Well, it would be a shame to miss this one.Ī new revised edition of E.B. White, and I know that people would rather buy a book about a writer everybody hates the guts of. White once cautioned a biographer not to refer to him as beloved. I'm Scott Simon.Ĭoming up, a new generation's interest in Edith Piaf, France's "Little Sparrow." But first, the writer E.B. As White struggles to find himself he knows that he cannot relive the moment through his son’s eye’s and he knows he can’t go back in time.This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. The Lake immediately coveys a tention between experiential time and historical time that pervades the work. A man’s reflection of his past, it’s connection with his current life, in the realization that this connection brings is life changing. Even though the lake has changed over the years, it remains a lake that White can revisit. The lake supports the idea of the necessity of permanence, to some extent, in life. Some things do not change, such as the thought of a person, the feelings towards other people that one has, the longing for something, and so on. ![]() While revisiting his ideal boyhood vacation spot White describes his struggle to come to terms with aging and to stop living in the familiarity of the past. To raise awareness of the inevitability of growing old is White’s purpose. ![]() He settles comfortably into this calm state that represents eternity. His retreating back to the lake helped him develop an idea of his mortality and to seize every good moment. His point of view when looking at his son is the sense of physical in a way we pass history on to our children, and how going to a lake in the summer in Maine, doing the same thing that your father did and having your children do the same thing is kind of continuity of a certain kind of American reality. He realizes that his son will soon play the part of adult hood. White expressed pain in his muscles as he felt death, realizing that while the pleasures of the lake are the same to his son as they were to him as a child is now playing the role of the older man. He says at the end of the story that his son pulls on a wet bathing suit to go swimming. Imparting truth, accepting mortality, creating memories is E.B. One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. White also evokes feelings of apprehension in the reader with his descriptions of the sea. Childhood memories will never be forgotten by White, especially the memories he enjoyed the most. He also describes of a “fade-proof lake”, and “unshatterable woods” because they will always be embedded into his memory. White feels time passing and death coming. He elicits emotions with phrases like “a cool and motionless lake”, and “as he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.” He is no longer experiencing the lake as he did when he was a child. ![]() White evokes feelings of optimism and anticipation with introductory sentences, such as “I took along my son who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had only seen lily pads from train windows.” White connects with the audience by drawing them into the argument using pathos.
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