Ok, am here, after battling those
horrible deadlines and boy am I glad!! Hee Hee!!
Okay about my reading experience of the book -
I found myself enjoying the narrative style as being a first person, but used
for the different characters as well, which I've never read before.
And in a bizarre way , I found myself connecting to one of the characters more
strongly ... although I appreciated knowing the thought process of the other
characters; For me Brian Fitzgerald was the one character, I found myself connecting
and seeing his point of view more clearly, through this style of narration. I suppose this does happen or may be
it is intended too, I am not too sure.
I enjoyed the connect and the way we were able to see both sides of it,
between Campbell and Anna and of course between Anna and her dad.
Somehow, Brian's view and stand on matters and his stand on matters concerned
with all of the members of his family rather than just Kate is what made me appreciate it all the more.
Strangely, Brian's recounts evoked empathy , rather than Sara's ,because after the first , it just was the same, it was always jus one kid - Kate... we never got to know what she thought of others or their situation.
Sara's point of view just didn't deviate from Kate at all, and rightly so, and
somehow , although as a mother she was concerned about all her kids, it does
leave the reader wanting to know more about what did she think about the rest and makes the reader wonder , did she think of
anyone else except Kate at all, if not all the time, but atleast at some point
like Brian did?
I liked the idea of no narration from Kate , until the fag end , for it would
somehow , create a bias a terrible
sympathy for the girl...blinding the situation of her family to the reader or
for me at least! When a patient narrates, there is inevitably his/her pain and
agony kind of shadowing the emotions and the predicament of their immediate
family.
And at the risk of sounding brutal
and cruel, it made me wonder at the end of it all, that was Sara right in
keeping Kate alive to suffer all her life and bring a baby into this world
another baby, who would also undergo the
painful procedures only to watch her sister buy a few more moments but
continue to suffer all the same ? Am I asking that Sara and Brian ought to have
let go of it ? maybe I do for the simple reason, that I don't think Kate
deserved to suffer , in such horrible contrast to live the torture filled
moments of her life every minute, every day!
In that sense, I connected with Brian, when he came to terms with the fact that , it must have been time for Kate and he spends those moments alone re-collecting all those moments...and more than anything else, I thought, thank god, he is attempting to come to terms with the inevitable, something they possibly ought to have long back
Finally , I just wondered for a long time after finishing the book as much as
I did while reading it - they are trying
to keep her alive, only to make her suffer more ? isn't that torture then for
Kate and Anna joins her too , which is - well for the lack of a better word -
unfair!
What I said may make me sound possible cruel and rutheless, but well... I guess, I rather prefer a terminally ill patient , dead rather than live a torturous life...possibly my incapability to imagine or watch some in pain, knowing it would end in death eventually ... I just wish it came sooner and took them away than making them suffer so and anyone who prays otherwise is possibly being selfish... I don't know I possibly am rambling, but to crave for a terminally ill patient to survive with pain, just coz you want them to and not because they want - who would want to live in such pain anyway? Even Kate didn't !
I guess, too many questions popped up in my head and may I have begun questioning things more seriously after this book, something possibly I didnt ask earlier even if they did occur to me.
No offense to any of the readers or the members...jus a pov.
-Sareeta
Edited by sareeta - 15 years ago
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