October Light

Author: John Gardner

Release: 1976

Publisher: Alfed A. Knopf

Genre: Fiction

Main Character(s): Sally Abbot, James Page

Synopsis: A book within a book, when elderly siblings James and Sally argue, Sally locks herself in her room and reads a book, that we read along with her. Going between the argument and the book, many stories and themes arise.

Declassified by Agent Palmer: October Light has layers beyond its book within a book

Quotes and Lines

“I’ve often reflected,” he said gently, thoughtfully, “that we should all of us try to be more tolerant. Close our noisy mouths and accept divergent lifestyles. After all, that’s America! Truth has many faces, even changes her mind. We organize, you know, we establish splendid laws, but–” He paused, breathed more deeply, nostrils trembling. “New men will come, and not improbably with new ideas; at this very instant the causes productive of such change are strongly at work.”

But a man lives only once! He comes wriggling, howling with pain and terror into the chilly, indifferent world, and all too soon he goes trembling-like-a-leaf and howling, bawling, out. No trace of him remains, and no heaven snatches (let us face these things) the failing electrical impulses of his brain. Scoff ye who will! Dr. Alkahest thought, I’m a pitiful, miserable crippled old man without a friend in the world except my cleaning woman–who, God knows, hates my ass. Who scorns me and worse. Who ignores me! Now happiness is planted–behold!–within my reach! And, the very same instant, it’s kicked out of sight like football! Laugh! Laugh on, ye stony distancers! Someday you too will be ridiculous and full of woe! HAlf my certain inalienable rights were shot away when I was nine years old. No wonder if I cling with all my might to wath little remains!

Which is worse, come right down to it?–a book that made you smile from time to time, though it spoke about certain things better left unmentioned, such as bedroom things, and suicide, or a book full of gloomy opinions and terrible forewarnings in memorable prose that was all hogwash anyway?

He was not so naive as to doubt that the trashiest fiction is all true, as the noblest is all illusion.

Sally said, “It’s no use making peace with tyranny. If the enemy won’t compromise, he gives you no choice; you simply have to take your stand, let come what may.”

“The situation in the developing countries gets more and more dangerous, so the plutocrats take on more and more power, suspending constitutional government and so forth, just to keep order and protect themselves, oppressing the poor people more and more and buying more and more form the outside world, until it seems there’s nothing that can break the–” She paused a moment, hunting for the word. “Spiral. But the plutocrats forget two crucial facts.”

“First, just as Walter Cronkite says, they forget the amazing power of ‘the Idea of Freedom.’ Once people have heard about freedom it’s like seventeen seventy-six all over again, they just won’t settle for anything less, they’d rather die. It’s an idea all the wealth and power in the world can’t stop–I can testify to that myself, believe you me!”

“And the other thing the plutocrats forget is the nature of an army. The plutocrats build up their powerful armies to protect their own interests, but an army’s their own worst enemy. In an army people learn discipline, and they learn to be willing to die for what’s right. They get educated, more or less–more than they would have back in their villages anyway. And that’s the least of it. That many young men brought together in one place makes a natural whatchamacallit for ideas–such ideas as freedom and people’s natural rights. And pretty soon, just as in Russia and Tanzania and Portugal, poof!, revolution!–the dawn of reality and truth!–and all started by the army. You tell James Page and all his kind to just give that some thought.”

“If people are going to go around discovering morals in science, they should try to get their science correct.”

“Spinoza speaks of how a hungry man or an angry man is not free to think clearly. Only the free man is in a position to be wise.”

“I grew up more-less middle class,” Mr. Goodman said, “and I had what you might call a pretty good job. Detective agency. I guarded things–old factories, museums. Then the kids came along. That changes things, I’ll tell you. I had what you’d call a decent salary, but you look at your kids, you see what they could do if they had a little opportunity . . . Lot of people live for the present, I guess. But that’s hard to do if you’re a thinking man. What is the present anyway? The minute it comes it’s already almost gone. You have to live for the future.”

Sally Abbott of course knew perfectly well that one could not ask too much of a novel, a weightless trifle even in comparison to what was happening right here in this house tonight; but her dismay refused to be driven away by reason. Did all turn out well with Pearl Wilson or didn’t it?

Santisilla recited dramatically:
When I consider Life, ‘tis all a Cheat;
Yet, Fool’d by Hope, men favour Deceit,
Trust on, and think Tomorrow will repay!
Tomorrow’s falser than the former Day . . .