I have been reading a wonderful book called, The History of Love. It is a fantastic, thought provoking, and utterly mystifying novel. Told in a dual perspective style, this book shows many levels of the coming of age experience. One perspective is a teenage girl named Alma, and one is an old man named Leo Gursky. Leo had written a book for his young love when he was a young man. Alma is named after both the character in the book he wrote (called the "History of Love") and his lost love. In order to find themselves and grow up, both characters must learn about their lives and how these people's lives are interconnected. In the History of Love, these two protagonists must face struggles in order to come of age.
The teenage character, Alma, has many struggles to overcome. Alma is not your everyday teenage girl. She is a child who has had to be strong and deal with horrible things at a young age. The obstacles she must face are things that anyone would crumble under the pressure from. For example, Alma's father died when she was nine and she has had to help care for her brother and herself, and help her mother overcome her grief. Alma has a particularly difficult job in controlling and helping to raise her brother, Bird. Bird believes he is the messiah, and that a flood is going to come, and that he is the one to help speak God's word to everyone. When a parent is so stricken with grief in the way Alma's mother is, they may become absent from their children and forget that their children's world's have been wrecked too. This is what has happened to Alma's mother. Alma and Bird have been left to fend for themselves and deal with the death of their father by themselves. At one point, Bird and Alma are playing a game of denial in which they say everything real is "NOT!" and Bird says, "I! HAVE NOT! BEEN! UNHAPPY! MY WHOLE! LIFE!", to which Alma responds with, "But you're only seven,". This is what can happen to children if their parents fail to the effects of trauma on their children. At one point Alma says, "ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UP. Is fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life.”. When Alma says this she is saying that she wants to be nothing like her mother, and never will give up on life. Alma also must try and find out who she is, even with all these burdens on top of her. These burdens actually do end up leading to her finding out who she is, who she wants to be, and who her past is.
Leo Gursky carried his burden all the way from Europe. Leo is so in love with the woman he can never get back, that he is in a state of illusion. He was infatuated with this woman, to a point that he devoted his life and his writing to her. For example, at one point he says, “Then she kissed him. Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”. Leo loves Alma so much. To him, she is his entire life. He believes that no matter wether she loves him or not he must love her for always, “And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it.”. There is nothing that Leo knows about himself other than that, he is in love with Alma, and he is a writer. He has no life but her. He even followed her to America to rekindle their love. However, this leads Leo to finally finding his life in America. In the end Leo's obstacle of love leads him to finding himself, even if it is in death. He learns that he does not need Alma anymore. This quote from the end says this perfectly, "Or he died thinking about Alma. Or when he chose not to.”
To sum up, to finally find yourself, come of, age, grow up,you must first overcome burdens, obstacles, and struggles. These struggles do make you stronger, more powerful, and more unique. When someone goes of a journey to find themselves they learn more about themselves and their loved ones than they thought they would. “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
P.S. It is really a great book.
Please read it.
Please!
PLEASE!
The teenage character, Alma, has many struggles to overcome. Alma is not your everyday teenage girl. She is a child who has had to be strong and deal with horrible things at a young age. The obstacles she must face are things that anyone would crumble under the pressure from. For example, Alma's father died when she was nine and she has had to help care for her brother and herself, and help her mother overcome her grief. Alma has a particularly difficult job in controlling and helping to raise her brother, Bird. Bird believes he is the messiah, and that a flood is going to come, and that he is the one to help speak God's word to everyone. When a parent is so stricken with grief in the way Alma's mother is, they may become absent from their children and forget that their children's world's have been wrecked too. This is what has happened to Alma's mother. Alma and Bird have been left to fend for themselves and deal with the death of their father by themselves. At one point, Bird and Alma are playing a game of denial in which they say everything real is "NOT!" and Bird says, "I! HAVE NOT! BEEN! UNHAPPY! MY WHOLE! LIFE!", to which Alma responds with, "But you're only seven,". This is what can happen to children if their parents fail to the effects of trauma on their children. At one point Alma says, "ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UP. Is fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life.”. When Alma says this she is saying that she wants to be nothing like her mother, and never will give up on life. Alma also must try and find out who she is, even with all these burdens on top of her. These burdens actually do end up leading to her finding out who she is, who she wants to be, and who her past is.
Leo Gursky carried his burden all the way from Europe. Leo is so in love with the woman he can never get back, that he is in a state of illusion. He was infatuated with this woman, to a point that he devoted his life and his writing to her. For example, at one point he says, “Then she kissed him. Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”. Leo loves Alma so much. To him, she is his entire life. He believes that no matter wether she loves him or not he must love her for always, “And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it.”. There is nothing that Leo knows about himself other than that, he is in love with Alma, and he is a writer. He has no life but her. He even followed her to America to rekindle their love. However, this leads Leo to finally finding his life in America. In the end Leo's obstacle of love leads him to finding himself, even if it is in death. He learns that he does not need Alma anymore. This quote from the end says this perfectly, "Or he died thinking about Alma. Or when he chose not to.”
To sum up, to finally find yourself, come of, age, grow up,you must first overcome burdens, obstacles, and struggles. These struggles do make you stronger, more powerful, and more unique. When someone goes of a journey to find themselves they learn more about themselves and their loved ones than they thought they would. “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
P.S. It is really a great book.
Please read it.
Please!
PLEASE!
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