Last night at about 11:30, I flipped to the last page of The Wedding. To my disappointment, the book was finished. Finit. Fin.
This book is about Wilson Lewis and his desperation to save his marriage to Jane Calhoun. Next to the ideal marriage of Jane's parents, Jalson's marriage seems loveless. After raising 3 children together and being married for 30 years, their marriage has turned awkward and as if somethings missing. They seem to be more like friends than spouses, and all conversations are familiar and have been recited already. So when Wilson forgets his 30th anniversary to his wife Jane, he knew he was at his last chance.
This story is told through Wilson's eyes, and all through out the story, he mentions he mentions one thing. One thing over and over, this one surprise to his wife he works on an entire year to present to her on their 31st anniversary. But what I really enjoyed about Nicholas Sparks writing? He makes it a surprise for the reader.
What the author does is mention this surprise every so often but then quickly covers it up and distracts you with the plans for the wedding of Jalson's daughter Anna. She came in one saturday evening and announced she was getting married to her boyfriend Keith... The next saturday. Quickly, her parents got engaged in making wedding plans. This week happened to be their anniversary week, and their child's wedding happened to be on the day of their anniversary.
What you don't realize is the importance of their anniversary and Wilson's special surprise in this wedding.
I would have never expected the surprise Jane gets that saturday, the supposed day of her daughters wedding. However, what leaves her shocked also leaves the reader shocked. Through out the week, her and Wilson have been growing closer and closer. And on saturday, the big surprise Wilson, his family and friends have all been keeping a secret comes out. The wedding? It's not Anna's. It's Jalson's. They're renewing their vows, and it finally gives Jane confidence in her marriage.
The fact that this secret of the pages doesn't come out until the very end really is a great writing technique. It leaves you so you have to read the book. You just have to know how their marriage turns out in the end, and what the great surprise is. The suspense kills you, so you have to read and read until finally, you are satisfied with the answer.
I seriously love this blog post. I just read Asha's post on The Wedding, but your blog post makes me see a whole new perspective on the book. I liked how you put some background into your book instead of just jumping in; now that was a good technique. When you said that Wilson and Jana had ''something missing'' in their relationship, I felt like I was Jana. I had been through the same things and it's like I'm in the story. How do you feel about that? I also liked how you talked about the writing technique! That was something I rarely saw on some one's blog post and I really liked how the last sentence really wrapped the whole post up. I just think you need to put a little more of an opinion in here, that's all. Otherwise, great post!
ReplyDeleteat first i found it weird how wilson was desperate to save his marriage if it wasn't going so well and he thought they were good friends, like, wouldn't a person normally just give up and break off the 30 year marriage and move on? And then i began to think about religous wise how marriages are illistrated as some sacred thing that you have to keep working.
ReplyDelete-i don't know i honestly haven't read this book and usually i just don't read Nicholas Sparks' books and that genera just in general [we've established this] but this blog made me think of like the tentiona and the emotion these authors make you feel while reading their books and it kind of made me want to go back and peek through this genera again.
*Anne: Thank you so much! For me, it's not really as if i'm in the story, but I can easily zone into and look at it through Wilson's eyes. But the fact that you do feel like your in it really is cool because it emphasizes the different way people absorb what they read and how the feel about it.
ReplyDelete* Sabribri: I really don't know how a marriage works, but I'm not so sure. I mean obviously there was something that drew them together when they first met. Even though that was over 30 years ago in the book, their still the same people. I don't think many people would just give up, but most probably wouldn't go to these lengths either. I Guess it brings up the question of whether people actually can change to the point where it turns around so many aspects of their life.