鄉愁小館的晚餐

This is one of the books which make you experience joy and pain not only on behalf of the characters, but also in relation to your own life, for you can't help having your mind wander every now and then to your own family; either to be thankful for what you have, or feel upset on account of something you have lost. The book is mainly a big vicious circle of abandonment. Many would say this had started with Beck's desertion of his family, but in truth the issue began a long time earlier when Pearl became an orphan. The painful emotion of losing a parent often fills the infant with a feeling of abandonment, and a dread of a renewal of such a prospect. This explains young Pearl's refusal to take her uncle's money and go to college. She simply could not pluck herself out of that atmosphere in which she had grown up for fear of losing something new, and facing the world as a newly abandoned individual. This imperceptible complex had made Pearl a little bit too intense in all her emotions. Her diary, which Ezra did read long years afterwards, illustrates how she had valued mere fleeting acquaintances, and how she clung to each and every flirtation as the passion of her life. Such was her response towards Beck, whose clandestine and perverse desire to please women had entangled him with this young woman a little more everyday until the pair was married. The union was a blessing to neither party, but certainly the fault of both. Beck confesses his own share in the affair at the end of the book, and explains to his elder son his inability to settle down in the midst of a traditional family. When Beck had left his wife and children, Pearl gradually turned into an abusive and violent mother. Her behavioral pattern as well as Beck's desertion doubtlessly produced a traumatic experience in the minds of their three children; but while Cody and Jenny had succumbed under its weight, Ezra was a proof that in spite of Man's inability to control other people's acts in regard to his person, he has full control of how to react to such stimulus. Ezra does not only cut a finer figure in comparison with his siblings, but is even a better person than his own parents. Pearl could have reacted to her husband's desertion in a different manner, but her weakness induced her to inflict pain whenever she felt it. Ezra on the other hand, delicate as he was, had channeled all the pain of his childhood into love that he gave back generously not only to his family, but to his friends, coworkers, and customers as well.What you focus on is mainly what you feel. If you focus on the things that are lacking from your life, you are most likely not going to notice the blessings surrounding you. This is accurate in regard to the Tulls. Although Beck had been wrong in leaving his family behind, his words upon return were not amiss, contrarily to Cody's assertion. The latter had opposed his father's suggestion that they formed a big and happy family. The truth of the matter is, apart from Ezra, the other siblings had only focused on their early misfortune, thus making their lives and adulthood miserable. Ezra, on the other hand, had focused on the bright side of his existence, leaving that traumatic experience behind, and even using it to become a better person than the adults in his life.