Lucy Barton the narrator of this story tells us about the nine weeks she spent in hospital several years ago when her two daughters were young.Her mother,who she has been estranged from for many years ,comes to see her.They talk about trivial things,cousins,people they knew and of marriages that didnt work out and this gossip seems to reconnect them.But scratch the surface and there's a troubled family and Lucy's desire to escape it all,her life now,her marriage,her love for her two daughters and her desire to become a writer.
My Views:
Lucy Barton is a brilliant narrator and she tells us her story without telling us her story.The mother-daughter conversations about other people and gossip about their marriages,seem to reconnect them but what is most painful are the things left unsaid.Lucy carries the burden of acute poverty and abuse. To survive a past like that and come out unscathed is extraordinary.This story is about coming to terms with who you are.How the past defines us and makes us what we are.How we are just the sum total of the people we meet.She speaks about the people she met in her life,the impact they had on her and how grateful she was for them.She knew exactly when people were judgemental about her but she chose to see the kindness in strangers.That is a quality very few people possess.
It is difficult to make peace with one's past sometimes.It is too painful to go back and relive it.Lucy Barton's story is about all that and more.She knows exactly what defined her.She knows exactly who she is.She knows how similar she is to her mother in some ways.She doesnt begrudge her mother for anything.I could gauge that the mother probably had a past of her own which she could never recover from and that made her the kind of woman she was.Unable to love a daughter who craves for affection.However Lucy doesnt want the same for her children,she loves them and cares deeply about them.She aspires to be a writer and I loved the bit she wrote about her favourite author.You learn so much from this book.
I thought Lucy Barton was a very strong woman.At no point does she evoke pity.On the contrary you look up to her in awe.She is flawed but she is very insightful and I liked her for that.I will hopefully be reading her story again at some point in my life.
Do we really get time to introspect and look within us,skim through our past and remember the people or incidents which in some way contributed to who we are today.If I think about it,I feel Im made from all the people I've encountered and all the things I've experienced.However I often wonder if the way our life turns out boils down to one particular moment.Is it one definable moment which ultimately sets the wheels in motion?Would our lives have taken a different course if we had behaved differently back then?Would we never meet the people we met had it not been for that one choice.Conversations which impacted me were sometimes with people I least expected to connect with.At the end of it all,those conversations are what I remember most.Those conversations are responsible for the kind of person I am today.All these fleeting thoughts.All because of this book.
This is a book to be savoured.It will definitely provoke you to think back on your life and trust me sometimes its good to just look back and see how far you have come.
I rate it a 4 out of 5.
