Summary Of Once More To The Lake By George White
In White’s essay, Once More to the Lake, he conveys his attitudes towards the week spent at the camp by giving concrete and specific languae. The personal and autobiographical source of the essay is authenticated by these methods. These fundamental ideas emerge as White compares his memories of the lake with his experience upon revisiting it with his son. The multiple points of comparison and the language he uses to describe them is, once again, concrete and specific.
White’s description of the cabins at the lake provides the first example of his focus on details, and this initiates his confusion of the present experience with the past. He writes that he remembered most clearly “the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered
how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen” (198). The consistent comparisons of past experiences to present, allow the reader to see White’s fresh outlook of the lake and the environment. For example, White witnesses the recurring rituals of children running and splashing, while altogether drenched, into the lake. As a mature adult, he recognizes the the bond that links generations together. But in contrast to the things that seem stable and enduring, both technology and urban life are bringing changes. White gives us his perspective on the advances of urban life, such as the roads and railroads that seem to cut very close to the surreal environment of nature. When White was a child, his family arrived at the town of Belgrade by railway; they loaded trunks onto a farm wagon with much to-do and supervision by his father and were driven to the lake by the host-farmer. Now the road to the lake has been tarred and “you sneaked up in your car and parked it under a tree near the camp and took out the bags and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks” (200). White gradually excepts the truth that the lake will eventually be gone and that future generations may never be able to experience the adventures of the lake.
White’s description of the cabins at the lake provides the first example of his focus on details, and this initiates his confusion of the present experience with the past. He writes that he remembered most clearly “the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless, remembered
how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen” (198). The consistent comparisons of past experiences to present, allow the reader to see White’s fresh outlook of the lake and the environment. For example, White witnesses the recurring rituals of children running and splashing, while altogether drenched, into the lake. As a mature adult, he recognizes the the bond that links generations together. But in contrast to the things that seem stable and enduring, both technology and urban life are bringing changes. White gives us his perspective on the advances of urban life, such as the roads and railroads that seem to cut very close to the surreal environment of nature. When White was a child, his family arrived at the town of Belgrade by railway; they loaded trunks onto a farm wagon with much to-do and supervision by his father and were driven to the lake by the host-farmer. Now the road to the lake has been tarred and “you sneaked up in your car and parked it under a tree near the camp and took out the bags and in five minutes it was all over, no fuss, no loud wonderful fuss about trunks” (200). White gradually excepts the truth that the lake will eventually be gone and that future generations may never be able to experience the adventures of the lake.