Growing up, I was often an aloof
kid. I liked spending time with others, enjoyed my times with friends but none
of those moments or memories feel important now. When I was in 6th, my cousin
lent me a book, Enid blyton’s work. I don’t remember the
title but I remember it was one of those famous five books.
I had gone to visit them and she had school. The books
helped me pass time. I also read an R.L. Stine book. It
was the start of my long standing affair with books. It
helped me see the world in a way that I sometimes think not a lot of people do,
it made me a person with a lot of strong thoughts opinions and values. Too
soon, I was immersed in this world of books with very
rarely coming up for air. All holidays, vacations even schooldays were
incomplete without my books. I became a member of the
local library. Till now, I think that that’s the best thing that ever happened
to me. In my teens, I was blessed because books happened
to me. They had an impact on me like nothing else and they helped in a lot of
ways that I cannot even begin to understand let alone try to describe. My
passion for books made me start to write and my passion
for writing eventually made me think a lot than girls at that age would
normally do. It was part blessing part curse. They have helped me accept
people, world , situations and have healed me whenever I needed them to. Every book that I have read is special. I would never forget them, I
would never forget the characters, the stories, the hidden meanings and the
sleepless nights that would follow once I finish a book
as I would review each instance of the story over and
over in my head. This is one such review but the
difference is it is the first one that I am writing, the first one that I am
sharing.
It is about the book
“The longest Ride” by Nicholas Sparks. I started reading his books
a couple of years back I think. I read “THE LAST SONG” by him first. The book managed to make me feel happy and sad at the same time for
the book spoke about an irreplaceable loss and also about
the beginning of a very sweet journey.The longest ride manages to do something
similar to do that. Let me tell you what the story is about first. The story is
about the life of two couples(Luke and Sophia), one in early stages of love
trying to get a sense of what this new change in life means to them, and
another an old couple(Ira and Ruth) who fell in love with each other in the
innocent but turbulent times of the Second World war. Ira and Ruth are Jewish,
Ruth having left all her family behind in Germany fearing the approaching
holocaust. The timid Ira likes Ruth at first sight and slowly courts her in the
ever-so-cute “Let me buy you an ice cream” way. Their romance is one of those
classic Nicholas Spark romances where the shy couple turns their story into a
passionate love affair all along living with a touch of tragedy. The tragedy
here, being that due to an accident in the war, Ira could not father a child.
Nevertheless, they get married and enjoy a life that has the potential to be
the envy of everybody who ever wanted a fairy tale experience. They travel a
lot, buy a lot of happening and not-so-happening art works, Ruth does it
because she loves art and Ira does it to see her light up every time she looked
at the art works. Such was their love. The story begins with Ira thinking about
his dead wife (Ruth) and their love story as he himself calls it while nearing
the certainty of death.(He wrecks his car while trying to visit their love spot
for one last time). Meanwhile, there is a young man and woman (Luke and Sophia)
experiencing the feeling of falling in love with their whole life ahead of them
as once Ira and Ruth did. They are a contrast couple as they are from totally
different backgrounds. Sophia is a child brought up in a huge family that runs
a café studying in North Carolina with a ambition of working in a museum one
day. Luke is a total hunk, a typical cowboy and a professional bull rider with
a very broke ranch to run. They fall for each other fast and hard. Still, love
isn’t always enough to stay together. They struggle through each other’s
choices of careers , the distance it might entail and the extent of trust they
show on each other before they accept the fact that they are going to spend
their lives together.
Though the story shifts between
these pairs a lot, throughout the book I had a feeling
that these love stories are not that different from each other. Granted that
the times were different between the present times and 1940’s, but the basic
sense of the feeling remains the same, love. The book
filled me with hope that though times have changed, the pace of the world has
increased love as a feeling as an experience essentially remains the same. It
is still about comfort, respect, affection, priorities and also about the
absolute sense of right when you fall irrevocably for somebody in your life. On
a personal level, I actually liked that Ira’s character was of a simple man who
fell in love with a complex passionate woman(Ruth) and instead of resenting her
deep character; he embraced with all his life and loved his wife with the same
intensity all his life. His wife Ruth understands him in a way that every man
would want to be understood, challenges him and also as she should brings out
the best in him by simply trusting him to be. As for Luke and Sophia, they too
revel in their differences, fascinated by each other that lead them to
understand the other person like no one has and no one will. In the end, it is
Luke and Sophia who rescue Ira from the car wreck while Ira in turn rescues
Luke and Sophie from life’s hard choices in an absolutely Voila-type of climax.
(Read the book to know more!) All in all it is a sweet story, absolutely
impeccably written by Mr. Sparks which leaves you the feeling that though not
right now but eventually everything will be alright because that’s the order of
the universe
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