Appreciating Beauty through the Art of Writing 

                           ——Comments on Once More to the Lake

In the famous and beautiful essay Once More to the Lake, the author Elwyn Brooks White narrated his revisit to the lake with his son. He presented the peaceful lake which was filled with the author’s childhood memory and the harmonious life around the lake. In this essay, what impressed me most are his writing skills “vividness and coherence” and the beauty of life. And the writing skills and the beauty supplement each other and lead from two leads: life and nature.

Life

Vividness twinkles in the descriptions of life in this essay. For example, the descriptions of “how to drive a motorboat” is so detailed and vivid that every one could drive a motorboat by himself after reading paragraph ten. However, what impresses me most is the vividness of the “dual existence” and “transposition”. In paragraph four, when the author wrote the scene that he “lying in bed, hearing his son sneak quietly out and went off along the shore in a boat”, felt that it was he who sneaked out at that moment; and he was his father. He seemed to be living a “dual existence”——he could not tell himself from his son and his father. What’s more, in paragraph five, when the author went fishing with his son, again, he could not identify himself. Because this circumstance was so similar——when he was a child, his father went fishing with him; now he became father, and he went fishing with his son. In our daily life, these are just two common scenes where people do something with their similar to what his father did with him in the past. Such kind of things might happen every day around people. But in the author’s writing, it is so special that he used “dual existence”, “transposition” and “creep sensation” to touch readers. How vivid!

Coherence also leads in life descriptions. The author painted a good picture by depicting “No passage of time”. In paragraph seven, when the author mentioned the “waitresses”, he said that “there having been no passage of time”. “No passage of time” is the illusion of the author. We all know that the waitresses are no longer fifteen, and the melodrama will drop its curtain one day. From the perspective of individual, life is like a cycle with end——death; while from the perspective of human beings, life is like a cycle that without end: when the fifteen-year-old waitresses become no longer young any more, there will be other fifteen-year-old girls taking their place. In addition, the “dual existence” also leads to the coherence of this thesis: although the author felt that he was still the young boy who sneaked out, actually, he became his son’s father now, how could he say there is “no passage of time”?  What’s more, at the end of the essay when the author narrated the “chill of death”, it evidentially shows that there is “passage of time”, and all people have to face death in the future. Here the author was “Playing devil’s advocate.[1]”——he used “no passage of time” to imply that “there is passage of time”. In a word, the descriptions of “no passage of time” makes the coherence flare.

Nature

In addition, vividness and coherence sparkles in the descriptions of the beauty of nature: especially the lake, so peaceful; and the summertime, so joyful. Moreover, the thunderstorm, which always makes people feel scared and awed, is also a kind of beauty for Elwyn Brooks White. There are oppression and heat around people, the darkening of sky, the lull, and the thunder that accompanied with the storm, and then finally came the rain. Here, the author used metaphor to describe the sound of thunder and personification to depict the scene of thunderstorm. To sum up, in the author’s eyes, everything is so beautiful, even the thunderstorm. The thunderstorm would not stop people enjoying such joyful and indelible summertime. Actually, the thunderstorm is an inseparable part of summertime. Therefore, the author’s depiction of the scene of thunderstorm will not affect the beauty of the summertime, but will cohere to his thesis: the beauty of nature. And the detailed descriptions makes the vividness underline.

Life vs. Nature

Further more, an amazing coherence is saturating in this essay: the two leads “life and nature” cohere to each other. Life itself is part of nature. Life is a cycle, and nature is also a cycle. In life cycle, people will experience different stages, from young to old, from child to parent. In this cycle, there will be a wonderful stage when people are young, just like the joyful sunshine summertime of the nature; there also will be some setbacks during the cycle, just like the thunderstorm. But the thunderstorm can not keep people from appreciating the summertime, so it is the same with the setback of the cycle, even death can not stop life shining. Life and nature are so beautiful and harmonious. Therefore, besides appreciating the writing sills and beauty of life, please treasure and enjoy our life, and “No more bullshit.[2]”

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