Earlier I had watched the first half of the movie but never got around to seeing the second half. A friend recommended this book to me a few days back. I started reading the book.
I was caught by some very touching passages, some of which brought back memories of conversations that I have had, which I will list here (sentences in italics are my comments):
Additional Reading:
- "Analysis destroys wholes. Some things, magic things, are meant to stay whole. If you look at their pieces, they go away.". I am especially surprised because this is almost exactly what another friend told me about my tendency to analyse.
- "I don't just take things as given; I try to make them into something that reflects my personal consciousness, my spirit. I try to find the poetry in the image". I have come across this kind of an expression from artists referring to their dress or their poetry or their paintings. I never understood what it was to find one's consciousness or spirit.
- "She was more of a business partner to him (husband) than anything else. Some of her appreciated that. But rustling yet within her was another person who wanted to bathe and perfume herself... and be taken, carried away, and peeled back by a force she could sense, but never articulate, even dimly within her mind." A friend of mine had always insisted that the person she chose as friends and those she chose as sexual partner were entirely different. To her they were mutually exclusive. She had wanted her partner to dominate her while with a friend it would be an equal relationship.
- "Innocuous talk, around‐the‐edges‐of-things talk. That old uneasiness again, just being in the presence of a woman for whom he felt something. He never knew quite what to say, unless the talk was serious. Even though his sense of humor was well developed, if a little bizarre, he had a fundamentally serious mind and took things seriously. His mother had always said he was an adult at four years of age. That served him well as a professional. To his way of thinking, though, it did not serve him well around women such as Francesca Johnson." I wonder how some people are "an adult at the age of four" and how little they are capable of indulging in banter. I have seen such people.
- "It was almost as if he had taken possession of her, in all of her dimensions. That's what was frightening." ... "He replied, "I'm not sure you're inside of me, or that I am inside of you, or that I own you. At least I don't want to own you. I think we're both inside of another being we have created called 'us.' ... And he whispered to her, "I have one thing to say, one thing only; I'll never say it another time, to anyone, and I ask you to remember it: In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live." " I am reminded of the quote by the community friend. How many people find this kind of an "once in a lifetime" certainty, something that's almost sacred? Can someone tolerate anything less? Is it not to be expected that Kincaid remained celibate later?
- " "As much as I want you and want to be with you and part of you, I can't tear myself away from the realness of my responsibilities. If you force me, physically or mentally, to go with you, as I said earlier, I cannot fight that. I don't have the strength, given my feelings for you. In spite of what I said about not taking the road away from you, I'd go because of my own selfish wanting of you. But please don't make me. Don't make me give this up, my responsibilities. I cannot do that and live with the thought of it. If I did leave now, those thoughts would turn me into something other than the woman you have come to love." ... "But it never took away from anything I felt for the two of you or your father. Thinking only of myself for a moment, I'm not sure I made the right decision. But taking the family into account, I'm pretty sure I did." ". Wowow. Zubeida, hear that?
- " "Good‐bye, Robert Kincaid," she whispered, and began to cry, openly. Richard looked over at her. "What's wrong, Frannie? Will you please tell me what's wrong with you?" "Richard, I just need some time to myself. I'll be all right in a few minutes." "
- " "His silver bracelet was wrapped in tissue paper at the bottom of the envelope. A slip of paper was included with the bracelet. It was her handwriting: If you'd like supper again when "white moths are on the wing," come by tonight after you're finished."
- " "There have been times, many of them, when I've said, "The hell with it. I'm going to Winterset, Iowa, and, whatever the cost, take Francesca away with me." But I remember your words, and I respect your feelings. ... I do know that driving out of your lane that hot Friday morning was the hardest thing I've ever done or will ever do. In fact, I doubt if few men have ever done anything more difficult than that. There were women before you, a few, but none after. I made no conscious pledge to celibacy; I'm just not interested. ... I once watched a Canada goose whose mate had been shot by hunters. They mate for life, you know. The gander circled the pond for days, and more days after that. When I last saw him, he was swimming alone through the wild rice, still looking. I suppose that analogy is a little too obvious for literary tastes, but it's pretty much the way I feel." " Is it better to move on? Did Dr. Spencer Johnson (Author of "Who moved my cheese") and Robert Waller say contradictory things? Was the doctor right or was the author of the Bridges book?
- "He felt he was becoming obsolete in a world of computers and robots and organized living in general. He saw himself as one of the last cowboys, as he put it, and called himself old fangled. ... I think Richard knew there was something in me he could not reach, and I sometimes wonder if he found the manila envelope when I kept it at home in the bureau. Just before he died, I was sitting by him in a Des Moines hospital, and he said this to me: "Francesca, I know you had your own dreams, too. I'm sorry I couldn't give them to you." That was the most touching moment of our lives together. ... If you love me, then you must love what I have done. Robert Kincaid taught me what it was like to be a woman in a way that few women, maybe none, will ever experience. He was fine and warm, and he deserves, certainly, your respect and maybe your love. I hope you can give him both of those. In his own way, through me, he was good to you. ... I gave my family my life; I gave Robert Kincaid what was left of me." " "I owed my family my life" would have been more appropriate. "Gave" indicates a sacrifice which is not what Francesca did. When you unwillingly repay a loan, it's not a sacrifice. Her husband and children gave her a life. She owed them.
- "In a 1982 letter to her attorney, she had requested that her remains be cremated and her ashes scattered at Roseman Bridge."
- "He understood magic. Jazz musicians understand it, too. That's probably why we got along. You're playing some tune you've played a thousand times before, and suddenly there's a whole new set of ideas coming straight out of your horn without ever going through your conscious mind. He said photography and life in general were a lot like that. Then he added, "So is making love to a woman you love." ... Never mentioned the woman's last name, never said where it all took place. But, man, this Robert Kincaid was a poet when he talked about her. She must've really been something, one incredible lady. ... And, man, I started to love this guy. Anyone who can feel that way about a woman is worth lovin' himself." ... But, man, I'm haunted by that story he told me about him and the woman. So, every Tuesday night I get out my horn, and I play that tune I wrote for him. I play it here, all by myself. And for some reason I always look at that picture he gave me while I play it. Somethin' about it, don't know what it is, but I can't take my eyes off that picture when I play the tune. I just stand here, about twilight, makin' that of ol' horn weep, and I play that tune for a man named Robert Kincaid and a woman he called Francesca." " I am reminded of an age old (not in vogue now) Tamil custom called Vadakkiruthal. Vadakku in Tamil means north. When a man became old and was ready to leave this world, he would voluntarily sit facing the north, stop eating and drinking until he died. There were two men who respected each other a lot, thousand plus years ago. They knew of each other but had never met. One fine day, the first man decided on vadakkiruthal. His friend having heard of this, dropped everything he was doing and joined his friend. They observed vadakkiruthal. They died together. I was a boy when I read this story. This is how friendship should be I thought then. This thing of reading the diary about a man's love and then falling in love with the man - is copied in the movie Jab Tak Hai Jaan.
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Outstanding commentary, I m totally hypnotized with this masterpiece of yours.
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