It was September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason.
Childhood is a sand castle that crumbles so easily but have we ever thought that so does our life at the present? The incoming future is like an inevitable wave that will wash away the vividness of childhood but also, the past can take away people’s lives at the moment and lock them up by it. That is how Ray Bradbury fired shots when he wrote the short story, “The Lake” in which he seemed to be using a double-barreled gun and knows it will dramatically hit the readers forever.
The short story occurred in a gloomy September and the boy named Harold took one last swim on the waters of Illinois before moving to California the next day. The twelve-year-old child recollects the memory of his childhood sweetheart, Tally who drowned in the lake last spring and whose body was never found. There is a time skip to the grown Harold who has taken a vow with a woman named Margaret and they go back to his hometown for a honeymoon trip. At the shore of the lake, there was a lifeguard who stepped out of a boat and discovered a body from the water. It has been ten years but Harold recognizes the small body of a child on the arms of the lifeguard as being Tally. Time froze for her and Harold grieves as he realizes that he is still carrying his love for her dead childhood friend. The story ended as Harold ruminated how strange the woman– his wife, waiting for him along the beach.
There are horror-struck impressions surrounding this story. When the body of Tally was recovered, he left it to the readers’ imagination what a 10-year-old missing body would look like. After all, it is not the descriptive words that terrify the readers, it is their imagination and what will ensue in their minds. Ray Bradbury is many things, writing from various genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction. There is no arguing that he is one of America’s greatest writers of all time. However, it seemed from my humble perspective that this story is far from depicting the fear and horror of staying affectionate to the long-gone dead childhood friend. The elements for the flavor of a horror-stricken narrative were present but did not arise as such. It is supposed to be terrifying but in the end, I am just left with a pool of sadness.
| All of the hot dog stands were boarded up with strips of golden planking, sealing in all the mustard, onion, and meat odors of the long, joyful summer. It was like nailing summer into a series of coffins.
The writing is all about simplicity yet evocativeness and that is a classic Ray Bradbury. There exist no highfalutin words but the imagery still delivers; summer is leaving and the sky is turning monotonous and light-deprived again. As if it is the color of death and as if the purpose of September is to bury the summer. Toppled this with the choice of the first-person point-of-view of Harold that only revealed much of the poignant things he felt and transcended to the readers. The sentimentality running in the background of seasons changing and years passing was twinned with the affective head narrative of the protagonist. Buhlert (2020) put it as the overwhelming feeling of melancholy and loss permeates this story.
The Lake also touched on the themes of childhood, time flowing, and life and death making and creating a pondering permanence at the end of the story. Like how the way adults view the affection between children as something they can depart so easily as time goes on but Harold manifested something contrary to that.
| I was only twelve. But I know how much I loved her. It was that love that come before all significance of body and morals. It was that love that is no more bad than wind and sea and sand lying side by side forever.
First love or childhood crushes seemed to be so little and so shallow to the real relationships that people built as they added ages in their lives. That might be half of the truth and the story suggested that somehow and in some cases, it wasn’t all like that. For Harold, that came to be like an invisible shattered glass that he carried along as he went on with his life and still with him as he married Margaret. It is in the pockets of this kind of people and continuously affects them. They may sometimes forget it was there but suddenly, with the prick of a finger, their body remembers.
| I thought: people grow. I have grown. But she has not changed. She is still small. She is still young. Death does not permit growth or change. She still has golden hair. She will be forever young and I will love her forever, oh God, I will love her forever.
Tilly’s death is central to the story. It is a portrayal of time stopping for people who succumbed to the end of life and time moving with life for the living. It is a manifestation of how grief has an untouchable volume that just goes along with people but it does not shrink nor grow any further. Tilly’s forever is her age and Harold’s forever is his love. That is something forlorn to think about: the parallels of forever but death does not allow the subject matter to exist on the same page. Their forevers are everlastingly separated.
| I walked back up the beach to where a strange woman named Margaret was waiting for me, smiling…
Another thing, at the end of the story, it merely became so evident how people do die but feelings can be buried and dug up. Just that, the death of someone from years ago felt like a fresh wound again. As if tomorrow never came and the aftermath of death stayed– and it did for Harold. This is also the part where I saw that Harold’s life at the present will now feel like a half-done sand castle. It merely took a splash of waves to disintegrate what he had and be bolted by the past injuries that remained untreated. The ending is quite open-ended but it multiplies lots of situations on what Harold will do after revealing to himself that he does not love the woman he had married as much as his childhood love. Yet, as fashioned as Ray Bradbury’s endings, I like to connect the idea that Harold will just go on with his marriage and life but with an unmended hole and will forever be unsatisfied. Longing for dead love.
Moving forward, I also like to point out the incredible dichotomy that was displayed through metaphors. The depiction of the train has poor memory as it puts all the things behind but also returns it all as soon as you come back. It signifies the ability of the living to go beyond the horizon and come back to the same place, physically but with time, only retrospectively. As if saying that we are walking along with the present heading to the future but we can also be stuck by our past.
Overall, The Lake is truthfully and easily one of my favorite short stories written by Ray Bradbury. The lucidity of his works and words is what I admire the most and how they radiate a humane feeling that’s so general yet so relative and special at the same time. The story walked on to the vicinity of life: how after the death of someone, there are things that the dead and the living will eventually miss out on different plains and timelines they belong to. Which I also find to be reflected in his short story like “There Will Come Soft Rains.” In comparing Ray Bradbury’s works, Buhlert (2020) also commented that “The Lake” feels even more timeless than “R Is For Rocket” because it doesn’t have the overt science fiction tropes but simply, it is a story about loss, grief and a September day on the shores of Lake Michigan. His descriptive skills are almost unflawed and this story is an example of his trademark poetic style which is suited to my liking. Admittedly, there is a hint of bias in this writing but there is a logical reason to be. His execution of odd yet vivid imagery creates tasteful prose and an impeccable skill to appeal to your senses. Ray Bradbury remains to be a relevant company for contemplation. His works are just what you need to see the beauty of sadness. His writing is like a gravity that will pull you in to feel that unearthed human emotion. For that, I believe great writers haunt you beautifully.
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References:
Bradbury, R. (1944). The lake.
Buhlert, C. (2020, January 23). Retro review: “The Lake” by Ray Bradbury. Cora Buhlert. https://corabuhlert.com/2020/01/24/retro-review-the-lake-by-ray-bradbury/
CliffNotes. (2015). The lake. http://Www.cliffsnotes.com. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/bradburys-short-stories/summary-and-analysis-the-october-country/the-lake
Major Styles. (2017, April 23). Short story review: “The Lake” by Ray Bradbury. Major Styles. https://majorstyles.wordpress.com/2017/04/23/short-story-review-the-lake-by-ray-bradbury/
Marzaat. (2022, November 28). The lake. Marzaat. https://marzaat.com/2022/11/28/the-lake/
The Junk Collection 