The Lake House

“It didn’t seem right, somehow, that a person’s life should be derailed twice by one mistake.” 

It has already been revealed that Sadie is facing more than one problem. But beyond that, this sentence links the fates of multiple characters and alludes to the fact that Sadie is most likely not the only one who will have to pay more than once for a past mistake. As the reader later learns, this is exactly the case for the novel’s three major female characters.

“She wasn’t talking about magic. She was talking about an essential truth. Love as a fait accompli, a matter of fact, rather than a mutually beneficial arrangement between two suitable parties.” 

In this quote, Alice describes the plot of her proposed novel to Ben. In her manuscript, love is why the woman helps the man kidnap the young boy. Ironically enough, though it doesn’t play out like Alice’s story, love is what motivates Ben and Eleanor to place Theo in another’s care. Rather than bring them closer together, this act divides them forever.

“That, there, was the crux of it. This house might easily have been forgotten but for the story attached to it, the infamy of that little boy’s disappearance. Over time the infamy had gained an echo and eventually it had ripened into folklore. The fairy story of a little boy lost and a house cast into an eternal sleep, holding its breath as the garden continued to tumble and grow around it.” 

The theme of fairy tales weaves in and out of the novel, and this excerpt attempts to link multiple times and places together, placing the grounds of Loeanneth in a sort of cross-dimensional zone between the past and the present, and between fairy tale and reality.

“‘Love is patient, love is kind?’ ‘Love keeps no record of wrongs.’” 

These are the prophetic words that Eleanor speaks to Deborah on her wedding day, taken from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. As the reader discovers, these words are more revelations of Eleanor’s sentiments than anything else, and they are apropos for multiple events in Eleanor’s life: Eleanor and Anthony’s relationship, Eleanor and Ben’s relationship, and the relationship between her and Theo as well. They can even be made to fit Deborah and Alice and Bertie later on when they discover the truth about Theo’s disappearance.

“Well, no shame in that. Sometimes ‘feelings’ aren’t as airy-fairy as they seem. Sometimes they’re just the product of observations we haven’t realized we’ve been making.” 

A minor motif in the novel is learning to trust your gut and to not establish opinions solely on the evidence at hand. This not only keeps Sadie on the Maggie Bailey case, leading to the truth that Maggie’s ex-husband murdered her, but it also keeps Sadie searching to uncover the truth about Theo’s disappearance, setting aside theories that don’t feel right to her.

“It was true what people said, that when one became old (and how sneakily that happened, how sly time was), memories of the long-ago past, repressed for decades, were suddenly bright and clear.” 

Moments in Alice’s past, things she tried hard to forget, could never be forgotten. As the past continues to catch up to her, and as she confronts her eldest sister about what she believes she knows about the night Theo went missing, Alice’s suppressed memories all resurface. This quote also reinforces the idea that memories are never forgotten, nor is anything that happened in the past. One cannot turn a blind eye and pretend things didn’t happen.

“‘People aren’t like that, though, are they, all bad or all good?’ ‘He’s not a person, he’s a character. They’re different things.’ ‘Well’—Ben shrugged lightly—‘you’re the writer.’” 

There are many metafictional elements in the novel, and this conversation between Ben and Alice forces the reader to consider the very nature of the characters themselves. For example, it is ironic that Alice shrugs off Ben’s criticism of one of her character’s motives as being too one-dimensional when she herself is a character in a book. This causes one to ponder whether any of the protagonists (Ben, Alice, Eleanor, Sadie, etc.) are flat personas who lack characteristics of “true” human beings.

“The broad brushstrokes, the lack of subtlety, the idea that morality is unambiguous. It’s not the real world, is it? It’s simplistic. Like something from a children’s book, a fairy tale.” 

This quote is also metafictional, but it encompasses the entire plot rather than just a handful of characters. Fairy tales, and children’s literature in general, are repeatedly mentioned in the novel. Due to the metafictional nature of the passage and the novel, one wonders how the story is set up. Is it a novel in the low-mimetic tradition, one that attempts to mimic reality, or is it more high-mimetic, attempting to resemble a fairy tale more than reality?

“The criminal must be mentioned early in the story; the reader shouldn’t be privy to his thoughts; and last but not least, the detective should have a stupid friend, a Watson, who is slightly, but no more than slightly, less intelligent than the average reader.” 

Young Alice quotes the “rules” (established by Ronald Knox) of the detective novel to Ben. The reader wonders how many rules Mrs. Kate Morton obeyed in constructing her own “detective” story, whether the criminal has already been mentioned, and who the “stupid friend” might be.

“Eleanor might have retained her childhood fluency in the fairy-tale language of fate and superstitions, but her romantic nature wasn’t all love affairs and happily-ever-afters; it was a way of looking at the world, an entire moral system all of her own. She possessed an innate sense of justice, a complex system of checks and balances that determined the measure of something she called ‘rightness.’”

As the theories about Theo’s disappearance increase in detail and truths are slowly uncovered, the concept of justice and injustice emerges as a thematic element. Eleanor (arguably the main character) presents a unique prism through which the reader can view justice, as she has a sense of right and wrong all her own, one determined by “checks and balances” and a sense of “rightness.”

“He smiled softly. ‘You must know there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here, with you, but who would I be if I didn’t go? How could I love with myself if I didn’t help? How would you look at me if I didn’t do my bit? If a man cannot be useful to his country, he is better dead.’” 

In this quote, Anthony succinctly explains not only why he desires to serve his country, but why serving, fighting, and dying is seen as a social obligation that, if not fulfilled, could result in social ostracization. This excerpt is especially poignant because Morton quoted the words of an actual World War I-era British soldier.

“Sadie looked at Nancy, sitting on the other side of the sofa, her face wretched with the effort of inventing endless possibilities for what might have happened to Maggie. It seemed the human brain had an unlimited creative ability when it desired something enough.” 

Sadie notices an irony that runs throughout the novel. As soon as a new theory is introduced as to what happened to Theo, the characters’ memories and beliefs change to correspond with the new theory. An example of this can be found on pages 412-13, when Clive suddenly remembers the first stage of the original interviews and how something back then corresponds with the new theory that Anthony killed Theo.

“In his absence, the room was suddenly thick again with stubborn memories. Alice sighed. All families were a composite of stories, and yet her own, it seemed, comprised more layers of tellings and retellings than most.” 

A major motif in the novel is the strength and power of memory and the past, and especially the past’s ability to catch up to the present. In this passage, Alice is increasingly aware that her past, and the mysterious event her family all struggled to bury and forget, is catching up with her.

“People can be unreliable, can’t they? Even the most conscientious witness, eager to please and with nothing to gain, is liable to make mistakes, littering their testimony with small misrecollections, assumptions, and opinions rather than facts.” 

This excerpt questions the reliability of witnesses. Not only does it serve as a general reminder to be skeptical of what a human witnesses and understands, but it also suggests that much of what has already been stated by various characters is misleading.

“Diggory was not a natural fit in CID [Criminal Investigation Department]. A very driven man, but one who’d suffered dreadful privations in his personal life. He lost his wife and young child, you see, losses that gave him a tenacity that was not always appreciated by his peers, to say nothing of his superiors. Losing a child does tend to create a gnawing absence in a person, I’ve observed.” 

This excerpt is another example of metafiction, one that draws parallels between Diggory Brent and Sadie Sparrow. Alice is a detective-fiction novelist in a detective-fictional story; her main protagonist shares many characteristics with Sadie, who is also a character in a detective fiction. Diggory lost a child (death). Similarly, Sadie “gave up” her child for adoption (another type of loss). Diggory didn’t fit in with the stereotypical police and neither does Sadie. Diggory became a private investigator. At the end of the novel, Sadie becomes a private investigator.

“Mother. No one was particularly fond of her. Even Eleanor winced sometimes at the woman’s incessant pedantry. She wasn’t a bit of fun and could always be counted on to temper a boisterous occasion with a sermon on responsibility or safety. And yet, she was essential. Eleanor would have collapsed under the heartbreaking strain of Anthony’s condition, but Mother was always equal to the task.” 

Shakespeare famously wrote that the world is a stage and the men and women merely actors. This aphorism is adeptly personified in the Eleanor character, who plays the role of Mother, an overbearing, stiff, domineering, killjoy hausfrau. She does so out of necessity, to protect Anthony’s secret struggle with shell shock and allow him to remain a heroic and idolized father figure. Alice slowly realizes this truth toward the novel’s end.

“But of course there is always a risk when the heart allows a breach, no matter how small or harmless sit might seem.” 

The nature of love is a big theme in the novel, and this excerpt introduces the idea of polyamory, the practice of having more than one lover. It also suggests that love can have a dark side, warning readers of coming events.

“Love keeps no records of wrongs.” 

In pondering the true nature of love, the novel draws answers from the bible, specifically from Corinthians, which is introduced in Chapter 12. When Eleanor expounds on the Corinthians verses in the above quote, the reader wonders what exactly she is referring to. Perhaps she is speaking of Anthony, who continued to love and care for her despite her affair. Perhaps she’s referencing her enduring love for him despite his issues. Or perhaps she’s pleading for forgiveness for stealing Theo away. These are only a few possibilities. The quote applies to many situations in the novel.

“He’d grown up in the Far East, his father an archaeologist and his mother an avid traveler; they’d encouraged him to make his own life and not to be bound by society’s expectations of him. Sentiments Eleanor could almost remember having felt herself.” 

Benjamin Munro is Eleanor’s antithesis. He embodies characteristics inherent in her that she has to suppress in order to be Mother and maintain familial tranquility. Benjamin also has freedom of movement and the unfettered life that Eleanor wished for herself when she was younger, and which she longs for when faced with the cares and problems at home. Add in Ben’s rugged good looks and it’s easy for the reader to empathize with Eleanor for falling in love with him.

“The world was a place of balance and natural justice; there was always a price to pay, and it was too late now to shut the door.” 

Here the reader is provided with more insight about Eleanor’s idea of justice and rightness. Eleanor is on the cusp of enacting her plan to place Theo in the care of others. As far as she is concerned, parting with Theo (and consequently with Ben, her lover) is part of some cosmic balancing act, the price she has to pay for having an extramarital affair and birthing a child from that affair. This perspective of events allows Eleanor to remain to stoic afterward, which in turn helps her keep the secret hidden for the rest of her life.

“That’s a question you only ask because you’re not a letter writer yourself, DC Sparrow. If you were, you’d know that a writer never destroys her work. Even if she fears the power of its contents to implicate her.” 

Here Alice refers to the understanding she shares with Eleanor and the importance of record keeping, and explains why she could never destroy the novel she wrote so many years ago. But the implications of this quote, with its metafictional layers, allow the reader to ponder its meaning beyond the confines of the novel.

“Yes, I, it’s just such a—well, no, it’s not a coincidence at all, people often use that word incorrectly, don’t they? They mean something is a remarkable concurrence of events but they forget, as I did, that there’s a causal link. Not a coincidence at all, just a surprise, a huge surprise.” 

Bertie has just seen an old photograph of Eleanor Edevane and recognized her as the woman who used to come by his family shop and talk to him when he was a boy. The above quote is used purely to foreshadow the novel’s conclusion. It creates anticipation and a sense of excitement about discovering the “big surprise.” It is also another metafictional element telling the reader that the novel’s ending is not so much a “surprise” as it as the resolution of the story’s events.

“Eleanor looked where the boy was pointing. A sepia photograph of an overgrown garden gate had been taped to the side of the cash register. White cursive writing swirled across the bottom right corner, wishing the recipient Magic Memories. ‘Do you believe in magic?’ he asked earnestly. ‘I think so.’ ‘Me too.’” 

The fairy-tale circle is nearly complete with this ironic twist in Theo/Bertie’s storyline. The ironic element is that Theo (now Bertie) had a picture of the very door through which he was absconded, and thus a clue to the question of how he disappeared. But, of course, he is fully unaware of the postcard’s significance of the postcard. Moreover, the use of the word “magic” hearkens back to Mr. Llewellyn’s novel, Eleanor’s Magic Doorway, and the reader is now fully aware that the novel within the novel is an allegory for the novel (i.e., The Lake House).