hello world. saturday hasn't been treating me well so far re: failure to pass a subject (yes i have already precluded the impossible notion of getting a three in es 1). mother has told me that i should fight until the end, saying that if this is a war, an amputated soldier must not lose the will to fight until his last breath. she further voiced out her belief in miracles and that there are two kinds of people in the world: the optimist and the pessimist. it is all in the mind, she said.
but today i must say, i decided to be a realist.
after reading her fearful symmetry i felt a great tug within me to give another chance for audrey niffeneger to prove her acclaimed prowess in fiction writing. after all the book isn't all that bad. the aesthetic value of niffeneger's words; the colors, or the lack thereof, of the characters especially that of Elspeth; and of course, the grandiosity and grayness of the setting (london still holds a very special place in my heart apart from singapore and manila), have slowly built my diminishing confidence in her. all of these have also instilled in me an imagery that is both haunting and ominous. and of course, i like it most especially.
the time traveler's wife was an easy read. every time i turn a page of the book there is, in me, a sense of feeling that i could have written this. the scenes and the emotions of the characters are elements in the surroundings of my day-to-day life. some precipitated from the deepest recesses of the subconscious and some are visibly puttering around as i consciously find my way to the finality of the day. also, i've realized that i am beginning to accept the consequences and ramifications of proving that i am not time's slave. because i am, we all are, and there's no way out for us in here.
what do i like best about the book, that is the question that my mind posed in me after reading the entirety of it (even though i just skimmed the last part). the wateriness of the plot has left me floating halfway, in the midst of avowal and apathy. i read some parts of it again one day, and i saw the clarity of transcendent love. love that conquers the unconquerable, that does wait, and has transgressed its own mortality in the physical world. i said to myself, that is how i like to see the meaning of love.
also, i feel a great attraction to how clare was portrayed: her art, the way she speaks or watches her face in the mirror, her reddish-brown hair accentuating the translucency of her skin. how simple each attribute seems but when magnified, piles up to reveal that these are the sources of her strength, of her capability to wait for an eternity for a person who leaves as easily as the season changes from summer to winter.
Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?
in the end, feel like this was a good read but that is what it all was, at least for me. i did enjoy the interdependency of time and love yet this has been a commonplace subject that everyone almost has pried on. this time, niffeneger presented it in such a way that the elements are purely strewn along the roads of a magical realistic world. and we did believe in this world she painted across our realistic minds. in contemplation don't you think that only love can do such a trick?
