Goliverse discussion

Here's the thread to discuss The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Ok so me and wendy have the idea the narrator is having mental relapses and is really a grown man who is a murderer. It would explain several items such as why when he was younger his family said he was a monster but he doesn't remember it. Also when he looks in the mirror he has a problem wondering what is looking at the image of the 7 year old cause it's really a grown man. Could be the reason he dad and mother were fighting so much and having money issues. Their son was a grown man behaving as a child. The stress finally gets to the father and he tries drowning his grown son. Also i wondered how a seven year old could of read so many books but again if he's grown it could explain it. The first time he murders, the man from south africa, is over his pet cat his only true friend. He then meets a girl and her mother and grandmother. I believe none of these are real people except perhaps for the young girl whom he murders around the pond. The two older woman are place holders of the (ocean) where he goes after he murders people and or between mental relapses. He speaks of a funeral for his family? His children at the time would be in their 20s? i think the funeral was for the wife he killed. His children he killed before and had went back to the "ocean" to forget what he had done. The scene outside when he is in the fairy circle is particularly painful. It's not a child asking his father why he is picking on someone smaller but a grown man who at the time is in his "child" phrase. The exhausted father hearing his grown son ask him why he is picking on someone "smaller" just breaks his heart and with a weary soul he goes back into his house leaving the man / child outside.

Here are some discussion questions:

1. It would be easy to think of the Hempstocks as the "triple goddess" (the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone) of popular mythology. In what ways do they conform to those roles? In what ways are they different?

2. The narrator has returned to his hometown for a funeral (we never learn whose). Do you think that framing his childhood story with a funeral gives this story a pessimistic outlook, rather than an optimistic one?

3. Because the narrator is male and most of the other characters are female, this story has the potential to become a stereotypical narrative where a male character saves the day. How does the story avoid that pitfall?

4. The story juxtaposes the memories of childhood with the present of adulthood. In what ways do children perceive things differently an adults? Do you think there are situations in which a child's perspective can be more "truthful" than an adult's?

5. One of Ursula Monkton's main attributes is that she always tries to give people what they want. Why is this not always a good thing? What does Ursula want? How does Ursula use people's desires against them to get what she wants?

6. Water has many roles in this story—it can give and take life, reveal and hide. How does it play these different roles?

7. One of the many motivators for the characters in this story is loneliness. What characters seem to suffer from loneliness? How do adults and children respond to loneliness in different ways? In the same ways?

8. On page 18, the narrator tells us that his father often burnt their toast and always ate it with apparent relish. He also tells us that later in life, his father admitted that he had never actually liked burnt toast, but ate it to avoid waste, and that his father's confession made the narrator's entire childhood feel like a lie: "it was as if one of the pillars of belief that my world had been built upon had crumbled into dry sand." What other "pillars of belief" from childhood does he discover to be false? How do these discoveries affect him? Are there any beliefs from your own childhood that you discovered to be false?

9. When the narrative returns to the present, Old Mrs. Hempstock tells our narrator, "You stand two of you lot next to each other, and you could be continents away for all it means anything" (p. 173). What does she mean by this? Why is it "easier" for people, our narrator especially, to forget certain things that are difficult to reconcile?

10. Though the narrator has a sister, he doesn't seem to be particularly close to her. Why do you think it is that he has trouble relating to other children? Why do you think his sister is not an ally for him?

Is there a show date or are we combining two books and doing a show next month including next month's book also?

No and no.

'K, thanks! And Doc, your theory really turns this book into something really disturbing... :-)

Doesn't it though. And looking at next week.

thanks andy

Nicole doesn't he say the funeral is for his wife and kids?

I don't think so. I don't think it ever said, but I wondered if it was for his dad, which would explain why he wasn't terribly grief-stricken - the guy tried to drown him.
I thought he was supposed to be driving to meet his sister and family, and then wanders down the lane and ends up at the Hempstocks.

And no, I'm not Nicole. :-)