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The Joneses
Alan Mannering is an older boy, a Pom, who bullies the narrator of “Aquifer” throughout his childhood, though it’s never clear why. In fact, the two of them hardly speak, as Alan persecutes the narrator in silence. Alan dies by drowning in the swamp after stealing the narrator’s raft; the narrator is the only witness and does not tell anyone. While people presume that Alan drowned, his remains are not recovered until the year’s later, in the story’s present day, when a historic drought dries out the swamp and reveals his bones.
Alan Mannering Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Alan Mannering or refer to Alan Mannering. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Aquifer Quotes
From one summer to the next water restrictions grew more drastic and people in our neighborhood began to sink bores to get water. The Englishman next door was the first and then everyone drilled and I thought of Alan Mannering raining silently down upon the lawns of our street. I thought of him in lettuce and tomatoes, on our roses. Like blood and bone. I considered him bearing mosquito larvae – even being in mosquito larvae.
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I was right to doubt the 1194 man on the telephone. Time doesn’t click on and on at the stroke. It comes and goes in waves and folds like water; it flutters and sifts like dust, rises, billows, falls back on itself. When a wave breaks, the water is not moving. The swell has travelled great distances but only the energy is moving, not the water. Perhaps time moves through us and not us through it. Seeing the Joneses out on the street, the only people I recognized from the old days, just confirmed what I’ve thought since Alan Mannering circled me as his own, pointed me out with his jagged paling and left, that the past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.
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Alan Mannering Character Timeline in The Turning
The timeline below shows where the character Alan Mannering appears in The Turning. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Aquifer
...to school, too, with other neighborhood kids, including Bruno the Yugo, a Serbian boy, and Alan Mannering , a Pom who bullies him ceaselessly. He also spends time with the Box children,...
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...memory, one day, the narrator of “Aquifer” has dozed off, and wakes up to find Alan Mannering standing over him. Alan then urinates over him—in a perfect circle around him, not on...
(full context)
The narrator of “Aquifer” says nothing, and Alan Mannering ’s body is never found. Life goes on; the narrator’s family takes a trip across...
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...fifth year of a historic drought, drying out the swamp and revealing its contents, including Alan Mannering ’s bones. The narrator of “Aquifier” looks at the dried-out swamp, and then at his...
(full context)
