Mervyn realizing that no one can ever save him from himself comes far too late, as he realizes drunkenly that his life is not ever going to get better. He dies, but that's hardly the worst part. Worse still is that he never experienced the love and community that would have brought him healing. His anger and privacy led him to abuse his family when he was young, and in his old age, certain character traits remain broken, but Ondaatje cannot help but mourn his father, both for the damaged life and for the absolute tragedy of human death.
This portrait of life is incomplete if the reader only sees the point of view of the myopic alcoholic who can't even see the moon hanging in the sky. He has a valid point of view, but then again, so do his wife and children. It is precisely this empathetic switch that might have helped him to participate in community well, but because his point of view only pertains to his own suffering, he feels alone throughout all his life.
The family loved him the whole time. The portrait is not of a riddled man dying alone. The portrait is of a community, a loving family, rallying to help someone who decided not to be helped. The idea the reader takes away is up to the reader, but a wise student might notice that alcohol drove Mervyn's loneliness to its absolute pinnacle. That is not fiction, nor memoir; it is factual that serious alcoholism tends to make people very lonely and chronically afflicted by hopelessness. Then again, the story is not about alcoholism; is about the love that really existed, though Mervyn did not see it or believe it.
