Two good characteristic examples of James Page in
October Light are right at the beginning of the novel, where author
John Gardner introduces the character and shows the reader what he is like. The first
example is narrated on page 2. James is so disgusted with his widowed sister's TV set
and the "endless, simpering dramas they put on, now indecent, now violent," that he
loads his shotgun and from behind her--without any warning--shots the TV: "he'd blown
that TV screen to h***, right back where it come from."
The
affect of his action was definitive: There was no more TV in his home; there was very
nearly no more widowed sister. She had understandably bolted with fright right straight
out of her chair, "fainted dead away," and turned a terrible blue all over. James
managed to revive her after ministering to her with ice-water for an
hour.
The second characteristic example of James Page is
narrated soon afterward on page 3. His sister was scolding him about the equal rights of
men and women as decreed in "the Equal Rights Amendment." James is said to have been
"shocked and flabbergasted" by all that she said, which he considered pure
"foolishness." He made his case for that foolishness by saying to
her:
"Why, a
woman ain't even completely human ....Look how weak the are! Look how they cry like
little children!"
James was
absolutely serious about what he'd said, "he'd never been more serious in his life," and
his sister was as shocked and flabbergasted by his opinion as he'd been by her
lecture--and she could lecture! The author uses this incident to introduce the notion
that James Page might be able to change and redeem his life--even though he is
seventy-three--when the narrator describes James' fleeting self-doubt in his reaction to
his sister's shock and astonishment. The third-person narrator
says:
She's
seemed as astonished by it all as he was, so astonished to discover what he thought that
he almost came to doubt it.
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