To be honest, on any given day, sane or insane, if you ask me what my favourite love story is, the answer would probably be 'Jane Eyre' ... I've been reading 'Jane Eyre' since I first started laying hands on books of that calibre, probably around 12 years of age or so ... I cannot be sure, considered I am always the last to discover life and all that jazz, as compared to my peers.
I've read 'Jane Eyre' a number of times, about the same number as the age when I first read the book. I've read both abridged and non-abridged versions and been equally pacified reading the story each time I read it ...
In College I realized that the book was part of my curriculum in one of the three years and upon that realization I consciously or sub-consciously avoided going to the "Jane Eyre" lectures ... I did happen to go once ... and I faintly remember the professor preaching about some god-damned perception of Mr. Rochester's manic wife ... Never again did I go to those lectures ... I was happy with my understanding of the literature ... In fact, my understanding of it was acutely dear to me ... for some bizarre reason I felt completely and utterly yet incomprehensibly attached to the protagonist Jane, I felt a kinship to her ...
And this ... despite having never been in Love.
I still believe I have never been "in love" ... the closest I came to it, vanished even before I could label it as 'love' in my dressing drawer of incorrigibly shaped relationships.
Today, I declare love and respect for another such ... ... Sweet November
I would like to believe that I have seen the film, every time its on television and every time I watch it, I can hear my heart breaking for the two lovers ...
A excellent story of love, its initial pangs, its full fervour, its pain, its untoward turns and in the end its remnants ...
A remake of the 1968 Sandy Dennis and Anthony Newley starer along with a hint of 'Love Story', the film was (according to me) unnecessarily thrashed as contrived and
" ... Manufactured as a Valentine Day's date movie, this anachronistic doomed affair will be dismissed by most critics and its only chance to survive is if its target audience of indiscriminating female teenagers would flock to see it; PG-13 rating should help, though basically it's a one-weekend movie. "
Whatever and However it might be for the critics and reviewers, who I believe are probably zombie-d and jaded from having seen TOO many films ... I couldn't resist falling in love with the story ...
I couldn't help but feel the pain when Nelson, Sara's Sweet November finds out that Sara is suffering from Cancer. Despite having been with Sara for solely the month of November he falls desperately in love with her and asks her to marry him ... only to find out about her grave illness ...
Sara has her reasons to have hidden the fact from him ...
In the time between finding out about Sara and deciding to pursue her regardless, Nelson thinks ... he thinks about her ... and as he stands thinking, at the beach with his back towards me ... I cannot but help bear witness to a glimpse of what it must be like to be absolutely in love.
In the end, when Sara sends him away standing atop a bridge, pleading for his memory of her to be beautiful and for him not to go through the pain ... of watching THE lover die ... I cannot put the pain in words ...
and when Nelson lifts the veil Sara has put on his eyes to eclipse her escape, and reveals his somewhat unnatural yet tear-y eyes ... *sigh*
... and today, I feel a special, incomprehensible, passionate and deep kinship to this story!
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