WERMS
26) Her Fearful Symmetry (Audrey Niffenegger)
i felt hesitant to even start a book like this especially if it’s preceded with a BIG one by the same author. i remembered how i felt for The Time Traveler’s Wife. how me and my friends gravitated to Clare and Henry way before they became famous and hit the screens. that book by Audrey Nifenegger was one tough act to follow. and here, with Her Fearful Symmetry, i must say, the tough gets going.
while Nifenegger’s first novel ended with a union, her second concluded with a bitter separation, and death had nothing to do with it. for me, the central theme is human selfishness, how everyone in the book with the exception of Martin (i’am so drawn to Martin’s character) used his or her own personal desires and motives to get their own stake at happiness, without consequence analyses. each had to go at great lenghts. each was comitted to the far fetched, even if it was supposed to be so simple and uncomplicated at the beginning.
we have secrets to keep. we have enormous fears inside. we have anxieties that not even someone with the same gene pool with us, nor our own wife could wash away. we have decisions to make and we have those pitiful regrets that follow. we have the love of our life who may be miles away from us and we’re willing to forget our old habits and illness and travel across the globe just to be at her doorstep. and there are ghosts. ghosts who were the products of human selfishness, disease, and murder. but mostly ghosts that were remnants of once being acutely human.
Human folly, that’s another crucial theme of this beautiful book.
the fates of people here are intertwined more than ever. i was hard on blaming Valentina Poole for her actions in the book. but Valentina Poole was hard on Julia, her twin, because she won’t let her off the hook. i was harsh on Robert for having consented with Valentina and Elspeth’s plan. but then i remembered he’s just a man who fell in love with the two. i was barking mad with Marijke, for deserting the sole source of light in this book, who is Martin. despite his obssessive compulsive disorder. i despised Jack, for riding along with Elspeth and Edie’s game to satisfy his personal amusement, only to find he’s riding for a fall in the long end. Julia, who is worthy of contempt cos of her unwavering alliance to her twin, which provoked the irritation of the latter and the comittal of the decision that would haunt all of their lives forever. the most selfish of all, Elspeth, who altered the fate of the Pooles and all the living creatures of Vautruvers with just one letter. how can you forgive her for the switch, for the murder of The Little Kitten of Death, and for possessing Valentina’s castle. if there’s any consolation, it’s Martin. because he alone is beautiful in his own craziness and affliction. he, for me, is the light of the book.
so there, i think Audrey Nifenegger was not pressured at all. because thus is quite equally compelling and moving as her debut.
