An Interlude is a short excerpt from the novel October Light by John Gardner. The complete book is a literary narrative about an elderly pair of siblings, Sally and James, that must live together, although they are always in conflict (October Light). Two teens, the nephew of Sally’s friend Estelle, and the granddaughter of Dr. Phelps, have been told to leave the adults alone and practice music together in a side bedroom during what seems to be a party. As we learn in the passage, they both attend the same school and play together in the orchestra, Terence playing the french horn and Margie the flute.

The passage began by describing the two teens and their surroundings. Gardner used extensive description to show his reader a contrast between the old and the new, a recurring theme within the book as a whole. Although they were young, Margie’s “face was serious,” and Terence had “nothing to recommend him, not even a sense of humor.”  They were both shy, Terence being “as shy a boy as ever lived, as shy as the girl.” In this old man’s room was a “sagging, old fashioned bed.” Margie, the author says, wore an expensive and drab dress, and fashionably clunky shoes, perhaps purchased by her mother. Terence was well-groomed “with the greatest care,” with a meticulously tucked-in shirt, a belt, and simple black trousers, as if taught to dress well by his father. However, with “silver-blonde hair falling straight past her shoulders,” and “brown hair that curled below his ears,” the audience can see that these two individuals were still children. They were dressed like older people, seeming to not fit into their environment well. This dissonance, along with the ominous dreariness within the scene, created a tension in the room starting in the first paragraph.

Gardner went on to tell his audience that Terence had “had for some time a great, heart-slaughtering crush” on Margie, which Margie knew about, yet “seemed to her a miracle,” implying that she returned those feelings. This distressing crush made Terence feel like “the only Martian in the world,” which was potent, seeing as how neither of them fit into their outdated surroundings, either. It was an uncomfortable place for both of them to be: alone with their crush, in an old man’s room, and wearing clothes chosen for them by someone else. As Lennis Polnac commented in his analysis of this passage, “their shyness creates some tension since they are thrown together in a bedroom,” and “since neither one of them has ever expressed the feelings they have for the other, the internal conflict builds” (44).

Margie and Terrence stood at the window, watching a storm outside. The author depicts this storm with an intimidating image of “a silver-toothed wolf pack moving against the moon, quickly consuming it.” This could be a symbolic picture of the teens’ innocence, being consumed by the adult world just outside of the protection of the house. When the moon was consumed, it threw “the hickory tree, the barn, and the barnyard into darkness,” just like a loss of innocence would. In addition, the author created a quick reference to the possibility of the pair doing something less innocent by providing a door to the outside where, he says, “they might go out that door unmissed,” by the adults in the next room. Again, this is a display of the outside world being a more mature environment. This thought panicked Terence, however, meaning they are still children and not ready to grow up.

They watched as a fertilizer bag blew across the yard. The bag startled Margie, and she accidentally touched Terence’s hand. This bag, another element from the outside world, seems to incite them into deepening their relationship and adding to the atmosphere of the room. The bag was tossed and abused in the wind, like their emotions were tossed on waves of youthful hormones, and were caught up in the storm of an adult world. It symbolized the awkward transition from childhood to adulthood. The feelings they had toward one another didn’t fit in the world of a sheltered child under the watchful eye of their parents, but they were not yet ready for the full-blown storm outside.

As Gardner continued to narrate what was going on in their minds, he built up an emotional connection between them. As they stood close together at the window, touching hands, “His mind raced almost as fast as his heart,” “he smelled her hair,” “her heart thudded and her brain tingled,” “she half believed she might faint,” and, in reference to their playing answering parts in the orchestra together, “she blushed.” Gardner brought this atmosphere of emotions to a climax, saying that, “when the grown-ups had suggested that the two of them might play duets together, and had sent them here,” it was a kind of confirmation of this “miracle.” As soon as the tension was built, it was suddenly deflated as Gardner goes back to observing the storm. Through the window, “another cloud, larger than those before it, was swallowing the moon,” as if saying that these feelings might swallow them, if they were not mature enough to handle them. The noise of the wind, representing a more adult version of their relationship, “half frightened, half thrilled,” Margie, again saying that she was straddling the line between child and adult.

At this point, the fertilizer bag gets “snagged in a fence, gray as a bone, suddenly inert.” The fence symbolizes the boundaries of the presence of adults, putting a stop to the budding relationship. This happens just before an adult enters the room, disrupting the heavy atmosphere. Although there is the possibility for a deeper, more adult connection, the older people being in the house prevents the teens from going any further.

The adult offers them baked apples. “You two make beautiful music together,” she says, which may be a form of permissiveness. The apples, in this instance, might represent the safety net that is offered by the adults surrounding them. The fact that the adult did not pick up on the tense atmosphere may mean that the grown-ups either underestimate the teens, or they support them in their transitory period.

Then, “something thudded hard against the house […] but no window broke […] and so they laughed, embarrassed by their momentary fear.” The tension that had been building, and the climax of an adult checking in on them, had broken. These two serious teens, with their awkward crush and their ill-fitting environment, finally relaxed a bit. They ate the apples, sitting on the bed together, listening to the wind and taking comfort in the bliss of innocence. Instead of going out the back door, instead of going deeper into the realm of the adult “night [that] howled and thudded like an orchestra gone wrong, dissonant and senseless, dangerous,” they reverted back to the child side of the line. At the end, “Margie was happy, for once in her life utterly without fear, except of him.”

Works Cited

• “October Light.” Goodreads. Goodreads, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32534.October_Light>.
• Polnac, Lennis. Purpose, Pattern, and Process. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Pub., 2008. 41-44. Print.