One more Love Story .....!!

With the Sun giving hugs to the climate these days and the mercury is about to come out of thermometer, hanging out for the whole day on weekends is not a good option in this summer. Although moving out for some window shopping in the evening proves to be an idle bird watch and you realize that there is something really hot out of the idiot box too. In summer you can see some really exotic and shortest of dress collection around. Evenings were fine but what to do with the whole day of weekends was something I was mulling over.  Books and movies seem to be the best buddies in this situation. After having enough of motion stories, I thought to switch to the printed ones. With a thought to read a book again and then writing about it, earlier was ‘I too had a Love Story’, this time choice was ‘Love Story’ by Erich Segal.  Unlike the earlier one this doesn’t contain a ‘had’ in its title. I remember when I had encountered this past tense, ’had’, in the title first time there was a anxiety within me to know why such a title was used. Fear of the worst while reading it was appeased when I began it but came true while in the last pages of the book. That was a tear jerking moment when all of a sudden everything changed in the life of Ravin, Ravin and Khushi were the lead characters of the book, with the death of Khushi, khushi being Ravin’s fiancée. It was sad to read that book after knowing that the story was real.

This all made me to choose a fiction this time with no past tense or something strange in the title. I opted for ‘Love Story’, title being as simple as it can be and sounds more like a romantic tale. Moreover it was not a giant mammoth sized book and thus everything was in favor of me reading it.

This became quite interesting as soon as I encountered the first line of the book, which phrases the death of a twenty five year old girl. I was surprised at first if all the books I read will kill girls or every love story ends like this only. I also had a thought of saving this girl, as already they are not in sufficient number, by not going deep into the book but knowing that it was a fiction I decided to go with it. So now I knew that the girl here is going to die too, fictionally though but girls should not die even in books. It reduces their count further.

It starts as:

“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.”

It’s not even easy to say about a book which starts from this line. Best seller of 1970s, a true art, Love Story definitely leaves a imprint on you as soon as you start reading it. Death mentioned in the beginning is quite enough for one’s curiosity to build up for this book. First look and the name act as a curtain raiser for the theme of the book: a romantic fiction that catches attention at first line itself.

Eric Wolf Segal the author of the book has originally drafted this as a script of a screenplay which was sold to Paramount pictures for production of a movie on it. While the film was produced Paramount wanted Eric to write it as a Novel as well, which became the US best seller of its time before the movie was completed.It builds an expectation from the book when you come to know that the Author is a Harvard graduate as a poet and a Latin Salutatorian: the title given in US to the second highest rank person in whole graduating class of a particular discipline. The master’s and doctorate degrees in literature add more feathers to his cap.

Story revolves around two individuals Oliver Barrett IV, the successor of the Barretts and the only heir of the Barretts legacy and Jennifier Cavilleri, daughter of a not so rich baker, but quick witted and charming, she was also a music student at Redcliff. Having a background of wealthy and well reputed Harvard graduates, Oliver also was pursuing his graduation from the Harvard. He meets Jenny at the Redcliff’s library. Conversation starts with a kind of fight among them and ended up with a date between the two. They fall in love with each other. The story nicely depicts their initial days of love. Even short conversations between them are beautifully brightened with thoughts that you feel involved in the story. There are quite interesting conversations of son and father too, Junior and Senior Oliver. Those conversation frames an image of a quite disciplined and obedient son.

After graduation they both decided to marry but Oliver’s father stands against the marriage, which made them to marry against the senior Oliver will. This step severed Oliver IV from his father’s will. The couple started living in a rented house and Jenny chose to work as a teacher. Graduating as a law student with flying colors makes Oliver to get a reputed job. With everything going fine now, there was a sudden shock when Jenny was diagnosed with Leukemia. 

Limited financial flow with their jobs was just enough to sustain them and desperate need of money arises as Jenny was admitted to the hospital. Book describes emotions and feelings with each and every conversation between its characters. One of such heartrending conversation is when Jenny speaks to her father about her funeral. Now in the story the first statement qualifies with the death of Jenny. End leaves you with mixed feelings of joy, when their romance was at peak in the initial days and sorrow when life became cruel to them and the girl died finally.

One of the touching lines said, by Jenny and Oliver to his father in the book which you always remember after reading is “Love means never having to say you are sorry”.

Finally, 4/5 to the book for presenting everything in such a beautiful way, that you tend to complete it. Go for it if you want some short romantic story.