Browsing through a bookstore sometime ago, I discovered novels by Isabel Allende. Fell in love with her writing and started collecting her books. Liked Allende’s The Japanese Lover which I read recently. It is a timeless romance that pays a tribute to the human heart.
Isabel Allende is a Chilean writer and winner of the National Literature Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom. She is based in the U. S. now and all her books are known for their vivid storytelling.
Published in 2015, The Japanese Lover is a masterfully crafted love story that spans several decades. It is a heartwarming novel about enduring love, loss, war, heartbreak, friendship, surviving and aging.
The story of this novel begins at ‘Lark House’ a retirement home in San Francisco Bay Area with Alma the sophisticated old woman and her caregiver Irina, an immigrant with tormenting past. As the two women get close to each other, we find out more about them.
The Japanese Lover is a gripping, deeply-moving and spellbinding novel that is beautifully written by Allende. Not her best book, but nevertheless an amazing read. I wouldn’t mind reading it again.
Some of the quotes that I liked from this book:
“I learned to know myself and look my loneliness in the face. It doesn’t frighten me anymore.”
“You only have one life, but if you live it well, that’s enough. The only reality is now, today. What are you waiting for to be happy?”
“Happiness is not exuberant or noisy, like pleasure or joy; it’s silent, tranquil and gentle; it’s a feeling of satisfaction inside that begins with self-love.”
“If nothing hurts, that means I woke up dead.”
“She treated him with casual kindness usually reserved for other people’s pets.”
“There was only one aristocracy, that of decency, and that this was not inherited or bought with money or titles, but gained through good deeds.”
“Shared pain is more bearable.”
“We’re not old because we are seventy. We start to grow old as soon as we are born, we change every day, life is a continuous state of flux. We evolve. The only difference is that now we are little closer to death. What’s so bad about that? Love and friendship do not age.”
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