Good Father or Bad Father? The Narrator and Chris’ Relationship in The Book => “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig.
A Note To Reader. By Henry Gurr ZMMQ SiteMaster.
This Page you are reading now is Analysis and Commentary is by David J Matos, at my request. This is a work in progress, to be continued from the where you see this page end.
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**** Formatting Of each of The Text Blocks you see below. ****…
Header: Short Description As Title
ZMM Book Passage (Italic)
NOTE: Ellipses (…) at beginning or end of quote indicate the preceding or following sentence was part of a preceding or following paragraph.
Italics in text is noted as underlined.
Chapter # & Page # (In Bantam Paperback Edition of ZMM)
Location (With Town and State)
COMMENTARY: (Include Mood, Motifs, Chautauqua, Etc )
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (Positive/Negative Etc-)
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Red-winged Blackbird
''… Here and there is a stretch of open water and if you look closely you can see wild ducks at the edge of the cattails. And turtles. . . . There’s a red-winged blackbird.
.... I whack Chris’s knee and point to it.
.... "What!!!" he hollers.
...."Blackbird!"
.... He says something I don’t hear.” What?" I holler back.
.... He grabs the back of my helmet and hollers up, "I’ve seen lots of those, Dad!"
...."Oh!" I holler back. Then I nod. At age eleven you don’t get very impressed with red-winged blackbirds.
.... You have to get older for that. For me this is all mixed with memories that he doesn’t have. …''
From Chapter 1, pages 3-4. (Bantam Paperback)
Location: Old concrete, two-lane highway, “off the beaten path”, heading north in Minnesota on the Central Plains toward the Dakotas, passing marshes, cattails and meadows. Northwest of Minneapolis, MN.
COMMENTARY: From the very beginning of the novel, the author posits the central relationship of the narrator and Chris. The narrator is excited at the sight of a red-wing blackbird, but his son is less impressed. Chris has to shout into his helmet for his father to hear him on the motorcycle, foreshadowing their troubles communicating. The narrator reflects on his experience and how his son at his age has a different perspective. The mood is positive and reflective, perhaps nostalgic. The Master Motif of a bird to represent the relationship of father and son, later to become a strained relationship failing in communication, is first invoked here. Pirsig found himself stuck writing the novel. Upon rewriting this first chapter, “he knew he was on the right track.”
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+/-) Positive, but failing to communicate.
Red-winged Blackbirds Again
''… There! A huge flock of red-winged blackbirds ascends from nests in the cattails, startled by our sound. I swat Chris’s knee a second time . . . then I remember he has seen them before.
...."What?" he hollers again.
...."Nothing."
.... "Well, what?"
.... "Just checking to see if you’re still there," I holler, and nothing more is said.
.... Unless you’re fond of hollering you don’t make great conversations on a running cycle. …''
From Chapter 1, page 6.
Location: Old concrete, two-lane highway, “off the beaten path”, heading north in Minnesota on the Central Plains toward the Dakotas, passing marshes, cattails and meadows.
COMMENTARY: The narrator, again excited to see a flock of red-wing blackbirds, again swats Chris’s knee to get his attention, but remembers Chris is disinterested and would likely be annoyed. The narrator dissembles his reason for swatting Chris’s knee and passes off a fabricated excuse to his son. This foreshadows the narrator’s dissembling and hiding of his true self from others including Chris. But it also shows the narrator is concerned not to be bore to his son. The last line reveals that during the motorcycle travel of the trip, the narrator and Chris will not be talking much, but sharing the experience of riding. The mood remains positive and reflective, perhaps nostalgic.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+/-) The father is concerned for his son, but unable to connect with him. The motif of the bird appears for a second time, reflecting the relationship of father and son and inability to communicate. '''
First Roadside Stop
''… We have been on so many trips together we know from a glance how one another feels. Right now we are just quiet and looking around.
The picnic benches are abandoned at this hour of the morning. We have the whole place to ourselves. John goes across the grass to a cast-iron pump and starts pumping water to drink. Chris wanders down through some trees beyond a grassy knoll to a small stream. I am just staring around. ''
From Chapter 1, page 6.
Location: Roadside picnic area off old concrete two-lane highway, headed northwest in Minnesota, headed toward Dakotas.
COMMENTARY: This quote indicates the nonverbal communication of inveterate travelers and how they are “tuned in” to each others’ moods. As narrator and Chris travel, they will likewise share a silent form of communication. The narrator and Chris’ behavior contrast when they arrive: the narrator just stares around while Chris wanders off into nature. This would be the time for father and son to talk, but they are each doing their own thing. Instead of talking to Chris, the narrator talks to Sylvia, drawing a contrast with his relationship with Chris, even calling her “a daughter”:
''…"I was watching swamps," I say.
.... After a while she looks up and says, "What did you see?"
.... "There was a whole flock of red-winged blackbirds. They rose up suddenly when we went by."
.... "Oh."
.... "I was happy to see them again. They tie things together, thoughts and such. You know?"
.... She thinks for a while and then, with the trees behind her a deep green, she smiles. She understands a peculiar language which has nothing to do with what you are saying. A daughter.
.... "Yes," she says. "They’re beautiful."
...."Watch for them," I say.
...."All right." ''
The narrator enjoys talking to Sylvia, as he notes in Chapter 2, and this passage illustrates a “peculiar language” , showing healthy communication and a paternal relationship between the narrator and Sylvia, “a daughter” . Is Sylvia simply more mature than Chris and able to have to these conversations with the narrator? Or does this contrast underscore a lacking in communication between father and son? Their conversation starts with a simple enough question that Chris or the narrator could easily have asked his own son: “what did you see?” At the end of the passage, “Chris soon appears and it is time to go,” and they mount up and leave the rest stop without anything to say. The mood during this scene remains positive and reflective, with humorous interactions between narrator and the Sutherlands as well. The happy and joyous feeling of a first day on vacation pervades the scene.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+,-) Positive, permissive. Narrator allows Chris to explore nature and fulfill own needs. On the other hand, negative, an opportunity for father-son bonding is missed when they don’t communicate and the narrator instead communicates his wonder and appreciation of nature to his son, even with the simple question: “What did you see?”
More on Sylvia and the Narrator’s Relationship
''…I like to talk to her and I’m thinking of myself too.
In my mind, when I look at these fields, I say to her, "See? . . . See?" and I think she does. I hope later she will see and feel a thing about these prairies I have given up talking to others about. …''
From Chapter 2, page 16.
Missed Turn Unsettles Narrator
And now tagging along behind them I think, Why should I do a thing like that? I hardly noticed the freeway. And just now I forgot to tell them about the storm. Things are getting a little unsettling.
From Chapter 2, page 21.
Canada Trip Anecdote
''… I remember Chris and I were on a trip to Canada a few years ago, got about 130 miles and were caught in a warm front of which we had plenty of warning but which we didn’t understand. The whole experience was kind of dumb and sad.
.... We were on a little six-and-one-half-horsepower cycle, way overloaded with luggage and way underloaded with common sense. The machine could do only about forty-five miles per hour wide open against a moderate head wind. It was no touring bike. We reached a large lake in the North Woods the first night and tented amid rainstorms that lasted all night long. I forgot to dig a trench around the tent and at about two in the morning a stream of water came in and soaked both sleeping bags. The next morning we were soggy and depressed and hadn’t had much sleep, but I thought that if we just got riding the rain would let up after a while. No such luck. By ten o’clock the sky was so dark all the cars had their headlights on. And then it really came down.
.... We were wearing the ponchos which had served as a tent the night before. Now they spread out like sails and slowed our speed to thirty miles an hour wide open. The water on the road became two inches deep. Lightning bolts came crashing down all around us. I remember a woman’s face looking astonished at us from the window of a passing car, wondering what in earth we were doing on a motorcycle in this weather. I’m sure I couldn’t have told her.
....The cycle slowed down to twenty-five, then twenty. Then it started missing, coughing and popping and sputtering until, barely moving at five or six miles an hour, we found an old run-down filling station by some cutover timberland and pulled in.
.... At the time, like John, I hadn’t bothered to learn much about motorcycle maintenance. I remember holding my poncho over my head to keep the rain from the tank and rocking the cycle between my legs. Gas seemed to be sloshing around inside. I looked at the plugs, and looked at the points, and looked at the carburetor, and pumped the kick starter until I was exhausted.
.... We went into the filling station, which was also a combination beer joint and restaurant, and had a meal of burned-up steak. Then I went back out and tried it again. Chris kept asking questions that started to anger me because he didn’t see how serious it was. Finally I saw it was no use, gave it up, and my anger at him disappeared. I explained to him as carefully as I could that it was all over. We weren’t going anywhere by cycle on this vacation. Chris suggested things to do like check the gas, which I had done, and find a mechanic. But there weren’t any mechanics. Just cutover pine trees and brush and rain.
.... I sat in the grass with him at the shoulder of the road, defeated, staring into the trees and underbrush. I answered all of Chris’s questions patiently and in time they became fewer and fewer. And then Chris finally understood that our cycle trip was really over and began to cry. He was eight then, I think.
....We hitchhiked back to our own city and rented a trailer and put it on our car and came up and got the cycle, and hauled it back to our own city and then started out all over again by car. But it wasn’t the same. And we didn’t really enjoy ourselves much.
.... Two weeks after the vacation was over, one evening after work, I removed the carburetor to see what was wrong but still couldn’t find anything. To clean off the grease before replacing it, I turned the stopcock on the tank for a little gas. Nothing came out. The tank was out of gas. I couldn’t believe it. I can still hardly believe it.
.... I have kicked myself mentally a hundred times for that stupidity and don’t think I’ll ever really, finally get over it. Evidently what I saw sloshing around was gas in the reserve tank which I had never turned on. I didn’t check it carefully because I assumed the rain had caused the engine failure. I didn’t understand then how foolish quick assumptions like that are. Now we are on a twenty-eight-horse machine and I take the maintenance of it very seriously. ''
From Chapter 2, page 19-20.
Location: Northern Minnesota, motorcycling through the North Woods to Canada.
COMMENTARY: The narrator tells the tale of a ‘nightmare vacation” motorcycle trip with Chris where everything went wrong. The mood is pensive, vexed and regretful for this retelling. The incident is clearly a traumatic experience for both father and son. They ride an overloaded and underpowered motorcycle. Unheeding the weather, the narrator and Chris get caught in terrible rain and fail to take precautions to keep water out of the tent. Failing to get any sleep, they continue on exhausted and depressed despite the weather. The motorcycle stops working and the narrator can’t figure out why. After trying again after a dinner, the narrator tries again to figure out the problem. Chris asks him questions as he tries and the narrator loses his temper with his son and finally gives up. Chris continues to ask constructive questions, including the correct question to check the gas level in the tank, but the narrator, defeated, answers all the questions based on his own assumptions until Chris accepts failure as well. Later, the narrator realizes the mistake based on his assumption. This experience informs and motivates his meticulous approach to motorcycle maintenance. The narrator’s failure was a traumatic experience. Chris will later in the novel, at the DeWeeses, remember that he was right re: gas in the tank. '''
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (-) The narrator fails on many levels in this story, as a motorcycle traveler and as a father. His frustration boils over to anger and then defeat. In contrast, Chris is asking the right questions.
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“He’s Been Here”: Chris Questions Narrator Slowing Down
''A flash and Ka-wham! of thunder, one right on top of the other. That shook me, and Chris has got his head against my back now. A few warning drops of rain . . . at this speed they are like needles. A second flash—WHAM and everything brilliant . . . and then in the brilliance of the next flash that farmhouse . . . that windmill . . . oh, my God, he’s been here! . . . throttle off . . . this is his road . . . a fence and trees . . . and the speed drops to seventy, then sixty, then fifty-five and I hold it there.
"Why are we slowing down?" Chris shouts.
"Too fast!"
"No, it isn’t!"
I nod yes.
The house and water tower have gone by and then a small drainage ditch appears and a crossroad leading off to the horizon. Yes . . . that’s right, I think. That’s exactly right.
"They’re way ahead of us!" Chris hollers. "Speed up!"
I turn my head from side to side.
"Why not?" he hollers.
"Not safe!"
"They’re gone!"
"They’ll wait."
"Speed up!"
"No." I shake my head. It’s just a feeling. On a cycle you trust them and we stay at fifty-five.
The first rain begins now but up ahead I see the lights of a town . . . I knew it would be there. ''
From Chapter 3, page 26-27.
Location: Heading west, past the Red River valley and approaching Oakes, ND.
COMMENTARY: Amidst the thunder and lightning of a storm, the narrator recognizes “he’s been here” and reacts fearfully, slowing down. Chris questions why his father is slowing down and letting them be left behind by the Sutherlands. Chris is being pushy, demanding and strong-willed, an issue we will learn later is a problem for Chris, but the narrator is firm but not unkind in declining his requests. Like father, like son: both strong-willed. Is Chris misbehaving in this scene or reacting to the narrator being “out of sorts”? The narrator is confident enough to trust his feelings on a motorcycle even when challenged by his son. The narrator’s misgivings realizing ”he has been here” are the first foreshadowing of his fear of Phaedrus reemerging. By telling Chris it is “Not safe” ', the narrator begins dissembling his real reason for slowing down, even though he may not be aware of it. More clues of this dissembling immediately follow. Chris’s contradiction of the narrator underscores that the narrator’s explanation may not actually fit the situation. The mood of the passage is tense, anxious and foreboding.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (-) This scene shows a disagreement between father and son and a test of wills, but the father asserts his authority gracefully despite being challenged directly. It also begins the tug of war conflict between them, the beginning of failed communication as the narrator internalizes and dissembles his worries about Phaedrus instead of relating to his son.
“You Look Like You Saw a Ghost”
''When we arrive John and Sylvia are there under the first tree by the road, waiting for us.
"What happened to you?"
"Slowed down."
"Well, we know that. Something wrong?"
"No. Let’s get out of this rain."
John says there is a motel at the other end of town, but I tell him there’s a better one if you turn right, at a row of cottonwoods a few blocks down.
We turn at the cottonwoods and travel a few blocks, and a small motel appears. Inside the office John looks around and says, "This is a good place. When were you here before?"
"I don’t remember," I say.
"Then how did you know about this?"
"Intuition."
He looks at Sylvia and shakes his head.
Sylvia has been watching me silently for some time. She notices my hands are unsteady as I sign in. "You look awfully pale," she says. "Did that lightning shake you up?"
"No."
"You look like you’d seen a ghost."
John and Chris look at me and I turn away from them to the door. It is still raining hard, but we make a run for it to the rooms. …''
From Chapter 3, page 26-27.
Location: Arriving under tall cottonwood trees in Oakes, ND.
COMMENTARY: The narrator’s evasive answers to questions show he is dissembling something. He deflects the questions “what happened to you?” and “something wrong?” without saying much. When asked how he knows about the motel, he gives slippery, jocular answers. The narrator’s erratic behavior is highlighted by his companions’ reactions to him. John looks as Sylvia in disbelief and shakes his head. Sylvia notices the narrator is “shook up,” pale and his hand unsteady as he signs in at the motel, she asks but he deflects the question again. The narrator turns away from the gaze of his friend John and his own son, hiding his shook up appearance. The tone is direct and matter of fact while the mood of the passage is anxious and sketchy, puzzling, cryptic and mysterious.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (N) The narrator shows he is dissembling something not just from his own child, but his own close friends. Thus begins a pattern of slippery responses and concealing behavior that will fray at his friendships and his relationship Chris.
Ghost Stories
''… We rest, almost motionless, in the metal armchairs of the motel courtyard, slowly working down a pint of whiskey that John brought with some mix from the motel cooler. It goes down slowly and agreeably. A cool night wind rattles the leaves of the cottonwoods along the road.
Chris wonders what we should do next. Nothing tires this kid. The newness and strangeness of the motel surroundings excite him and he wants us to sing songs as they did at camp.
"We’re not very good at songs," John says.
"Let’s tell stories then," Chris says. He thinks for a while. "Do you know any good ghost stories? All the kids in our cabin used to tell ghost stories at night."
"You tell us some," John says.
And he does. They are kind of fun to hear. Some of them I haven’t heard since I was his age. I tell him so, and Chris wants to hear some of mine, but I can’t remember any.
After a while he says, "Do you believe in ghosts?"
"No," I say
"Why not?"
"Because they are un-sci-en-ti-fic."
The way I say this makes John smile. "They contain no matter," I continue, "and have no energy and therefore, according to the laws of science, do not exist except in people’s minds."
The whiskey, the fatigue and the wind in the trees start mixing in my mind. "Of course," I add, "the laws of science contain no matter and have no energy either and therefore do not exist except in people’s minds. It’s best to be completely scientific about the whole thing and refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of science. That way you’re safe. That doesn’t leave you very much to believe in, but that’s scientific too."
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Chris says.
"I’m being kind of facetious."
Chris gets frustrated when I talk like this, but I don’t think it hurts him.
"One of the kids at YMCA camp says he believes in ghosts."
"He was just spoofing you."
"No, he wasn’t. He said that when people haven’t been buried right, their ghosts come back to haunt people. He really believes in that."
"He was just spoofing you," I repeat.
"What’s his name?" Sylvia says.
"Tom White Bear."
John and I exchange looks, suddenly recognizing the same thing.
"Ohhh, Indian!" he says.
I laugh. "I guess I’m going to have to take that back a little," I say. "I was thinking of European ghosts."
"What’s the difference?"
John roars with laughter. "He’s got you," he says.
I think a little and say, "Well, Indians sometimes have a different way of looking at things, which I’m not saying is completely wrong. Science isn’t part of the Indian tradition."
"Tom White Bear said his mother and dad told him not to believe all that stuff. But he said his grandmother whispered it was true anyway, so he believes it."
He looks at me pleadingly. He really does want to know things sometimes. Being facetious is not being a very good father. "Sure," I say, reversing myself, "I believe in ghosts too."
Now John and Sylvia look at me peculiarly. I see I’m not going to get out of this one easily and brace myself for a long explanation. ''
From Chapter 3, page 27-29.
Location: After dinner, motel courtyard in Oakes, ND.
COMMENTARY: The narrator observes his son Chris, noting “nothing tires this kid” and that he is “excited by newness and strangeness” of his surroundings. John and the narrator negotiate with Chris to determine an activity and decide on telling ghost stories which John asks Chris to tell. The narrator relates to Chris that he hasn’t heard some of those ghost stories since he was Chris’s age. After making facetious comments in explaining why he doesn’t believe in ghosts, he realizes he is frustrating Chris, observes that being facetious is not being a good father, and changes tack. Chris wants to understand, as the narrator observes, so the narrator attempts to explain despite being slightly soused. The mood is relaxed, agreeable and facetious.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+) The narrator is thoughtfully observing his son and indulging his need for an entertaining activity while relaxing. He shares with his son his own youthful acquaintance with the same ghost stories. The narrator corrects himself when he realizes his facetious behavior is “not being a good father” and responds to Chris’s need to understand by attempting to explain his ideas. Overall, it is a very positive interaction, with adults including Chris in their entertainment and the narrator acting as the good father, responding to Chris’s needs.
“I Don’t Get It”
''"It’s completely natural," I say, "to think of Europeans who believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It’s just all but completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist."
John nods affirmatively and I continue.
"My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn’t that superior. IQs aren’t that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quanta are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know."
"What?"
"Oh, the laws of physics and of logic . . . the number system . . . the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.
"They seem real to me," John says.
"I don’t get it," says Chris.
So I go on. "For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."
"Of course."
"So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"
John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.
"What I’m driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."
"Sure."
"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone’s mind because there wasn’t anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere—this law of gravity still existed?"
Now John seems not so sure. ''
From Chapter 3, page 29-30.
Location: After dinner, motel courtyard in Oakes, ND.
COMMENTARY: The above passage immediately follows the preceding passage. The narrator delivers a Chautauqua on how scientific ideas constitute the ghosts of Western society. In doing so, the narrator is presenting ideas that go over the head of not just Chris, but also his adult companions he is in dialogue. A little intoxicated, the narrator loses sight of the goal of explaining his notions to Chris and simply tries to explain them to John.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (-) The narrator is trying to explain his ideas to Chris and John, but it goes over their heads. Chris says, “I don’t get it”, so he continues to explain his ideas, but even John has trouble following the narrator’s logic. The explanation becomes more a vehicle for the narrator to try to express his ideas rather than crafting an explanation that Chris could understand. At the same, this represents a healthy inclusion of Chris in adult discussion.
A Real Ghost Story
''I see that Chris brushes his teeth, and let him get by with a promise that he’ll shower in the morning. I pull seniority and take the bed by the window. After the lights are out he says, "Now, tell me a ghost story."
"I just did, out there."
"I mean a real ghost story."
"That was the realest ghost story you’ll ever hear."
"You know what I mean. The other kind."
I try to think of some conventional ones. "I used to know so many of them when I was a kid, Chris, but they’re all forgotten," I say. "It’s time to go to sleep. We’ve all got to get up early tomorrow."
Except for the wind through the screens of the motel window it is quiet. The thought of all that wind sweeping toward us across the open fields of the prairie is a tranquil one and I feel lulled by it.
The wind rises and then falls, then rises and sighs, and falls again . . . from so many miles away.
"Did you ever know a ghost?" Chris asks.
I am half asleep. "Chris," I say, "I knew a fellow once who spent all his whole life doing nothing but hunting for a ghost, and it was just a waste of time. So go to sleep."
I realize my mistake too late.
"Did he find him?"
"Yes, he found him, Chris."
I keep wishing Chris would just listen to the wind and not ask questions.
"What did he do then?"
"He thrashed him good."
"Then what?"
"Then he became a ghost himself." Somehow I had the thought this was going to put Chris to sleep, but it’s not and it’s just waking me up.
"What is his name?"
"No one you know."
"But what is it?"
"It doesn’t matter."
"Well, what is it anyway?"
"His name, Chris, since it doesn’t matter, is Phædrus. It’s not a name you know."
"Did you see him on the motorcycle in the storm?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Sylvia said she thought you saw a ghost."
"That’s just an expression."
"Dad?"
"This had better be the last question, Chris, or I’m going to become angry."
"I was just going to say you sure don’t talk like anyone else."
"Yes, Chris, I know that," I say. "It’s a problem. Now go to sleep."
"Good night, Dad."
"Good night."
A half hour later he is breathing sleepfully, and the wind is still strong as ever and I am wide-awake. There, out the window in the dark—this cold wind crossing the road into the trees, the leaves shimmering flecks of moonlight—there is no question about it, Phædrus saw all of this. What he was doing here I have no idea. Why he came this way I will probably never know. But he has been here, steered us onto this strange road, has been with us all along. There is no escape.
I wish I could say that I don’t know why he is here, but I’m afraid I must now confess that I do. The ideas, the things I was saying about science and ghosts, and even that idea this afternoon about caring and technology—they are not my own. I haven’t really had a new idea in years. They are stolen from him. And he has been watching. And that is why he is here.
With that confession, I hope he will now allow me some sleep.
Poor Chris. "Do you know any ghost stories?" he asked. I could have told him one but even the thought of that is frightening.
I really must go to sleep. ''
End of Chapter 3, page 32-34.
Location: Motel room in Oakes, ND.
COMMENTARY: The narrator can’t remember a ghost story to tell to mollify Chris and tries to tell Chris to go to sleep. Listening to the wind through the screen windows, a master motif in the novel, the narrator begins falling into the tranquility of sleep. Chris, mind still whirring on ghosts, asks the narrator '“Did you ever know a ghost?” and, in an unguarded, half-asleep moment, the narrator answers honestly albeit in a cryptic way. The narrator realizes that instead of parrying the question, he has piqued Chris’s interest. The narrator continues to answer Chris’s follow up questions, attempting to placate him. The narrator shows his discomfort by saying he wished Chris would listen to the wind instead, again invoking this master motif. Answering the questions is ironically waking him up rather than putting Chris to sleep. Chris keeps prying away and the narrator continues answering the questions, including naming the ghost he once knew as Phaedrus. The narrator’s response to Chris’s question "Did you see him on the motorcycle in the storm?" answered with an emphatic "What makes you say that?" rouses and disturbs the narrator, at the same time positing a name for the he/him referred to in the narrator’s descriptions during the storm. The narrator’s sleep is disturbed by the thought of Phaedrus’ presence. The thought of even telling Chris the story of Phaedrus disturbs and frightens the narrator. The mood in this passage changes from happy, sleepy and drowsy, then tranquil, and finally anxious, exhausted.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+) The opening paragraph in this passage shows the narrator fathering, managing Chris brushing his teeth and showering. Half-asleep and unguarded, the narrator answers many of Chris’s questions, perhaps too indulgently. Woken and disturbed by Chris’s line of thought, the narrator is finally firm but not unkind in shutting down Chris’s questions. Chris ends the conversation by observing that his father “sure doesn’t talk like anyone else” which the narrator acknowledges and deflects '“as a problem” , establishing the idea that something is wrong with the narrator. Later, the narrator expresses pity for Chris…”Poor Chris” … when thinking of the real ghost story of Phaedrus. “Poor Chris” also occurs at the end of Chapter 28, again referring to the return of Phaedrus.
Narrator Lets Chris Sleep In
''I’ve been awake since dawn. Chris is still sound asleep in the other bed. I started to roll over for more sleep but heard a rooster crowing and then became aware we are on vacation and there is no point in sleeping.
Profiles
I see Chris is sleeping over there completely relaxed, none of his normal tension. I guess I won’t wake him up yet.
Profiles June 26, 2021, at 12:20 PM
I’m afraid these other characters will sleep all day if I let them. The sky outside is sparkling and clear, it’s a shame to waste it like this.
I go over finally and give Chris a shake. His eyes pop open, then he sits bolt upright uncomprehending.
Profiles June 26, 2021, at 12:20 PM
While waiting I check the engine oil level and tires, and bolts, and chain tension. A little slack there, and I get out the tool kit and tighten it up. I’m really getting anxious to get going.
I see that Chris dresses warmly and we are packed and on the road, and it is definitely cold. …''
From Chapter 4, pages 34, 36, 37-38.
Location: After dawn, motel room, parking lot in Oakes, ND.
COMMENTARY: Having insomnia at dawn, the narrator observes Chris sleeping and lets him sleep. However, after listing his gear, he finally becomes anxious to get on the road and wakes Chris up, as well as the Sutherlands to get on the road. In reality, he not letting people sleep in, he is getting on them on the road early and in the cold which will cause the Sutherlands to become angry with the narrator later. This shows the narrator as impatient and acting on the impulse to get on the road when the situation he is in, insomnia with everyone else still sleeping, suggests he should have tried to rest or at least wait for the others to wake up.
TONE AND MOOD?
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+ and -) The narrator observes that Chris is sleeping without his “normal tension” showing his concern. He does let Chris sleep in some, but gets impatient to get on the road and wakes everyone else up to do so.
Brings Thoreau’s Walden to Read to Chris
3. A copy of Thoreau’s Walden . . . which Chris has never heard and which can be read a hundred times without exhaustion. I try always to pick a book far over his head and read it as a basis for questions and answers, rather than without interruption. I read a sentence or two, wait for him to come up with his usual barrage of questions, answer them, then read another sentence or two. Classics read well this way. They must be written this way. Sometimes we have spent a whole evening reading and talking and discovered we have only covered two or three pages. It’s a form of reading done a century ago . . . when Chautauquas were popular. Unless you’ve tried it you can’t imagine how pleasant it is to do it this way.
From Chapter 4, page 36.
Location: After dawn, motel room, parking lot in Oakes, ND.
COMMENTARY: Having insomnia at dawn, the narrator lists the items that they have brought, including three books, one of which is Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, a book the narrator plans to read to his son, discussing every few sentences and answering his son’s questions. In Chapter 18, during the mountain hike camping trip, the narrator will read and discuss Walden with Chris but they will tire of it after a half-hour. The tone and mood is enthusiastic.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+) The narrator reading and discussing a classic book with his son is clearly very positive paternal engagement. '''
Narrator Makes Chris Rest
I show Chris how to spread his jacket on the ground and use an extra shirt for a pillow. He is not at all sleepy but I tell him to lie down anyway, he’ll need the rest. I open up my own jacket to soak up more heat. John gets his camera out.
From end of Chapter 4, page 42.
Location: Side of the road stopping point in beautiful prairie country a few towns west of Ellendale, ND.
COMMENTARY: The narrator directs Chris to get some rest. Tone is fatherly and matter of fact.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP: (+) The father as the adult looks out for his son’s needs, particularly his need to rest, whether he feels like resting or not.
Impatient Chris Wants to Camp
''"When are we going to get going?" Chris says.
"What’s your hurry?" I ask.
"I just want to get going."
"There’s nothing up ahead that’s any better than it is right here."
He looks down silently with a frown. "Are we going to go camping tonight?" he asks. The Sutherlands look at me apprehensively.
"Are we?" he repeats.
"We’ll see later," I say.
"Why later?"
"Because I don’t know now."
"Why don’t you know now?"
"Well, I just don’t know now why I just don’t know."
John shrugs that it’s okay.
"This isn’t the best camping country," I say. "There’s no cover and no water." But suddenly I add, "All right, tonight we’ll camp out." We had talked about it before. ''
From end of Chapter 4, pages 42-43.
Location: Side of the road stopping point in beautiful prairie country a few towns west of Ellendale, ND.
COMMENTARY: Following on during the same roadside stop in the previous entry, Chris shows his impatience to get back on the road, asking when they will get on the road. He follows ups by asking if they will be camping that night. The narrator tries to give a non-committal response by Chris presses for a definite answer. The Sutherlands are apprehensive and the narrator recognizes that it is not the best camping country, but with the Sutherlands’ acquiescence, the narrators commits to camping that evening. Chris’ boredom contrasts with the Sutherlands’ wonder at the beauty of the prairie. Tone is fatherly and the mood is slightly anxious.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -) Like father like son, Chris shows his impatience when he is ready to get back on the road. Dissatisfied with the prairie, Chris asks if they can go camping, and presses his father when he gives a non-committal response. The narrator knows camping conditions aren’t ideal, and the Sutherlands are hesitant, but agrees to commit to camping to placate his son, perhaps against his better judgment. The tug of war between father and son over camping shows Chris’ problem with authority and him trying to assert his own authority. On the positive side, the narrator is trying to placate Chris and do things for his entertainment. On the negative side, Chris is being pushy and disrespectful and the narrator may be making a mistake against his better judgment.
Impatience a Bad Sign/Chris Needs Goggles
''… The motorcycle gets a change of oil and chain lubrication. Chris watches everything I do but with some impatience. Not a good sign.
"My eyes hurt," he says.
"From what?"
"From the wind."
"We’ll look for some goggles." ''
From beginning of Chapter 5, pages 43.
Location: Entering the High Plains, stopping for gas in Hague, ND.
COMMENTARY: This passage shows the narrator paying attention to and responsive his son’s needs. On the other hand, Chris’s impatience is foreshadowing of problem attitudes ahead, as underscored when the narrator notes: “not a good sign.” Tone is matter of fact.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -) The narrator’s monitoring his son’s behavior and concern for his impatience shows effective fathering. Chris’s impatience, which the narrator notices is “not a good sign” , signals a wrong attitude to the narrator. The narrator is responsive to his son’s needs. When Chris says his eyes hurt, he finds out why and solves the problem, buying a pair of plastic goggles for Chris immediately. Thus, the passage is very positive as far as the narrator’s fatherly concern for his son, but the son’s impatient attitude shows brewing problems on his end.
Chris Disinterested in Missouri River
We have lunch of hamburgers and malteds at an A & W place in Mobridge, cruise down a heavily trafficked main street and then there it is, at the bottom of the hill, the Missouri. All that moving water is strange, banked by grass hills that hardly get any water at all. I turn around and glance at Chris but he doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in it.
From beginning of Chapter 5, page 44.
Location: Mobridge, SD, after stopping for lunch at the A&W, along the banks of the Missouri River.
COMMENTARY: The narrator turns around to look at Chris to gauge his reaction to seeing the Missouri River, but observes that Chris does not seem interested. Tone is matter of fact.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -) Again, the narrator is monitoring Chris and concerned for his behavior. Chris’s lack of interest in the great river is quietly disturbing when reported in a matter of fact tone. Chris’s non-reaction to the river is another item to show he is disengaged and something is not working. Again, fatherly concern vis-à-vis a child showing signs of a problem.
Chris and Engine Noise
''I check the engine temperature with my hand. It’s reassuringly cool. I put in the clutch and let it coast for a second in order to hear it idling. Something sounds funny and I do it again. It takes a while to figure out that it’s not the engine at all. There’s an echo from the bluff ahead that lingers after the throttle is closed. Funny. I do this two or three times. Chris wonders what’s wrong and I have him listen to the echo. No comment from him.
This old engine has a nickels-and-dimes sound to it. As if there were a lot of loose change flying around inside. Sounds awful, but it’s just normal valve clatter. Once you get used to that sound and learn to expect it, you automatically hear any difference. If you don’t hear any, that’s good.
I tried to get John interested in that sound once but it was hopeless. All he heard was noise and all he saw was the machine and me with greasy tools in my hands, nothing else. That didn’t work.
He didn’t really see what was going on and was not interested enough to find out. He isn’t so interested in what things mean as in what they are. That’s quite important, that he sees things this way. It took me a long time to see this difference and it’s important for the Chautauqua that I make this difference clear. ''
From Chapter 5, page 44.
Location: After crossing the Missouri River, headed into undisturbed, treeless Reservation lands far from the help of civilization, amidst green slopes topped with rocky outcrops.
COMMENTARY: Concerned at being far from mechanical help, the narrator notices a strange noise from his motorcycle and tries to diagnose it, throttling back and listening to a lingering echo. Chris wonders what is wrong and the narrator lets him listen to the echo. Chris appears to be uncomprehending. The narrator begins a Chautauqua on why it is important to pay attention to engine noise and be interested in it. John Sutherland’s disinterest is used as a counter-example, explaining a fundamental misunderstanding. Tone is matter of fact, then reflective.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -) Chris notices the narrator trying to diagnose a problem with the motorcycle and wonders what is wrong. The narrator tries to demonstrate the strange echoing from the rocks by throttling down two or three times to let him hear the echo, but Chris appears uncomprehending. (AS ABOVE) The narrator does not explain the situation to Chris, but instead launches into a Chautauqua in his own head. On the positive side, Chris is showing interest in the problem when he could just be “checked out” riding pillion. The narrator attempts to demonstrate the sound for Chris, but does not explain when Chris makes no comment. Instead, the narrator falls into silently reflection. The counter-example of the uncomprehending John Sutherland is used to illustrate the incipient problem with Chris. Previous passages have shown Chris as impatient watching his father perform motorcycle maintenance and unimpressed with the impressive scene of the Missouri River. Chris’s failure to comment on the echo may show misunderstanding, but the father fails to continue his efforts to engage Chris in understanding the sound. Both father and son are making an effort but there is still a disconnection (unfulfilled connection).
Exhaustion on the Long Ride arriving in Lemmon
''The fatigue and backache are getting to me now. I push the packing case over to a post and lean on that.
Chris’s expression shows he is really settling into something bad. This has been a long hard day. I told Sylvia way back in Minnesota that we could expect a slump in spirits like this on the second or third day and now it’s here. Minnesota—when was that?
….
By the time we reach Lemmon we are really aching tired. At a bar we hear about a campground to the south. John wants to camp in a park in the middle of Lemmon, a comment that sounds strange and angers Chris greatly.
I’m more tired now than I can remember having been in a long time. The others too. But we drag ourselves through a supermarket, pick up whatever groceries come to mind and with some difficulty pack them onto the cycles. The sun is so far down we’re running out of light. It’ll be dark in an hour. We can’t seem to get moving. I wonder, are we dawdling, or what?
"C’mon, Chris, let’s go," I say.
"Don’t holler at me. I’m ready." '''
From Chapter 5, page 50.
Location: Isolated grocery store on the road to Lemmon, SD (first passage). Supermarket arriving in Lemmon, SD.
COMMENTARY: The long ride is taking a toll on the riders. The Narrator comments on his exhaustion and notices Chris is “settling into something bad”. Chris’s mood becomes irritable and frayed nerves are evident all around. Tone is matter of fact. Mood is gloomy and tired.
'FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -) The Narrator notices “Chris is settling into something bad.”' Considering the exhaustion that the riders are facing, how might it be for a child? Is the Narrator ignoring the needs of his son by pushing the rider forward? Chris is irritable and “angers greatly” at the idea of camping in park in the middle of town, apparently an idea that does not fit his expectations of camping. The interchange with Chris after the supermarket is unclear: is Chris being irritable, is the Narrator being irritable? Or both? This is a sign that the the Narrator may be unreliable and not reporting everything that is happening to the reader. Chris retorts “Don’t holler at me.” Has the Narrator raised his voice when he describes it as “I say” or is Chris just being irritable and disrespectful when the Narrator tells him to get moving? The Narrator’s mention immediately previous seems to indicate impatience on his part. At this point, the plan to go camping doesn’t fit with the exhaustion experienced by the group. Rest at a motel is clearly a better idea. But mired in exhaustion, they don’t deviate from their camping plan. An effective father would point out that they all need their rest and change plans from Chris’s desired camping, even despite his previous commitment to his son. As later pointed out in the book, fatigue is a great gumption trap, and it seems that message is prefigured here. (Set up camping scene for novel)
Chris Misbehaves Instead of Helping Set Up Camp
'''I try to get unpacked as fast as possible but am so stupid with exhaustion I just set everything by the camp road without seeing what a bad spot it is. Then I see it is too windy. This is a High Plains wind. It is semidesert here, everything burned up and dry except for a lake, a large reservoir of some sort below us. The wind blows from the horizon across the lake and hits us with sharp gusts. It is already chilly. There are some scrubby pines back from the road about twenty yards and I ask Chris to move the stuff over there.
He doesn’t do it. He wanders off down to the reservoir. I carry the gear over by myself.
I see between trips that Sylvia is making a real effort at setting things up for cooking, but she’s as tired as I am.
The sun goes down.
John has gathered wood but it’s too big and the wind is so gusty it’s hard to start. It needs to be splintered into kindling. I go back over to the scrub pines, hunt around through the twilight for the machete, but it’s already so dark in the pines I can’t find it. I need the flashlight. I look for it, but it’s too dark to find that either.
I go back and start up the cycle and ride it back over to shine the headlight on the stuff so that I can find the flashlight. I look through all the stuff item by item to find the flashlight. It takes a long time to realize I don’t need the flashlight, I need the machete, which is in plain sight. By the time I get it back John has got the fire going. I use the machete to hack up some of the larger pieces of wood.
Chris reappears. He’s got the flashlight!
"When are we going to eat?" he complains.
"We’re getting it fixed as fast as possible," I tell him. "Leave the flashlight here."
He disappears again, taking the flashlight with him.
The wind blows the fire so hard it doesn’t reach up to cook the steaks. We try to fix up a shelter from the wind using large stones from the road, but it’s too dark to see what we’re doing. We bring both cycles over and catch the scene in a crossbeam of headlights. Peculiar light. Bits of ash blowing up from the fire suddenly glow bright white in it, then disappear in the wind.
BANG! There’s a loud explosion behind us. Then I hear Chris giggling.
Sylvia is upset.
"I found some firecrackers," Chris says.
I catch my anger in time and say to him, coldly, "It’s time to eat now."
"I need some matches," he says.
"Sit down and eat."
"Give me some matches first."
"Sit down and eat."
He sits down…''
From Chapter 5, pages 50-52.
Location: Shadehill Reservoir camping site, near Lemmon, SD, as dusk arrives.
COMMENTARY: Exhausted and in the dark, the three adults struggle to make camp. Chris wanders off to explore and play and does not help, directly ignoring his father’s requests and taking the flashlight they need with him. '''
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (-) Perhaps because he is exhausted, the Narrator does not directly confront Chris’s defiance immediately when he ignores his father’s directives. The Narrator asks Chris to help move stuff, but Chris wanders off. The Narrator can’t find the machete or the flashlight he needs to work in the dark, so he is forced to drain battery and use the motorcycle headlamp. When Chris returns with the flashlight, the Narrator directs him to leave the flashlight, but when he doesn’t, he does not catch him and demand the flashlight. Chris sets off a firecracker, and upsets Sylvia. Finally, the Narrator redirects Chris, firmly telling him to sit down and eat and ignoring his requests for matches. The Narrator lapse in redirecting his child’s misbehavior due to his exhaustion is a problem and a mistake any adult responsible for a child has mad. The Narrator finally redirects a misbehaving Chris. Chris’s problem with authority and poor attitude is clearly on display and escalating.
Chris’s Bad Dinner
''He sits down and I try to eat the steak with my Army mess knife, but it is too tough, and so I get out a hunting knife and use it instead. The light from the motorcycle headlight is full upon me so that the knife, when it goes down into the mess gear, is in full shadow and I can’t see where it’s going.
Chris says he can’t cut his either and I pass my knife to him. While reaching for it he dumps everything onto the tarp.
No one says a word.
I’m not angry that he spilled it, I’m angry that now the tarp’s going to be greasy the rest of the trip.
"Is there any more?" he asks.
"Eat that," I say. "It just fell on the tarp."
"It’s too dirty," he says.
"Well, that’s all there is."
A wave of depression hits. I just want to go to sleep now. But he’s angry and I expect we’re going to have one of his little scenes. I wait for it and pretty soon it starts.
"I don’t like the taste of this," he says.
"Yes, that’s rough, Chris."
"I don’t like any of this. I don’t like this camping at all."
"It was your idea," Sylvia says. "You’re the one who wanted to go camping."
She shouldn’t say that, but there’s no way she can know. You take his bait and he’ll feed you another one, and then another, and another until you finally hit him, which is what he really wants.
"I don’t care," he says.
"Well, you ought to," she says.
"Well, I don’t."
An explosion point is very near. Sylvia and John look at me but I remain deadpan. I’m sorry about this but there’s nothing I can do right now. Any argument will just worsen things.
"I’m not hungry," Chris says.
No one answers.
"My stomach hurts," he says.
The explosion is avoided when Chris turns and walks away in the darkness. ''
From Chapter 5, page 52
Location: Shadehill Reservoir camping site, near Lemmon, SD, eating dinner in the dark with a motorcycle headlight providing partial illumination.
COMMENTARY: Chris spills his dinner in the dark, angering his father. His father tells him he has to eat it even if its dirty. Where Chris had been misbehaving before, he begins to truly act out and the Narrator fears a full meltdown. When Chris expresses his dissatisfaction, Sylvia reminds him it was his idea, but the two men stay quiet, not wanting to provoke Chris. An unhappy Chris wanders off, averting a full meltdown.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (-) The Narrator lets Chris try to cut his steak with a Hunting knife in the dark when he himself is having trouble cutting the steak, showing poor judgment. Not surprisingly, Chris spills his meal. The Narrator finally loses his temper at Chris (see previous passage) and tells him he has to eat his spilled meal. Like father like son, both have their irritability and tempers. Chris voices his dissatisfaction, but is confronted by an equally dissatisfied adult who won’t brook his attitude in Sylvia. In contrast, his father (and John) are keeping quiet on Chris’s disrespectful behavior. We see the narrator’s patience is not unlimited in this passage when he loses his temper. We also see his emotional response to this impasse with Chris and desire to avoid the problem:
A wave of depression hits. I just want to go to sleep now. But he’s angry and I expect we’re going to have one of his little scenes. I wait for it and pretty soon it starts.
The Narrator feels unable to respond and this triggers a cycle of depression
The Narrator and the Sutherlands Discuss Chris’s Problem Around the Campfire
''We finish eating. I help Sylvia clean up, and then we sit around for a while. We turn the cycle lights off to conserve the batteries and because the light from them is ugly anyway. The wind has died down some and there is a little light from the fire. After a while my eyes become accustomed to it. The food and anger have taken off some of the sleepiness. Chris doesn’t return.
"Do you suppose he’s just punishing?" Sylvia asks.
"I suppose," I say, "although it doesn’t sound quite right." I think about it and add, "That’s a child-psychology term—a context I dislike. Let’s just say he’s being a complete bastard."
John laughs a little.
"Anyway," I say, "it was a good supper. I’m sorry he had to act up like this."
"Oh, that’s all right," John says. "I’m just sorry he won’t get anything to eat."
"It won’t hurt him."
"You don’t suppose he’ll get lost out there."
"No, he’ll holler if he is."
Now that he has gone and we have nothing to do I become more aware of the space all around us. There is not a sound anywhere. Lone prairie.
Sylvia says, "Do you suppose he really has stomach pains?"
"Yes," I say, somewhat dogmatically. I’m sorry to see the subject continued but they deserve a better explanation than they’re getting. They probably sense that there’s more to it than they’ve heard. "I’m sure he does," I finally say. "He’s been examined a half-dozen times for it. Once it was so bad we thought it was appendicitis . . . .I remember we were on a vacation up north. I’d just finished getting out an engineering proposal for a five-million-dollar contract that just about did me in. That’s a whole other world. No time and no patience and six hundred pages of information to get out the door in one week and I was about ready to kill three different people and we thought we’d better head for the woods for a while.
"I can hardly remember what part of the woods we were in. Head just spinning with engineering data, and anyway Chris was just screaming. We couldn’t touch him, until I finally saw I was going to have to pick him up fast and get him to the hospital, and where that was I’ll never remember, but they found nothing."
"Nothing?"
"No. But it happened again on other occasions too."
"Don’t they have any idea?" Sylvia asks.
"This spring they diagnosed it as the beginning symptoms of mental illness."
"What?" John says.
It’s too dark to see Sylvia or John now or even the outlines of the hills. I listen for sounds in the distance, but hear none. I don’t know what to answer and so say nothing.
When I look hard I can make out stars overhead but the fire in front of us makes it hard to see them. The night all around is thick and obscure. My cigarette is down to my fingers and I put it out.
"I didn’t know that," Sylvia’s voice says. All traces of anger are gone. "We wondered why you brought him instead of your wife," she says. "I’m glad you told us."
John shoves some of the unburned ends of the wood into the fire.
Sylvia says, "What do you suppose the cause is?"
John’s voice rasps, as if to cut it off, but I answer, "I don’t know. Causes and effects don’t seem to fit. Causes and effects are a result of thought. I would think mental illness comes before thought." This doesn’t make sense to them, I’m sure. It doesn’t make much sense to me and I’m too tired to try to think it out and give it up.
"What do the psychiatrists think?" John asks.
"Nothing. I stopped it."
"Stopped it?"
"Yes."
"Is that good?"
"I don’t know. There’s no rational reason I can think of for saying it’s not good. Just a mental block of my own. I think about it and all the good reasons for it and make plans for an appointment and even look for the phone number and then the block hits, and it’s just like a door slammed shut."
"That doesn’t sound right."
"No one else thinks so either. I suppose I can’t hold out forever."
"But why?" Sylvia asks.
"I don’t know why . . . it’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . they’re not kin." . . . Surprising word, I think to myself never used it before. Not of kin . . . sounds like hillbilly talk . . . not of a kind . . . same root . . . kindness, too . . . they can’t have real kindness toward him, they’re not his kin . . . . That’s exactly the feeling. ''
From Chapter 5, pages 52-55.
Location: Shadehill Reservoir camping site, near Lemmon, SD, after dusk, after dinner, sitting around the dim light of a campfire.
COMMENTARY: The Narrator apologizes to his friends for his son’s acting out. The ordinarily laconic and deflective Narrative is more talkative about Chris and his problems with him tonight with the Sutherlands. While the Narrator is reluctant to talk about this, being “sorry to see the subject continued” , he feels compelled to explain himself to the Sutherlands who “deserve a better explanation than they’re getting.” When the Narrator discloses that Chris’s stomach pains may be ”the beginning symptoms of mental illness" the Sutherlands are shocked and surprised. Sylvia thanks the Narrator for sharing this personal information with them and reveals that the Sutherlands didn’t understand why the Narrator had taken his son on the trip rather than his wife, underscoring the Narrator’s limited communication with even his close friends. When John exclaims “What?” in response, the Narrator clams up: “It’s too dark to see Sylvia or John now or even the outlines of the hills. I listen for sounds in the distance, but hear none. I don’t know what to answer and so say nothing.”
The Narrator pauses to listen for inspiration but none comes. Both the Motifs of Silence and Darkness are thus invoked here. The Sutherlands’ concerns are a foil for the Narrator’s inability to communicate in this passage.
The Narrator’s fear and aversion to “child psychology” and “psychiatrists” is clearly evident in this passage. He tells Sylvia he doesn’t like the term punishing, telling her: "That’s a child-psychology term—a context I dislike.” He then resorts to humor to gloss over and deflect: “let’s just say he’s being a complete bastard” which draws a laugh from John. But this is just the prefacing of a major disclosure for the Narrator: he admits he is blocking his son from seeing a psychiatrist, an admission that reveals the narrator’s own psychological issues that may be contributing to his son’s problems. He is unusually frank with the Sutherlands:
''"What do the psychiatrists think?" John asks.
"Nothing. I stopped it."
"Stopped it?"
"Yes."
"Is that good?"
"I don’t know. There’s no rational reason I can think of for saying it’s not good. Just a mental block of my own. I think about it and all the good reasons for it and make plans for an appointment and even look for the phone number and then the block hits, and it’s just like a door slammed shut."
"That doesn’t sound right."
"No one else thinks so either. I suppose I can’t hold out forever." ''
Thus, the Narrator and Chris’s impasse is directly described for the reader, the first time the Narrator reveals this for the reader. This impasse will be developed further and further as the novel progresses. Chris’s stomach pains, whether real or imagined, may have a different source: a reaction to unresolved issues with his father.
The tone remains matter of fact, tired but no longer blitzed by exhaustion. The mood of the passage shifts from irritated and apologetic to concerned and reflective and even discomfiting as shown by John’s “rasping voice” trying to cut off Sylvia.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP (-) The Narrator’s hands-off parenting style may show a lack of concern, but also may show the correct amount of permissiveness for an eleven year-old boy. The dysfunction father-son relationship between the Narrator and Chris is laid bare in this passage. In explaining that he has blocked his son from seeing a psychiatrist for his stomach pains issue, we see the Narrator’s psychological issues contributing to the son’s. The Narrator recounts an anecdote of a vacation with him as the stressed and cantankerous breadwinner: “…six hundred pages of information to get out the door in one week and I was about ready to kill three different people and we thought we’d better head for the woods for a while.” During this trip, Chris has his worst episode of stomach pain and is brought to the hospital for potential appendicitis. Pirsig the author posits these details side by side for the reader to make a connection that the Narrator, an unreliable narrator who doesn’t grasp the whole of the situation, is not making. When Sylvia presses the Narrator for a reason why, he is at a loss: "I don’t know. Causes and effects don’t seem to fit. Causes and effects are a result of thought. I would think mental illness comes before thought." This doesn’t make sense to them, I’m sure. It doesn’t make much sense to me and I’m too tired to try to think it out and give it up.
This dysfunctional relationship will be described and developed more, often in indirect and implied ways such as this in the novel. The Narrator never recognizes the cause and effect relationship between his own behavior and that of his son.
Narrator Ruminates on Kin, Remembers Goethe Poem
''"I don’t know why . . . it’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . they’re not kin." . . . Surprising word, I think to myself never used it before. Not of kin . . . sounds like hillbilly talk . . . not of a kind . . . same root . . . kindness, too . . . they can’t have real kindness toward him, they’re not his kin . . . . That’s exactly the feeling.
Old word, so ancient it’s almost drowned out. What a change through the centuries. Now anybody can be "kind." And everybody’s supposed to be. Except that long ago it was something you were born into and couldn’t help. Now it’s just a faked-up attitude half the time, like teachers the first day of class. But what do they really know about kindness who are not kin.
It goes over and over again through my thoughts . . . mein Kind—my child. There it is in another language. Mein Kinder . . . "Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind."
Strange feeling from that.
"What are you thinking about?" Sylvia asks.
"An old poem, by Goethe. It must be two hundred years old. I had to learn it a long time ago. I don’t know why I should remember it now, except . . . " The strange feeling comes back.
"How does it go?" Sylvia asks.
I try to recall. "A man is riding along a beach at night, through the wind. It’s a father, with his son, whom he holds fast in his arm. He asks his son why he looks so pale, and the son replies, ‘Father, don’t you see the ghost?’ The father tried to reassure the boy it’s only a bank of fog along the beach that he sees and only the rustling of the leaves in the wind that he hears but the son keeps saying it is the ghost and the father rides harder and harder through the night."
"How does it end?"
"In failure . . . death of the child. The ghost wins."
The wind blows light up from the coals and I see Sylvia look at me startled.
"But that’s another land and another time," I say. "Here life is the end and ghosts have no meaning. I believe that. I believe in all this too," I say, looking out at the darkened prairie, "although I’m not sure of what it all means yet . . . I’m not sure of much of anything these days. Maybe that’s why I talk so much."
The coals die lower and lower. We smoke our last cigarettes. Chris is off somewhere in the darkness but I’m not going to shag after him. John is carefully silent and Sylvia is silent and suddenly we are all separate, all alone in our private universes, and there is no communication among us. We douse the fire and go back to the sleeping bags in the pines. ''
From Chapter 5, pages 54-56.
Location: Shadehill Reservoir camping site, near Lemmon, SD, after dusk, after dinner, sitting around the dim light of a campfire.
COMMENTARY: Struggling to explain his misgivings about Chris talking to a psychiatrist, the Narrator ruminates on the word kin and its derivative kind and decides “they can’t have real kindness toward him, they’re not his kin . . . . That’s exactly the feeling” , implying that not only is the psychiatrist’s concern counterfeit but dangerous. Involuntarily, the Narrator begins recalling the Goethe poem Die Erlkonig, a literary allusion that seems to provide a parallel for the Narrator’s father-son journey via motorcycle. The Ghost in the poem corresponds to the ghost of Phaedrus the Narrator has discussed. “A strange feeling” is described twice, creating a mood of foreboding and dread, a mood underscored by the dark outcome of the poem, “failure… death of the child” , a gust of wind and a flaring of the fire, and Sylvia’s startled reaction in the flared campfire light.
The Narrator tries to recover and change the subject when he sees his recounting of the Goethe poem has disturbed his companions. The Narrator’s ruminations end with self-reflection that shows a form of stuckness: “although I’m not sure of what it all means yet . . . I’m not sure of much of anything these days. Maybe that’s why I talk so much." The night ends on a downnote with the Narrator feeling disconnected and trapped in incommunication. The Narrator notes: “John is carefully silent and Sylvia is silent and suddenly we are all separate, all alone in our private universes, and there is no communication among us.” The dousing of the fire metaphorically brings darkness, loneliness and separation.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP (-): The Narrator attempts to explain his misgivings about Chris talking to a psychiatrist. His explanation may describe a feeling and a concern, but it doesn’t make sense. Exhausted, he does something uncharacteristically unfatherly, and blows off finding Chris before going to bed: “Chris is off somewhere in the darkness but I’m not going to shag after him.” The Narrator’s recitation of Goethe’s Erlkonig disturbingly foreshadows disaster for father and son.
Narrator Yells at Chris to Go Sleep Driving Chris to Tears
''I discover that this one tiny refuge of scrub pines where I have put the sleeping bags is also the refuge from the wind of millions of mosquitos up from the reservoir. The mosquito repellent doesn’t stop them at all. I crawl deep into the sleeping bag and make one little hole for breathing. I am almost asleep when Chris finally shows up.
"There’s a great big sandpile over there," he says, crunching around on the pine needles.
"Yes," I say. "Get to sleep."
"You should see it. Will you come and see it tomorrow?"
"We won’t have time."
"Can I play over there tomorrow morning?"
"Yes."
He makes interminable noises getting undressed and into the sleeping bag. He is in it. Then he rolls around. Then he is silent, and then rolls some more. Then he says, "Dad?"
"What?"
"What was it like when you were a kid?"
"Go to sleep, Chris!" There are limits to what you can listen to.
Later I hear a sharp inhaling of phlegm that tells me he has been crying, and though I’m exhausted, I don’t sleep. A few words of consolation might have helped there. He was trying to be friendly. But the words weren’t forthcoming for some reason. Consoling words are more for strangers, for hospitals, not kin. Little emotional Band-Aids like that aren’t what he needs or what’s sought . . . .I don’t know what he needs, or what’s sought.
A gibbous moon comes up from the horizon beyond the pines, and by its slow, patient arc across the sky I measure hour after hour of semisleep. Too much fatigue. The moon and strange dreams and sounds of mosquitos and odd fragments of memory become jumbled and mixed in an unreal lost landscape in which the moon is shining and yet there is a bank of fog and I am riding a horse and Chris is with me and the horse jumps over a small stream that runs through the sand toward the ocean somewhere beyond. And then that is broken . . . .And then it reappears.
And in the fog there appears an intimation of a figure. It disappears when I look at it directly, but then reappears in the corner of my vision when I turn my glance. I am about to say something, to call to it, to recognize it, but then do not, knowing that to recognize it by any gesture or action is to give it a reality which it must not have. But it is a figure I recognize even though I do not let on. It is Phædrus.
Evil spirit. Insane. From a world without life or death.
The figure fades and I hold panic down . . . tight . . . not rushing it . . . just letting it sink in . . . not believing it, not disbelieving it . . . but the hair crawls slowly on the back of my skull . . . he is calling Chris, is that it? . . . Yes? . . . ''
End of Chapter 5, page 56-57.
Location: Shadehill Reservoir camping site, near Lemmon, SD, night, sleeping bags.
COMMENTARY:
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -)
Chris Wakes Up with an Attitude
''When the food is ready, I go over and wake Chris. He doesn’t want to get up. I tell him again. He says no. I grab the bottom of the sleeping bag, give it a mighty tablecloth jerk, and he is out of it, blinking in the pine needles. It takes him a while to figure out what has happened, while I roll up the sleeping bag.
He comes to breakfast looking insulted, eats one bite, says he isn’t hungry, his stomach hurts. I point to the lake down below us, so strange in the middle of the semidesert, but he doesn’t show any interest. He repeats his complaint. I just let it go by and John and Sylvia disregard it too. I’m glad they were told what the situation is with him. It might have created real friction otherwise.
We finish breakfast silently, and I’m oddly tranquil. The decision about Phædrus may have something to do with it. But we are also perhaps a hundred feet above the reservoir, looking across it into a kind of Western spaciousness. Barren hills, no one anywhere, not a sound; and there is something about places like this that raises your spirits a little and makes you think that things will probably get better. ''
Chapter 6, page 58.
Location: Shadehill Reservoir camping site, near Lemmon, SD, morning, after 9am, too hot to sleep already on a day that will go into the 100s.
COMMENTARY:
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -)
The Narrator is Firm with Chris about Eating with the Group
''When the tanks are filled we head across the street into a restaurant for coffee. Chris, of course, is hungry.
I tell him I’ve been waiting for that. I tell him he eats with the rest of us or not all. Not angrily. Just matter-of-factly. He’s reproachful but sees how it’s going to be.
I catch a fleeting look of relief from Sylvia. Evidently she thought this was going to be a continuous problem. ''
Chapter 6, page 63.
Location: Gas station on US 12. City, STATE.
COMMENTARY:
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -)
Chris Back to Normal, Wolfs Down Lunch
Chris, in contrast to them, [ Narrator describes “John and Sylvia look really out of it” a few paragraphs before this passage] ” seems to be back to his normal self, alert and watching everything. When the food comes he wolfs it down and then, before we are half-finished, asks for more. He gets it and we wait for him to finish.
From Chapter 7, page 68.
Location: Air conditioned restaurant on a 100-degree temperature day, Bowman, SD.
COMMENTARY:
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -)
Chris Patient While Narrator Conducts Motorcycle Maintenance
The chain has been running hot and dry too. In the righthand saddlebag I rummage for a can of spray lubricant, find it, then start the engine and spray the moving chain. The chain is still so hot the solvent evaporates almost instantly. Then I squirt a little oil on, let it run for a minute and shut the engine off. Chris waits patiently, then follows me into the restaurant.
From Chapter 7, page 72.
Location: Parked on the side of the road, 108 degrees in the shade, Baker, MT.
COMMENTARY:
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+ and -)
Narrator, Chris Happy at End of Chapter 7
''Now the road meanders a little, now it cuts back away from the direction in which we should be going, then returns. Soon it rises a little and then rises some more. We are moving in angular directions into narrow devil’s gaps, then upward again higher and a little higher each time.
Some shrubs appear. Then small trees. The road goes higher still into grass, and then fenced meadows.
The sun angles toward the cloud, which now has grown downward to touch the horizon above us, in which there are trees, pines, and a cold wind comes down with pine smells from the trees. The flowers in the meadow blow in the wind and the cycle leans a little and we are suddenly cool.
I look at Chris and he is smiling. I am smiling too.
Then the rain comes hard on the road with a gust of earth-smell from the dust that has waited for too long and the dust beside the road is pocked with the first raindrops.
This is all so new. And we are so in need of it, a new rain. My clothes become wet, and goggles are spattered, and chills start and feel delicious. The cloud passes from beneath the sun and the forest of pines and small meadows gleams again, sparkling where the sunlight catches small drops from the rain.
We reach the top of the climb dry again but cool now and stop, overlooking a huge valley and river below.
"I think we have arrived," John says.
Sylvia and Chris have walked into the meadow among the flowers under pines through which I can see the far side of the valley, away and below.
I am a pioneer now, looking onto a promised land. ''
End of Chapter 7 and PART I of the book, pages 78-79.
Location: Highlands overlooking the Yellowstone River valley, east of Miles City, Montana.
COMMENTARY: Climbing out of the flatlands, the Narrator and Chris are elated with the change in landscape and the prospect of cool rain. After the grueling, monotony of traveling on the High Plains in the triple digit heat, there is a sense of novelty as voiced by the Narrator and arrival as voiced by John Sutherland. The sense of arrival in underscored by the Pioneer/Promised Land metaphor and literary allusion that ends the passage. Sylvia and Chris celebrate by venturing into the “meadows among the flowers under the pines” The mood is euphoric, relieved and resheded '.
FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP : (+) The Narrator and Chris have shared a grueling trip t and share the elation of achieving their goal at the vantage point they arrive at, with a few bumps and ordeals along the way nonetheless. The Narrator and Chris’s impasse has been established by the author, but at this point in the novel, that problem is in abeyance, and father and son share in a celebratory moment.
Wind motif.
Pioneer/Promised Land motif.
Mood euphoric, refreshed. Relieved, hopeful and celebratory. Novelty vs monotony.
A Note To Reader. By Henry Gurr ZMMQ SiteMaster.
This is a work in progress, to be continued from the above. This page will be completed as soon as possible.
If you have comments or suggestions, please send Email to HenryG__usca.edu
Revised}DaveMatos12106145+HenryGurr210626
File = CurentState=ZMM PassagesNarratorChrisRelationshi+HsgPrepPost01.rtf
The following is Copied from Henry Gurr's MSW Copies of ZMMQGallery Photo Captions For ZMM Part 3. This will eventually incorporated properly into the above.
[210519”0758 HSG STT Work on => GRASSHOPPER METAPHOR ?? ADVANCED TELEGRAM ?? FOR ?? S> ((I wish I could find existing text (P) = “In existing ‘Why N Treat C Do Bad’?? ] Where “”
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We’re on a logging road, that’s right . . . bright day . . . sparkling air. Wow! . . . it’s beautiful. We’re headed for the ocean.
I remember the dream again and the words "I’ll see you at the bottom of the ocean" and wonder about them. But pines and sunlight are stronger than any dream and the wondering goes away. Good old reality.
I get out of the sleeping bag. It’s cold and I get dressed quickly. Chris is asleep. I walk around him, climb over a fallen treetrunk and walk up the logging road. To warm myself I speed up to a jog and move up the road briskly. Good, good, good, good, good. The word keeps time with the jogging. Some birds fly up from the shadowy hill into the sunlight and I watch them until they’re out of sight. Good, good, good, good, good. Crunchy gravel on the road. Good, good. Bright yellow sand in the sun. Good, good, good.
These roads go on for miles sometimes. Good, good, good. Eventually I reach a point where I’m really winded. The road is higher now and I can see for miles over the forest.
Good.
Still puffing, I walk back down at a brisk pace, crunching more gently now, noticing small plants and shrubs where the pines have been logged.
At the cycle again I pack gently and quickly. By now I’m so familiar with how everything goes together it’s almost done without thought. Finally I need Chris’s sleeping bag. I roll him a little, not too rough, and tell him, "Great day!"
He looks around, disoriented. He gets out of the sleeping bag and, while I pack it, gets dressed without really knowing what he does.
"Put your sweater and jacket on," I say. "It’s going to be a chilly ride."
He does and gets on and in low gear we follow the logging road down to where it meets the blacktop again. Before we start on it I take one last look back up. Nice. A nice spot. From here the blacktop winds down and down.
Long Chautauqua today. One that I’ve been looking forward to during the whole trip.
Second gear and then third. Not too fast on these curves. Beautiful sunlight on these forests.
There has been a haze, a backup problem in this Chautauqua so far; I talked about caring the first day and then realized I couldn’t say anything meaningful about caring until its inverse side, Quality, is understood. I think it’s important now to tie care to Quality by pointing out that care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristics of Quality.
Thus, if the problem of technological hopelessness is caused by absence of care, both by technologists and antitechnologists; and if care and Quality are external and internal aspects of the same thing, then it follows logically that what really causes technological hopelessness is absence of the perception of Quality in technology by both technologists and antitechnologists. Phædrus’ mad pursuit of the rational, analytic and therefore technological meaning of the word "Quality" was really a pursuit of the answer to the whole problem of technological hopelessness. So it seems to me, anyway.
(1) As we climb it I get a sudden depressed feeling I’ve been walking up this logging road all my life.
"Dad?"
"What?" A small bird rises from a tree in front of us.
"What should I be when I grow up?"
The bird disappears over a far ridge. I don’t know what to say. "Honest," I finally say.
"I mean what kind of a job?"
"Any kind."
"Why do you get mad when I ask that?"
"I’m not mad . . . I just think . . . I don’t know . . . I’m just too tired to think . . . . It doesn’t matter what you do."
Roads like this one get smaller and smaller and then quit.
Later I notice he’s not keeping up.
The sun is below the horizon now and twilight is on us. We walk separately back up the logging road and when we reach the cycle we climb into the sleeping bags and without a word go to sleep.
Chapter 23
There it is at the end of the corridor: a glass door. And behind it are Chris and on one side of him his yo unger brother and on the other side his mother. Chris has his hand against the glass. He recognizes me and waves. I wave back and approach the door.
How silent everything is. Like watching a motion picture when the sound has failed.
Chris looks up at his mother and smiles. She smiles down at him but I see she is only covering her grief. She’s very distressed about something but she doesn’t want them to see.
And now I see what the glass door is. It is the door of a coffin—mine.
Not a coffin, a sarcophagus. I am in an enormous vault , dead, and they are paying their last respects.
It’s kind of them to come and do this. They didn’t have to do this. I feel grateful. Now Chris motions for me to open the glass door of the vault. I see he wants to talk to me. He wants me to tell him, perhaps, what death is like. I feel a desire to do this, to tell him. It was so good of him to come and wave I will tell him it’s not so bad. It’s just lonely.
I reach to push the door open but a dark figure in a shadow beside the door motions for me not to touch it. A single finger is raised to lips I cannot see. The dead aren’t permitted to speak.
But they want me to talk. I’m still needed! Doesn’t he see this? There must he some kind of mistake. Doesn’t he see that they need me? I plead with the figure that I have to speak to them. It’s not finished yet. I have to tell them things. But the figure in the shadows makes no sign he has even heard.
"CHRIS! " I shout through the door. "I’LL SEE YOU!!"
The dark figure moves toward me threateningly,but I hear Chris’s voice, "Where? " faint and distant. He heard me! And the dark figure, enraged, draws a curtain over the door.
Not the mountain,I think.The mountain is gone."AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN!! " I shout.
And now I am standing in the deserted ruins of a city all alone.The ruins are all around me endlessly in every direction and I must walk them alone.
Chapter 24
The sun is up.
For a while I’m not sure where I am.
We’re on a road in a forest somewhere.
Bad dream. That glass door again.
The chrome of the cycle gleams beside me and then I see the pines and then Idaho comes to mind.
The door and the shadowy figure beside it were just imaginary.
……….
We’re on a logging road, that’s right . . . bright day . . . sparkling air. Wow! . . . it’s beautiful. We’re headed for the ocean.
I remember the dream again and the words "I’ll see you at the bottom of the ocean" and wonder about them. But pines and sunlight are stronger than any dream and the wondering goes away. Good old reality.
I get out of the sleeping bag. It’s cold and I get dressed quickly. Chris is asleep. I walk around him, climb over a fallen treetrunk and walk up the logging road. To warm myself I speed up to a jog and move up the road briskly. Good, good, good, good, good. The word keeps time with the jogging. Some birds fly up from the shadowy hill into the sunlight and I watch them until they’re out of sight. <<< FROM shadowy TO Bright sun >> Foretells GREAT GOOD Chautauqua today upcoming!! BUT no Chris relation … >>> ? oood, good, good, good, good. Crunchy gravel on the road. Good, good. Bright yellow sand in the sun. Good, good, good.
These roads go on for miles sometimes. Good, good, good. Eventually I reach a point where I’m really winded. The road is higher now and I can see for miles over the forest.
Good.
Still puffing, I walk back down at a brisk pace, crunching more gently now, noticing small plants and shrubs where the pines have been logged.
At the cycle again I pack gently and quickly. By now I’m so familiar with how everything goes together it’s almost done without thought. Finally I need Chris’s sleeping bag. I roll him a little, not too rough, and tell him, "Great day!"
He looks around, disoriented. He gets out of the sleeping bag and, while I pack it, gets dressed without really knowing what he does.
"Put your sweater and jacket on," I say. "It’s going to be a chilly ride."
He does and gets on and in low gear we follow the logging road down to where it meets the blacktop again. Before we start on it I take one last look back up. Nice. A nice spot. From here the blacktop winds down and down.
Long Chautauqua today. One that I’ve been looking forward to during the whole trip.
Second gear and then third. Not too fast on these curves. Beautiful sunlight on these forests.
There has been a haze, a backup problem in this Chautauqua so far; I talked about caring the first day and then realized I couldn’t say anything meaningful about caring until its inverse side, Quality, is understood. I think it’s important now to tie care to Quality by pointing out that care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristics of Quality.
Thus, if the problem of technological hopelessness is caused by absence of care, both by technologists and antitechnologists; and if care and Quality are external and internal aspects of the same thing, then it follows logically that what really causes technological hopelessness is absence of the perception of Quality in technology by both technologists and antitechnologists. Phædrus’ mad pursuit of the rational, analytic and therefore technological meaning of the word "Quality" was really a pursuit of the answer to the whole problem of technological hopelessness. So it seems to me, anyway.
(2) For a brief moment, way up at the top of the ridge, the sun diffuses through the trees and a halation of the light comes down to us. The halo expands, capturing every-
thing in a sudden flash, and suddenly it catches me too.
"He saw too much," I say, still thinking about the impasse, but DeWeese looks puzzled and John doesn’t register at all, and I realize the non sequitur too late. In the distance a single bird cries plaintively.
Now suddenly the sun is gone behind the mountain and the whole canyon is in dull shadow.
(3) "BROWNLEE CAMPGROUND," which appears to be in a draw of the mountains. In the dark it’s hard to tell what sort of country we’re in. We follow a dirt road under trees and past underbrush to some camper’s pull-ins. No one else seems to be here. When I shut the motor off and we unpack I can hear a small stream nearby. Except for that and the chirping of some little bird there’s no sound.
"I like it here," Chris says.
"It’s very quiet," I say.
"Where will we be going tomorrow?"
"Into Oregon." I give him the flashlight and have him shine it where I’m unpacking.
"Have I been there before?"
"Maybe, I’m not sure."
I spread out the sleeping bags, and put his on top of the picnic table. The novelty of this appeals to him. This night there’ll be no trouble sleeping. Soon I hear deep breathing that tells me he’s already asleep.
I wish I knew what to say to him. Or what to ask. He seems so close at times, and yet the closeness has nothing to do with what is asked or said. Then at other times he seems very far away and sort of watching me from some vantage point I don’t see. And then sometimes he’s just childish and there’s no relation at all.
Sometimes, when thinking about this, I thought that the idea that one person’s mind is accessible to another’s is just a conversational illusion, just a figure of speech, an assumption that makes some kind of exchange between basically alien creatures seem plausible, and that really the relationship of one person to another is ultimately unknowable. The effort of fathoming what is in another’s mind creates a distortion of what is seen. I’m trying, I suppose, for some situation in which whatever it is emerges undistorted. The way he asks all those questions, I don’t know.
