Was it Jack? I didn’t take the person in; I was more concerned with the strangeness of the walk, my own strangeness, and the absurdity of my inquiry.
The novel is told from the perspective of the author himself, his time from coming to England, his time on the estate that the dominant part of the novel takes place in and his reflections on nature, life, grief and decay. The first chapter is concerned with the farmworker Jack and his eccentrically lush garden. The author reveals his own thoughts and insecurities about being a stranger in England, self-consciousness and self-doubt that comes with it.
Now, in the place that for all those years had been the “elsewhere”, no further dream was possible.
The author reflects upon his desire and work he put into becoming a writer. He reflects upon being a young boy in Trinidad and dreaming of England as a place where his dream might become reality, dreaming of it as the place he read about in books. When his wish became finally fulfilled, he realized the truth and beauty and the irony of dreaming.
After the long morbid withdrawal, the near death of the soul, he had revived. But what had also revived was the idea of who he was.
The chapter called “Ivy” is predominantly concerned with the author’s perspective on his landlord. He saw him a few times, and each encounter left a deep impression, different from the previous one, on him. He notes that the landlord kept mostly to himself and the house, but the instant he regained health and confidence, to which Pitton is mostly responsible for, he regained the pompousness of wealth-shown in his making fun and undermining Pitton.
