The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant

The narrator, a version of the author as a young man, is a 14-year-old boy whose summer of swimming and fishing turns into an experience with unrequited desire, teaching him a lesson about the limitations of a shallow infatuation that focuses on a woman’s appearance. The narrator’s misadventure with Sheila Mant stands in for the intensely felt attachments and foolishly youthful mistakes that most people make during their teens. Until the summer described in the story, the narrator has thought of himself as a thoughtful and sensitive young man whose understanding is older than his years. However, by looking back on himself from a time in adulthood, the narrator reveals his actual naiveté and self-absorption, which rival those of the aloof Sheila.

Sheila Mant—whose name descends, through the Gaelic and Latin languages, from the ancient Roman name for “heavenly”—is the unattainable girl next door. Her loveliness is made all the more achingly beautiful by its disdainful remoteness. For the narrator, she’s the epitome of his romantic yearnings; for the reader, she’s clearly a pretty, somewhat spoiled teenager who feels no need to cater to the delusions of the infatuated narrator when the object of her affection is a college student.