An After Thought of Reading Me Before You
September 10, 2016 |
| picture from here |
*SPOILER ALERT*
*I HAVE WARNED YOU*
The first time I was feeling this way after reading a book was when I finished reading Suzanne Collin’s Mockingjay. I had to admit that I was skimming through the last pages that I wasn’t really sure (until now) about what had really happened (I didn’t watch the movie either). It was both surreal but weirdly… imaginable. Like life can be tragic and we just need to live through it.
Reading Me Before You, in the other hand, had made me fall in love with a strong-willed man, that is Will Traynor, and made me think of how I might have limiting myself just like Louisa Clark did. It did, gave me hope (until several last pages of the book), that even a quad who are dependent to others can give a push to a relatively normal and healthy person to live to the fullest. That life is, in someway would seems to be sucks, but there’s always a way around that.
So when they decided that Will had had enough with his life, that he didn’t want to live it because it wasn’t what he wanted (not having a choice over anything and in a constant need of helper), I was… well, can’t quite understand it.
He stressed that it was his choice, that it was the only thing he had control over after his accident, but it just doesn’t hit me as a reasonable. My hopeless romantic self thought why on earth he can have that final chance knowing that Louisa love him but Louisa can’t choose not to lose someone so precious for her growth. Was that only because Will was told as a strong-willed man who always work his hardest to get what he wanted? That a presence of an ever so cheerful and transparent Louisa can not change his mind?
I read an article saying that if he had not given up his life simply because he loved her, it would undermine the whole story.
In my opinion, Will doesn’t have to love Louisa back to undo his decision, he only need to see that he can be helpful in some other way and that life is something worth living, no matter how hard it can be. I had thought that it was the message the author wanted to tell me all along that I got kind of shock to learn that even after meeting Louisa, even having the best last 6 months of his life (his words), and seeing how his family were in the verge of breaking down, he still found no reason of being alive.
I think if he chose to live for himself (and not for Louisa’s love), he is still true to his character who, on his father eyes, ‘quite capable of doing the opposite of what was right simply because he didn’t want to be complying, in some way’.
Still I can’t choose a happy ending for Will, as he said that she can say that she love him now but they’ll never know what would happened in the next six month. I thought it must be depressing to know that you can do nothing (not even the simple act of hand-shaking) for the rest of your life, but still, he always have a choice to live as a good influence to people he had close to his heart.
Unfortunately, he didn’t.
Death, had been a very sensitive subject. I have grow up knowing that death is something you don’t have a power about. In my opinion (and also religion), you don’t choose to die. You just… die. That explain perfectly why I can’t resonate with Will’s word that it was his choice to die. Because on the other hand, when you’re on the verge of dying (medically, not mentally), you don’t have a choice to keep living.
Reading Me Before You had given me a bunch of feelings, despite the ending. It was a note to treat everyone on the same way. I love a particular part when Louisa just asked Will whether his wheelchair could have a puncture from shattered pbotograph frames when Will had always expected everyone to put a pity on him. Or when Will was mad because Louisa had supposed that he would like horse when she decided to watch a horse race, without asking him first and coosing for him.
It was also a shoutout to live boldly and to not letting a mistake define the rest of your life. To take chances, to strive (like Louisa did when she knew that she’s her family’s only hope to make the end meets), to have a second chance (with Katrina’s going back to college and Louisa choose to retrain).
The book really had a good point, it’s just I was on a different note for the ending.
The book also made me thinking what ifs, and thinking that without a true faith and knowledge of life, for some people, death is an option.
see you when I am less emotionally involved with all this #heavysigh #emotionallyinvolved #withfictionalcharacter #every #single #time
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