A book review ..Blogging Marathon 2014 Post 31

I just finished reading 'Where or When' by Anita Shreve. This is the first book I've read by this author. Whenever I read a book, I am always a bit distracted as I am trying to follow two things at a time - the story and the craft of story telling. These two parallel threads presented in a seemingly integrated package of a book can make it rise above the rest and make it a bestseller, if not that, at least a most recommended book. There are times though when one takes precedence over the other.

In this case, I loved the narration, the sentence structure, a work of fine craft. I could not relate to the plot, its premise, or the characters at all. The book is about how two people, Charles and Sian, who reconnect after a gap of some 30 odd years. They had met when they were 14 at a summer camp and over the weeklong period had been attracted to each other - a time of innocent budding love which could not manifest in a full-fledged manner. They have a few photos of that time, which along with accompanying memories and emotions, have been buried in the attic and recesses of their hearts in the course of their lives moving ahead.

Charles comes across a newspaper article about Sian's newly released poetry book. Her photo in the newspaper jolts him back to a long forgotten time of his boyhood. He communicates to her via a letter and the book is essentially about letters they exchange - trying to get to know each other and their lives in the now. In their present, both of them are respectively married and have children. They end up meeting at the same camp site hotel and over the course of a few secret meetings, some more letter exchanges, decide to take a chance at being together. Neither of them has a satisfactory marriage.

Whether they do get together or not, you could find out by reading the book. I think that both of the protagonists have acted irresponsibly,  selfishly, engaged in deliberate infidelity. I can empathise that a marriage over time can lack passion or connect, especially if it is between two fundamentally different people, but neither of them seems to be willing to work over it, not for themselves, not for the sake of their partners or families. With their newly rekindled attraction towards each other does Charles and Sian examine the stagnation and hollowness of their married lives and to an extent life in general and that is narrated very well.

I both admire and resent their strong sense of individuality. Perhaps I am too grounded in my traditional way of thinking, thinking for my family first and myself, somewhere there, but not always first in every instance.

Perhaps one may think that Charles was the one more to blame, he initiated the letter writing, he pushed Sian for a meeting, he never focussed on the fact that he has debts at work, his home may be repossessed, and of course the impact of his decisions on his wife and three children. But it takes two, so to be fair, Sian never resisted much in the first place. Eventually, the overwhelming emotion one feels is sympathy for all the lives involved and that of wasted efforts, emotions and squandering of seemingly stable lives and families. Sharing a couple of lines from the book -

"We were children and afraid to say the words aloud. I believe this gave us longings that would last a lifetime."

"Existence permeates sexuality and vice versa, so that it is impossible to determine, in a given decision or action, the proportion of sexual to other motivations, impossible to label a decision or act "sexual" or "non-sexual." There is no outstripping of sexuality any more than there is sexuality enclosed within itself. NO one is saved and no one is totally lost" - Maurice Merleau-Ponty

"He does not understand it himself exactly, except that it is harder now to get through the day without the small irritations that lead to resignation."