I hope so. She already felt guilt over her father’s suicide. I hope she didn’t carry the burden of “why Jackson left” through her illness. It really bothered me that he left her.</p>
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I figured the trust given Jackson by Belle and the building owner was partly due to a more trusting time. Belle trusted him, or at least treated him kindly, because he was a soldier. I assume once he started helping around the house and proved himself trustworthy, Belle felt comfortable with him staying. She obviously needed someone at the house to help her with upkeep. Munro does leave out a lot of the story, so it’s hard to know for sure. As for the building owner, I agree it seemed odd that he just left Jackson at his building without knowing anything about him. I didn’t get the sense that Jackson did much that first day except watch the building. He didn’t even have keys to the building. The owner couldn’t find the keys and had to go back to his own house to get a spare set. When Jackson wanted to stay and continue to work, the owner did check up on him with the police to make sure he didn’t have a criminal background.</p>
<p>It’s interesting that Jackson was able to have such long relationships, yet didn’t want close emotional relationships. He wanted/needed the friendships, but not the attachments. I think he will move on after living a while in the new town. As soon as someone starts getting too close, he’ll be back on the train.</p>
<p>Did anyone consider the possibility that Jackson is the father of Ileane’s daughter (Candace)? Now I know that Jackson and Ileane’s night together was “a disaster” (p. 213), but that can mean a lot of things. Jackson says of Candace’s age: “No more than twenty years old though it was sometimes hard to tell nowadays” (p. 207). Ileane does refer to the girl’s father at home, but still…The timing doesn’t make sense for Candace to be the daughter of someone who came after Jackson, unless Ileane had a whirlwind romance with a new man.</p>
<p>It was Jackson himself who put the idea into my head with the words “out of wedlock”:</p>
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<p>Timeline: Ileane and Jackson meet in grade nine, and become friends over the next five years. Shortly before Christmas 1940, Jackson enlists (p. 207). He leaves for war and he and Ileane exchange letters. He returns after VE day, May 8, 1945 (p. 212) and that is when they have their disastrous night together. </p>
<p>Belle gets sick in summer of 1962 (p. 189) and dies in July 1965 (p. 203) when Jackson is working at Bonnie Dundee. Shortly thereafter Candace shows up, followed by her mother three weeks later. The year isn’t given, but it seems to be upon the heels of Belle’s death. So a child conceived in May 1945 would be 20 in 1966. </p>
<p>I thought the night was a disaster because Jackson was impotent. </p>
<p>Lots of stories, in general, do have younger people showing up who turn out to be a character’s offspring, but that doesn’t seem to me like something Alice Munro would necessarily do. To me, she seems more subtle and quirky, less Peyton Place-ish. :)</p>
<p>Mary - I briefly wondered about paternity also but then thought, as did NJTM, no - impotent. </p>
<p>Jackson never shows back up after VE day. The disastrous night occurs on his last leave (sometime before D-Day). I thought it sad that Ileane waits for him at the train station in her new lime-green dress and he never shows up. He jumps off the train and walks in the opposite direction from where Ileane waits for him.</p>
<p>Actually, so did I. :). But I had fun playing around with alternate scenarios!</p>
<p>Thanks for the timeline correction, ignatius. I had mixed that up. On the bright side, that means that Ileane found love again soon after the lime green dress episode.</p>
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<p>…which is essentially the same thought that came to him when he left Belle and then when he left Bonnie Dundee.</p>
<p>If the line had a deeper meaning, I didn’t catch it. I took it at face value – merely her explanation for why the cow had “a stupid name.” (Margaret Rose being the name of Queen Elizabeth’s sister.)</p>
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<p>So true! Munro’s characters don’t ever dramatically change course. I suppose that’s more true-to-life than Hollywood-style endings in which the protagonist completely turns his or her life around.</p>
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<p>This is how I saw his future too. He’s a good man and it’s (another) melancholy ending.</p>
<p>I found this story very disturbing. I never picked up on the fact that it was a dream, and it still doesn’t seem like one to me. Initially, I thought it was a day in the life of a woman in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. That is terrifying enough – I’m not sure it needed to end like a Twilight Zone episode.</p>
<p>As I mentioned upthread, In Sight of the Lake was my least favorite story. I also found it a very disturbing and a very frustrating story. Every sentence seemed to lead towards an inevitable tragic ending. Munro played with my emotions in a way that felt cruel. I guess I could say that it was Munro’s masterful writing that caused my strong feelings of negativity, but I feel more like she just chose a topic that could easily manipulate my emotional response. That fact that it was a dream didn’t save it for me.</p>
<p>I didn’t see this as a dream either and it left me wondering why Munro would pull out the dream card. Maybe she’s having a little fun at our expense. In fact, by this point in the book I am starting to get a feel for things, but in this story she shakes things up. There are no sorrowful relationships or mistreatment of children. I am as disoriented as Nancy. The puzzling elements are softened by humor, and then she hits us over the head with none other than the loss of our inner selves. Yes, I am annoyed…but I can’t help but wonder if that’s what Munro intends…time to really tweak 'em. She ends with that “sharp as a tack” line and I feel she is patronizing all of us.</p>
<p>Eta: agree w you, BUandBC, that it was a cruelly manipulative story</p>
<p>It is odd how different this story is from other. I see it as both a dream and Alzheimer’s. I think she’s in a nursing home, and reliving some past confusion, even more confused because it is indeed a dream. Did not like this at all, though Nancy is an engaging character.</p>
<p>Okay, so many of Munro’s stories seem to involve people who are stuck in a role, here’s the ultimate nightmare of that scenario. That’s what this story is doing there. It’s followed by another story about being elderly.</p>
<p>Thanks for reminding my that Queen Elizabeth’s sister is Margaret Rose. I forget she has a second name. Obviously not much of a royalist myself!</p>
<p>I was startled that the narrative in “In Sight of the Lake” turned out to be a dream, but actually there are plenty of clues.</p>
<p>One thing that made the story dream-like was Nancy having a note in her pocket that she expected to contain the doctor’s name, but instead it was a cryptic record of a shoe size.</p>
<p>I often have dreams like this, where I look at something written and it makes no sense. Or I try to use a cell phone, and there is something odd about it and I can’t operate it.</p>
<p>In the story, there are non-functioning clocks, and a sign that Nancy can’t read because of the angle of the sun.</p>
<p>When she gets to the home, there is no bell, and no directory, and no phone, and no buttons or computer behind the front desk, and the interior doors don’t open. </p>
<p>When she opens her mouth to yell, she can’t make a sound.</p>
<p>Ooops, sorry - temporarily among the missing. Backtracking some to where I left off … “Pride” - I just had a good chuckle over ignatius’ being reminded to replace some flatware! I appreciate the various but intertwined interpretations of the skinks at the end of the story. I was mostly thinking, “Huh? Skunks in the bird bath?” Anyway, overall my reaction to “Pride” was one of like/dislike. What I really wanted to do was give both characters a good shake to “wake them up.” They were often, like 2 ships passing in the night, not communicating.</p>
<p>“Corrie” - I, too, figured out that Howard was extorting money from Corrie. Once again my assessment of the main characters can be summarized as “he’s a jerk and she’s a wimp.” Corrie just seems to let things happen to her. Interesting link to the brouhaha about another author writing a story so similar to Corrie. Not sure I buy the “homage” explanation … I wondered if Howard’s wife knew about/had an inkling of the affair? Also, fascinating to read the different endings to the story.</p>
<p>“Train” - I liked this story. Mary, I actually did wonder if Jackson was the father! I also wondered a little about the building owner trusting Jackson so immediately, but in general I believe it was a “sign of the times” - a soldier returning from the War was a pretty trustworthy, respected guy. It’s fitting that Jackson hops the train whenever he decides to move on – there’s the “freedom of the rails” image, and being unattached/ready to go on the spur of the moment. What will happen at the lumber town to make him move on?</p>
<p>“in Sight of the Lake” - i found this story both intriguing and disturbing. “Twilight Zone” is a good overall description, Mary. Whether Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia, the memory issues hit very close to home for me. My mother suffered increasing dementia the last couple years of her life (she died in Feb) and it was so very difficult and frustrating - not only for those close to her, but also for her. She knew her memory was pretty much nonexistent, and there was nothing she could do to regain it. What a feeling of helplessness/having no control over anything!</p>
<p>^ CBBBlinker, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother. My Dad died last year and although he did not have dementia, he had declined enough that no one would ever have guessed that he was at one point the smart CFO of a huge organization. It’s hard to watch.</p>
<p>I think “In Sight of the Lake” is especially chilling for women of a certain age. I lose my keys, I misplace my shopping list, I search too long through my purse for something I know I put in there and can’t find…and I tell myself I’m just in a hurry and trying to do too much at once. And I’m sure that’s the truth. I don’t actually believe there is anything more ominous around the corner, but it’s a natural fear.</p>
<p>Last Saturday, I wrapped a birthday gift for my daughter. I set everything out beforehand—gift, box, scissors, tape, wrapping paper—and got started. I put the gift in the box, cut the paper, wrapped the present beautifully…then could not find the tape to finish the job. Looked under, around, above, below, nothing. Shrugged my shoulders, got a new roll from the drawer and taped the paper. That night at her party, my daughter unwrapped the present in front of the family, lifted the lid off the box…and there was the roll of tape neatly placed on top of her gift. We laughed a lot, but boy oh boy, I had Nancy in the back of my mind!</p>
<p>Maybe Corrie just let things happen to her in her private life, but I admired the assertiveness of her work setting up the museum and rescuing the library.</p>
<p>When the building owner hired Jackson, the war had been over for seventeen years.</p>
<p>I agree, Mary, that In Sight of the Like hits home in a lot of ways, but I also think Munro went for the jugular. She also managed to take a stab at the health care system - glad about that one.</p>
Ahhh - right! Thanks for straightening me out on the timing.</p>
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Agreed! A couple of years ago my RL Book Club (all women) read “Still Alice,” a fact-based novel about a woman dealing with the onset of Alzheimer’s. We were all a little freaked out! But, as one woman said, (her mother had Alzheimer’s) there’s a vast difference between not knowing where your car keys are and not knowing what they’re for!</p>
<p>I thought the book Still Alice was reassuring. At the end, Alice’s mental powers were dim, but emotionally she was still able to experience love and enjoy companionship.</p>
<p>If it ever happened to me, I’d hope I could end up like Alice.</p>
<p>If you are lucky dementia isn’t all bad. My Dad lost all his short term memory, but it seemed to bring out his inner sweetness as he lost his ability to be argumentative. He passed away before he was truly incapacitated. We were very lucky though. My husband’s mother became totally irrational and made all sorts of horrible decisions before she lost the capability to do anything. </p>
<p>It crossed my mind that Jackson might be the father. I think you could still have a “disastrous” sexual experience that falls short of total impotence.</p>