Finneran
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 07:32:28 -0700
(PDT)
[JF]I have to admit that when I prepared to re-read this story
in preparation for this thread, I didn't remember it all; not
a thing about it, and with good reason, in some ways.
[Susan] Isn't that just like O'Brian? None of his books have novel-type
memorable plots - I love the words, the descriptions, the segments. They
don't follow the "novel" form any more than the short stories
follow the "short-story" format. The story did not have a conventional
beginning or ending - it meandered for a while, like the river, and then
he stopped writing it. So the typical high school analysis question "How
does this story compare with short stories by, say, Edgar Allan Poe or
Shirley Jackson? " would be ludicrous, except that it IS revealing.
When we start to read a new book of short stories, we DO expect them to
follow the standard western lit short story form: to describe a situation,
to portray a character, to resolve the problem with a surprise ending,
perhaps. Here the surprise ending was simply that it ended - where the
author chose to stick the words "the end. " By the end of the
story, we didn't have any plot, we don't understand the character any better
than we did when we started, and we don't even know what happened. It's
a very interactive story - if you just read it, you're puzzled by it. It's
up to the reader to think about the issues very personally, because we
don't get to identify with any character. We're almost IN the story, because
he's described the physical setting so well. ===== "Who wishes to be a meagre
sailorman if he can be a learned and enter the government service? Why,
in time you might be an official and never do anything for remainder of
earthly existence. You could grow long fingernails, and become obese and
dignified. " -
Continuation:
[JF]
So there's at least two stories here: the outer story, which is the
natural history of the stream and the woods around it, and the
inner story, the story within the story, of the man and what happens
to him in his brief sojourn within the environment. Of course,
there are many more inner stories within the inner story itself.
[Susan] Very O'Brianesque. We can read all his books on different levels.
That's what makes his literature so great.
We know the man's first
name, Jeremy, and his initials, J.S.B. (Johann Sebastien Bach?
I suspect PO'B may be having fun with the other initials as well),
but not his last name, or very many other basic details about him,
and these omissions seem in no way accidental. After all, there
was no reason PO'B had to give the man a first name at all, but
he did, and he gave him initials as well: the obvious question we
as readers will ask then is: well, what's his last name? and
we're likely to spend some time, with at least a part of our
attention, coming up with hypotheses
[Susan] I'd missed that Johann
Sebastian Bach connection. Thanks, John! It's all mysterious. I think that's
his way of showing that we need to think it through, not just read it casually.
He lures us in with all those little hints and mysteries and things NOT
said, so we have to interpolate our own thoughts into his writings.
[JF]
A few other observations on the story: the ebb and flow of JSB's
struggle with the fish at the end of his line is very well done
and reminiscent of POB's descriptions of sea chases and battles.
Also interesting is the whole scene on p. 11 where JSB strokes
the fish's body with a few fingers, calming and soothing it, until,
when the fish least expects it, he snatches it and throws it
on the shore, where it flops about in fruitless deperation, until
he, "[g]rinning like a boy ", comes over and kills it.
Thus trust leads to betrayal and destruction. This is something
that has many parallels in O'Brian's work (the scene of Maturin watching
the paraying mantis comes to mind).
[Susan] Is that descriptive,
or moralizing? Is he describing again here, describing nature? Nature is
full of camouflage, guile, deception, survival. Jeremy didn't feel any
moral pangs about his action. Stephen Maturin wondered about the morality
aspects, so we had him as a crutch in the books. Are we on our own here
to decide whether Jeremy did something wrong? Did the female praying mantis
do something wrong? Jeremy obviously took a wrong turn in life, His character
was shaped back in his unhappy childhood, and he's had an unhappy life.
He couldn't undo that now, but perhaps he could figure out some of it,
come to grips with it, make something better happen? Go back to the beginning
and learn something about himself that will change the future? I get the
impression that tomorrow morning, Jeremy's going to be back (selling used
cars? shuffling papers? sweeping floors?) doing what he does 364 days a
year, and daydreaming about going fishing again next year. And maybe he'll
also have a sore back from the exertion, and sniffles from the falling
damps, etc. But this was the one day a year that makes the other 364 worth
living. ??
===== "Who wishes to be a meagre
sailorman if he can be a learned and enter the government service? Why,
in time you might be an official and never do anything for remainder of
earthly existence. You could grow long fingernails, and become obese and
dignified. " -
[Susan] Isn't that just like O'Brian? None of his books have novel-type
memorable plots - I love the words, the descriptions, the segments.
They don't follow the "novel " form any more than the short
stories follow the "short-story " format. The story
did not have a conventional beginning or ending - it meandered for
a while, like the river, and then he stopped writing it.
Yes, so much
like POB's novels, which to me seem to begin out of nowhere, stop action
in one place and then pick up again 100s of miles and many weeks later,
and end suddenly with no real resolution. Much like real life, I suppose!
[JF]
A few other observations on the story: the ebb and flow
of JSB's struggle with the fish at the end of his line is
very well done and reminiscent of POB's descriptions of
sea chases and battles. Also interesting is the whole
scene on p. 11 where JSB strokes the fish's body with
a few fingers, calming and soothing it, until, when the fish
least expects it, he snatches it and throws it on the
shore, where it flops about in fruitless deperation, until he,
"[g]rinning like a boy ", comes over and kills
it. Thus trust leads to betrayal and destruction. This is something
that has many parallels in O'Brian's work (the scene
of Maturin watching the paraying mantis comes to mind).
I gathered that "tickling " was a poaching technique (learned
from Ralph, "who could poach like an otter ") and in constrast
with the more sportsmanlike fishing scene. Of course, poaching was considered
a betrayal in other senses as well, not just from the animal's point of
view!
In a message dated 9/3/99 11:23:02 PM, John wrote:
The most interesting thing about this story is the beginning: where
it begins, I mean. The obvious place to begin a story is at the beginning,
but "The Returns" begins BEFORE the beginning. If you think of the main
thrust of the story -- a man comes to the stream, goes fishing, etc --
you'll see that it really doesn't begin until a page and a half into the
nine page story, with the sentence: "A little while after a man came down
the lost road through the wood." There's a full five paragraphs (long
O'Brian paragraphs at that) before.
Amazing - I had read all that, and completely ignored any point it might have
had! As you say, the frame of the picture!
And what's the subject of these beginning paragraphs? Natural
history, it seems, with descriptions of the stream, and the bridge, and the
different fishes and birds and insects, and their inter-relations within
their environment. Some of PO'B's stories, it seems, are largely character
studies, which, if they were paintings, would be portraits. "The Return", I
think, is a landscape, like one of those large canvases that take up most of
a wall in a museum, with broad skies and trees and waterfalls, and way off
in the foreground, or the corner somewhere, the artist has put a few people
to lend perspective or give added variety to the picture as a whole. So
there's at least two stories here: the outer story, which is the natural
history of the stream and the woods around it, and the inner story, the
story within the story, of the man and what happens to him in his brief
sojourn within the environment.
This is an excellent point - yes, it really is 'a landscape'.
After all, there was no
reason PO'B had to give the man a first name at all,
This is one of those things that felt like a writing exercise to me - "lets
personalize this a little bit" I'm not sure I would read more into it than
that if it were any other writer, but with POB, you might be right, who
knows? He certainly seldom does things for no reason in the canon. I do
think we should keep in mind though that this is NOT his mature work - it is
the work of a younger, less experience writer than the man who did Master and
Commander, and if Susan is right, the work of a man at a stressful point of
his life.
A few other observations on the story: the ebb and flow of JSB's
struggle with the fish at the end of his line is very well done and
reminiscent of POB's descriptions of sea chases and battles.
Yes, it does! It presages that narrative skill that keeps one interested in
the action rather than the (rather boring and forseen) result.
Also
interesting is the whole scene on p. 11 where JSB strokes the fish's body
with a few fingers, calming and soothing it, until, when the fish least
expects it, he snatches it and throws it on the shore, where it flops about
in fruitless deperation, until he, "[g]rinning like a boy", comes over and
kills it. Thus trust leads to betrayal and destruction. This is something
that has many parallels in O'Brian's work (the scene of Maturin watching the
paraying mantis comes to mind).
It also brings to mind that cold-blooded ability to suddenly flip "to the
dark side" - to casually shoot Ledward and Wray and dissect them, or Jack's
ability to greet battle with joy and savagely kill in battle.
In "The Dawn Flighting" there is an almost identical passage: "He stared at
the duck with an unconscious grin of pleasure; for it was a wonderfully long
shot. He picked it up and smoothed its beautiful ruffled breast with his
finger. With a sudden, unforeseen leap, the widgeon came back to life; it
almost sprang from his loose hands. He killed it and went back to the butt."
...the Eden-type story of having something
once, something pure and beautiful and better in some way, that's been lost
for some reason and can only be seen now in bits and glances. My question
(to myself as much as anyone) is: is this something we're going to see in
the short stories as a whole, and, in particular, is the last story in the
collection going to hearken back to this (or other "Return" themes)? I
can't say I remember from my previous (and only) reading of the short
stories before, but I look forward to finding out as the short story thread
continues.
Is this then the "Return" of the title? And if we tie that in with Susan's
thoughts about POB's biography is that significant?
Rowen
Rowen84@aol.com wrote:
This is an excellent point - yes, it really is 'a landscape'. I am beginning to suspect that O'Brian does this on purpose to involve
the reader. He gives us the most complete description of the physical setting,
to put US INTO the setting. Then he doesn't tell us what happens. He doesn't
tell us about the characters. To me, this is a completely new genre of
Western literature - the INTERACTIVE SHORT STORY. Not knowing what's happening
in the story, it becomes whatever WE think is happening. Not knowing the
character, it becomes US. This story isn't about Jeremy - we don't know
ANYTHING about him, not even his real name. This story is about ME - what
would I have done, how would I have behaved. I've posted to gunroom previously
that I thought he did this in The Hundred Days - he sucks YOU into the
story, he INVOLVES all your experiences. This isn't about Jeremy's lost
youth, lost opportunities. Alas, it's about mine. Sigh. And a happy sigh,
too. I think we are on the brink of a new art-form. Beethoven metamorphed
the symphony, O'Brian is doing it with the short story.
Also
interesting is the whole scene on p. 11 where JSB strokes the fish's
body with a few fingers, calming and soothing it, until, when
the fish least expects it, he snatches it and throws it on the
shore, where it flops about in fruitless deperation, until he, "[g]rinning
like a boy ", comes over and kills it. Thus trust leads to
betrayal and destruction. This is something that has many parallels
in O'Brian's work (the scene of Maturin watching the paraying
mantis comes to mind). It also brings to mind that cold-blooded
ability to suddenly flip "to the dark side " - to casually
shoot Ledward and Wray and dissect them, or Jack's ability to
greet battle with joy and savagely kill in battle.
...the Eden-type story of having something once, something pure and
beautiful and better in some way, that's been lost for some reason
and can only be seen now in bits and glances.
Is this then
the "Return " of the title? And if we tie that in with Susan's
thoughts about POB's biography is that significant?
Are you wondering,
is the Return a return to Eden? Did Jeremy tamper with The Plan by stroking
the fish and returning him, wiser, to nature? - Susan
===== "Who wishes to be a meagre
sailorman if he can be a learned and enter the government service? Why,
in time you might be an official and never do anything for remainder of
earthly existence. You could grow long fingernails, and become obese and
dignified. " -
Am I doing it correctly? SS in front so people can delete it if they are
not interested in the short stories? OK The Return. I read the Return as
slowly as if I were reading it outloud--well, actually partly out loud.
O'Brian is at heart a poet--I have always felt that--I love the contemplative
aspects of his writing in all of his stories--the musings--the now--and
this first short story IMO celebrates that aspect of his writing.
When
I first read it I was prejudiced because I am not a short story reader--and
I am not a fisherman or fisherperson or whatever. But this time through
it fairly sang to me. I read it with my pencil as I must to keep from going
too quickly. What has Jeremy returned to and more importantly why has he
returned--all his former loves are there in intials--the struggles with
the fish--the sad fish caught by his tenderness--why didn't he let that
one go after stroking it so lovingly--but he lets the fish that fought
nobly go. "he went away, through the woods by the lost road, in the
dying light. " Fascinating. Someone once said that he doesn't read
O'Brian because nothing happens for too many pages. (as I remember he liked
action sea stories).
For me there was none of the stilted writing exercise
that Rowan felt. But then I am not a writer nor a student of literaure.
I just listened to it and I liked it this time through.
Faith
In a message dated 9/3/99
12:20:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Rowen84@AOL.COM writes:
"The
march of the years between those times and now effaced the unhappy days
of his boyhood and adolescence, and now that he knew the value of the happiness
of the days that remained to him that his former, smaller self had lived
in a golden world. "
Now isn't that interesting--that is one
of the places that I marked with a squiggle as being very moving--Perhaps
I was more impressed with the sentence that follows it and that colored
the paragraph: "He had so little to show for all that he had lost;
and sudden, intense regret for it took him by the throat for a moment. "
Maybe it needs to be sung. Except that it made me cry and then it's hard
to sing. Faith
In a message dated 9/3/99 9:20:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Rowen84@AOL.COM
writes:
Some time back one of the lissuns posed the question,
"Did POB ever write an awkward sentence? " and no one could come
up with an example. Might I suggest this line from "The Return ":
"The march of the years between those times and now effaced the unhappy
days of his boyhood and adolescence, and now that he knew the value of
the happiness of the days that remained to him that his former, smaller
self had lived in a golden world. "
Bingo, Rowen! I stumbled
over this same sentence, finding myself in irons somewhere amongst the
three "that's ". I think there's a missing verb somewhere -- something
to hang that last "that " on ...
Bruce Trinque
For what they're worth, here are my
rambling impressions of "The Return ":
Basic "Story"
-- Middle-aged man returns to the trout-stream of his youth, reflects on
the fleeting nature of life and, out of respect/empathy for the noble old
trout whose life is also fleeting, returns the trout to the stream to enjoy
what's left of its life.
"Theme " -- Birth, death, and the fleeting
nature of life. The story begins with the birth of a May fly (an "emphemerid, "
for all love!), ends with the "dying light, " and in between constantly
explores the theme of "tempus fugit. " Everything in nature is
ephemeral -- including man.
My reaction: Really well written, strikingly
visual descriptions of nature, but not much new to say about its "theme, "
if I've smoked its meaning correctly. I share Rowen84's assessment: a first-rate
piece of writing from a technical standpoint, but a bit "flat "
and formulaic. (I'll admit that's my problem with most short stories: it
presents a very well-written "vignette, " but I'd like more of
a story, more clever dialogue, and the opportunity to learn new things.
What's more, I miss Jack and Stephen.)
If I were back in college, I might
try to make something out of the fact that, in the middle of the course
of his life, the protagonist wanders through a DARK WOOD and, coming out
into the sunlight, learns about the nature of life. (If that Virgil cove
had shown up, I'd be sure I was on to something!)
Eager to read what everyone
else thinks (if and when the Gunroom is up and running again),
Marc Oberdorff,
The kingfisher is the
only recurrent character. What is his symbolism?
In a message
dated 9/3/99 11:13:42 AM, susanwenger@YAHOO.COM wrote:
I'm
assuming a typo in this sentence, but agree with your assessment of its
meaning - "looking back things were pretty good, his life was still
ahead of him, and he didn't have the sense to notice it. "
Midlife crisis stage?
A theme of freedom? That doesn't fit to me, but then I don't see Jeremy
as "caught " or trapped, so I'm not sure how 'freedom' would fit
in a wider sense.
He was urbanized now. What was that about? POB was
in the middle of describing Jeremy's physical
appearance - how did urbanized get in there? What is
its relevance?> I think he means it as part of the physical description -a city man now,
not a run-wild country boy, not a 'hayseed' if you will. My question there
would be with the phrase before "quite gross to look at " ? Not
a pretty young boy? Gross as in too large, fat? The word doesn't signify
for me.
Absolutely,
except it gives us some spare reading time! Rowen
I've been rereading the Return - aloud this time - and
rereading everyone's
comments, including the new ones from Faith and Mark.
This way of reading
the stories, with other people to tell me what I should
be looking for is
great! You all certainly enrich the story! Where was
this group when I was
in college lit classes for all love.
I've got a couple more questions/comments that I'm going
to
toss out for consideration before we move on to The Happy
Despatch.
First, Charlezzzz, you've pointed out how much like poems
the short stories
are. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? I
think more understanding
of what POB's doing with "poetry" is going to help with
the rest of the
stories and I feel a bit lost here.
Faith also mentioned the poetry - that the story "sings",
and someone
suggested reading it aloud, which I did. There are some
wonderful sounds in
this piece that I didn't "hear" at all when I read it
silently. Does POB
compose by speaking his work to himself, I wonder? Did I
read somewhere that
he composes while walking in the morning and then writes
it down in the
afternoon?
As an example read the second paragraph aloud - all the
sounds are
onomatopoeic "incessant", "imperceptible" - hisssss of
the country, the
"purl" and "pebbles" - almost like bubbles of water,
"sharp" "punctuation"
"splash" - the sudden snatches of the kingfisher.
In the interesting use of words category: Charlezzzz
mentioned "clock";
another new one to me was a "screw" of salt. BTW what is
a grannom - some
type of lure, but is there anything special in knowing
what kind, or was that
just another of POB's effective use of detail?
Mark - thanks for pointing out that an ephemerid was a
May fly - and for the
birth/ephemeral path/death insight that tightly describes
the imagery. This
really seems to emphasis the "craft" of this writing to
me.
What about the "lost time in sleep" on p.12 - is this
another reference to
wasting his life - being unaware of good things around
him, as in the
paragraph with the "awkward" sentence? And is this
another reference to
something elsewhere in literature, as Charlezzzz pointed
out with Joyce and
Hemmingway? The scene seems vaguely familiar, but I don't
know from where,
and there is that pilgrimage thing. (I'll bet you're
right, Charlezzzz, - he
HAS read everything!)
In regard to the short stories as a whole - many of the
Aubrey/Maturin fans have commented that they don't like
or don't understand the short stories and that they are
"so different" from the canon. But I don't think they
really are all that different except in one way. It
seems to me
that in The Return we see much of POB's deft clarity of
description and his ability to evoke our sensory
reactions and our intellectual interest in the process
but what's missing is any reason for the reader to _care_
about the story. Did anyone "enjoy" the story other than
for technical or lyrical qualities? I think it was the
introduction of characters we care about in the
canon that turned the clinical writing into wonderful
literature.
As Charlezzzz says, "What think?"
Rowen
In a message dated 9/22/99 1:02:42 PM, Rowen84@aol.com
writes:
First, Charlezzzz, you've pointed out how much like
poems the short
stories are. Can you elaborate on what you mean by
this? I think
more understanding of what POB's doing with "poetry" is
going to help with the
rest of the stories and I feel a bit lost here.
Let me write it quick, Rowan, because I'm not at all sure
what I mean. Robert Frost or somebody said that the
surface story of a poem was merely there to keep the mind
busy while the real poem does its work underneath. The
surface story here ain't much. It's the part that's
underneath that's interesting. (But in his novels POB
manages to give both levels their due.)
Rowen84@aol.com wrote:
but what's
missing is any reason for the reader to _care_ about the
story. Did anyone "enjoy" the story other than for
technical or lyrical
qualities? I think it was the introduction of
characters we care about in the
canon that turned the clinical writing into wonderful
literature.
It's been awhile since I read the stories, but I agree
with
you here. They seem to me to be a sparkling and
interesting as
anything in the series, except that they concern complete
strangers and so
we are not engaged. I think that much of what is in the
stories could
be inserted into the books, and we would enjoy them. But
they are just orphans.
And they are like poems in that many poems tend to appear
to me to be
puzzling snippets of ideas, not long enough for me to get
involved with.
A bit like a five-minute conversation with a stranger on
a bus. The
stranger is no doubt terribly interesting at some level,
but I'll never
know. And unless I am Sherlock Holmes with the stranger
or a deep old
literary file with the poem, I won't get many insights.
Scott
I'll start off with a question, which will immediately reveal that I'm no
amazing scholar. There was a sentence at the heart of the story that I read
over and over and could not make sense of it! I feel so stupid, because I feel
sure the idea expressed in this sentence is at the very heart of the story.
But tell me for all love, how do you parse this sentence (p. 10 in my paperback):
"The march of the years between those times and now effaced the unhappy days
of his boyhood and adolescence, and now that he knew the value of the happiness
of the days that remained to him that his former, smaller self had lived in
a golden world. "
It's the last bit that throws me - too many "thats ". But I see that he's saying
of Jeremy that with the passing of the years and with living through many adult
disappointments, the unhappiness of his childhood has faded, and now in reminiscence
his childhood seems "golden " - like another, happier world.
"Who wishes to be a meagre
sailorman if he can be a learned and enter the government service? Why,
in time you might be an official and never do anything for remainder of
earthly existence. You could grow long fingernails, and become obese and
dignified. " -
Patrick O'Brian
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 11:17:40 EDT
From: Rowen84@AOL.COM
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 11:20:56 EDT
From: Rowen84@AOL.COM
"The march of the years between those times and now effaced the unhappy
days of his boyhood and adolescence, and now that he knew the value of
the happiness of the days that remained to him that his former, smaller
self had lived in a golden world. "
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 11:03:18 -0700
(PDT)
From: Susan Wenger
--- Rowen84@aol.com wrote:
"Who wishes to be a meagre
sailorman if he can be a learned and enter the government service? Why,
in time you might be an official and never do anything for remainder of
earthly existence. You could grow long fingernails, and become obese and
dignified. " -
Patrick O'Brian
From: "Mccullough, Elizabeth W "
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 13:05:30 -0500
From: Susan Wenger [mailto:susanwenger@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, September 03, 1999 10:49 AM
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 21:58:55 -0400
From: John Finneran
From: Susan Wenger
[JF]The most interesting thing about this story is the beginning:
where it begins, I mean. The obvious place to begin a story is
at the beginning, but "The Returns " begins BEFORE the beginning.
If you think of the main thrust of the story -- a man comes to
the stream, goes fishing, etc -- you'll see that it really doesn't
begin until a page and a half into the nine page story, with
the sentence: "A little while after a man came down the
lost road through the wood. " There's a full five paragraphs (long
O'Brian paragraphs at that) before. And what's the subject of
these beginning paragraphs? Natural history, it seems, with descriptions
of the stream, and the bridge, and the different fishes and birds
and insects, and their inter-relations within their environment.
[Susan] Just so. Very O'Brianesque. The action is secondary to the descriptions,
just like in the canon.
Patrick O'Brian
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 07:47:34 -0700
(PDT)
From: Susan Wenger
Patrick O'Brian
From: "Mccullough, Elizabeth
W "
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 11:25:48 -0500
From: "Mccullough, Elizabeth
W "
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 11:34:22 -0500
From:
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 10:08:52 EDT
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 12:19:14 -0700
(PDT) From: Susan Wenger
Patrick O'Brian
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 15:08:39 EDT
From: Faith Ingles
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 15:14:10 EDT
From: Faith Ingles
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 17:19:24 EDT
From:
Batrinque@AOL.COM
41*19'41 "N 72*12'40 "W
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 22:35:47 -0400
From:
"Oberdorff, Marc "
ashore from HMS Rose at 41°28'45 " N 81°49'14 " W
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 14:09:45 PDT
From:
"P. Richman "
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 10:09:11 EDT
From:
Rowen84@AOL.COM
From: Rowen84@aol.com
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 13:00:22 EDT
From: Charlezzzz@aol.com
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 14:34:09 EDT
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 99 16:50:24 -0000
From: sdwilson
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