love... what is it?
la dame aux camelias... i swear, i've never known how much emotional power a book can have. when i didn't have the book and attended my tutorials, i dismissed the notion that no matter what was said, i'd never need to use any of the kleenexes mentioned to review the book. no way could one weave a story so gripping and tragic... until i finally finished the book today on the bus...
i had heard what was said and discussed in my tutes... little did i know that the discussions had left out gaping chunks in the story that could only be grasped upon fully digesting the novel. my tutor was very right in saying the story was a structural masterpiece. the book starts at the end of the whole story that leads to the retelling of the whole saga. and just when the reader thinks all is solved and everything has been wrapped up, the bombshell is dropped in the end. everything comes to realisation, and with such power and raw emotion that even the most hard of heart would defnitely be moved...
la dame aux camelias... or the lady of the camellias in english... does make me sit up and think though... is love so powerful that we'd be able to transcend our deepest wants and needs, sacrificing our dreams and ideals that we'd subject ourselves to the most torturous devices, to the point of death? while alexandre dumas fils(the son of the author of the count of monte cristo among other famous novels) writes this tale parallel to his own love affair with a celebrated parisian courtesan of his time... it just seems so... surreal. would you ever give your life up... and have to suffer immense pain and give up the person you love... so that someone close to that person might be happy? love... what exactly is it? what drives us to love? what would we do for love? is there anything love cannot make up for?... there just seems something so christ-like in the nature of maguerite gautier's death in this book... it's a love that we mortals probably could never attain... fine, comparing to her to christ might be a little off since she was a creature of sin and avarice, but her character was so pure... even her sins are cast in a noble light... does love heal all wounds? alleviate all transgressions? the search for that elusive answer goes on.
i had heard what was said and discussed in my tutes... little did i know that the discussions had left out gaping chunks in the story that could only be grasped upon fully digesting the novel. my tutor was very right in saying the story was a structural masterpiece. the book starts at the end of the whole story that leads to the retelling of the whole saga. and just when the reader thinks all is solved and everything has been wrapped up, the bombshell is dropped in the end. everything comes to realisation, and with such power and raw emotion that even the most hard of heart would defnitely be moved...
la dame aux camelias... or the lady of the camellias in english... does make me sit up and think though... is love so powerful that we'd be able to transcend our deepest wants and needs, sacrificing our dreams and ideals that we'd subject ourselves to the most torturous devices, to the point of death? while alexandre dumas fils(the son of the author of the count of monte cristo among other famous novels) writes this tale parallel to his own love affair with a celebrated parisian courtesan of his time... it just seems so... surreal. would you ever give your life up... and have to suffer immense pain and give up the person you love... so that someone close to that person might be happy? love... what exactly is it? what drives us to love? what would we do for love? is there anything love cannot make up for?... there just seems something so christ-like in the nature of maguerite gautier's death in this book... it's a love that we mortals probably could never attain... fine, comparing to her to christ might be a little off since she was a creature of sin and avarice, but her character was so pure... even her sins are cast in a noble light... does love heal all wounds? alleviate all transgressions? the search for that elusive answer goes on.
greg last trudged in on 9/17/2005 04:07:00 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home