Just read this Richard Matheson’s timeless (!) novel. I have had it for yearrrrrrsss but never picked it up to read it. Well now I have. But what a book !!!
The story is of a love that transcends the boundaries of time. Richard Collier (the author shares his name with the lead character here so I will refer them by their surnames) a man in current era becomes obsessed with a woman of another time, a celebrated actress at the turn of the century. Matheson's classic novel tells the moving, romantic story of a modern man whose love for a woman he has never met draws him back in time to a luxury hotel in San Diego in 1896, where he finds his soul mate in the form of a celebrated actress of the previous century. Somewhere in Time won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1979.
Now before anyone considers this a time travel fantasy novel and is about to leave then please STOP. And LISTEN. This is not time travel fantasy that has romance. It is a novel of true love that has a time travel fantasy setting. All love stories need to have a setting which is more conceptual than the main story line itself. Matheson has not introduced anything dramatic and new in terms of time travel. The time travel technique has been borrowed from Jack Finney’s Time and Again. Matheson’s story is about love not about time travel. The time separation has been deliberately stressed upon in the book so that his message of how true love can never be denied despite separated by 75 years comes across. If time travel interests you go and read Jack Finney’s Time and Again. If your interest is love and finding your soul mate, read on and then go on to read the book.
Collier in 1971 had somehow come across the photo of an actress (Elise) from 1896 that intrigues him. He finds he must know her life and starts researching her. He finds that she is the same actress who he had met at a college function. When he met her, she had a very strange reaction to him like she had known him and then she died right after. Collier just gets more infatuated with the actress and is sure that he loves her. The more that he investigates her he becomes convinced that he somehow had gone to the past and met her. Collier starts to study theories on time travel and then uses virtually the same method used in Finney's books to travel back to 1896 to be with her.
I don’t want to give away the story and want to just focus on the message.
I'd like to believe that Richard and Elise's souls traveled to a place where time was not an issue, and at last, their love could flourish. This life was meant just for them to learn the love’s most difficult yet simple lesson. That you do not need a reason to fall in love. The person’s existence should be enough. For him to be in love, Collier’s only reason was Elise existence. How many of us can tell our love that I love you because you….(fullstop.) Nothing more – but just you. So for Collier it was enough that Elise birth was the only reason for him to love her. And Collins is such a weak, almost hysterical figure, that reading the story alone one would wonder why a woman would fall for a man like him other than he was her true love. Deliberate. Elise is a successful actress and Collier a weak, hysterical and almost on death bed so as to emphasise that for Elise it did not matter. Here is a man who loves her just because she was born and had no other reason to love and therefore his love was beyond time. If you love anyone for a reason, then what happens to your love when the reason is gone? It is so easy for any man to fall in love with an attractive star like Elise but what happens when she becomes old? Does that mean that her lover will have to keep finding new reasons every now and then? Or if you love a person because that person has certain qualities that are visible or manifest them around you and therefore bring joy/pleasure to you then what happens to your love when that person is dead and gone? Isnt it a bit selfish that love then for you is what you get out of it for your own benefit - rather like being in love with your own self so therefore you will "be in love" with anything that feeds your needs. Or if he/she has Alziehmer's disease and does not know you or does not love you any more. But if you love a person for just being born and therefore being in existence then it will last beyond death and time. No matter what happens to a person – whether death, dismemberment, or simply old age or even separation – nothing can deny the fact that the person was born.
By the way, this book is a killer. Extremely beautiful as Collier takes a journey into the past to find his soul mate but yet packaged with a profound sadness. They are intertwined rather like true love which is what this book is all about. The last few pages of the book are painful, abrupt and unexpected. But shouldn’t true love have these elements as well, or else it cannot exist? If you have been in love and heart broken at least once then you will understand the higher love and the related pain that comes with it by relating it to your own circumstances. The ecstasy of a higher love can probably be only measured by the sadness that accompanies it. Because more often than not, true love is recognized only after its gone.
And wherever there is higher love of the sort Elise and Collier experienced, there are miracles waiting to happen. True love cannot be denied. When true love asserts itself, Time and Universe both first come to a standstill, then step aside and say “YES, YOUR WISH IS GRANTED” so that true love can find its way. Even if it means allowing someone to travel back 75 years in time to be united with his love. Truly blessed.
More on this twin aspect of love when I review the book “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough next.
The story is of a love that transcends the boundaries of time. Richard Collier (the author shares his name with the lead character here so I will refer them by their surnames) a man in current era becomes obsessed with a woman of another time, a celebrated actress at the turn of the century. Matheson's classic novel tells the moving, romantic story of a modern man whose love for a woman he has never met draws him back in time to a luxury hotel in San Diego in 1896, where he finds his soul mate in the form of a celebrated actress of the previous century. Somewhere in Time won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1979.
Now before anyone considers this a time travel fantasy novel and is about to leave then please STOP. And LISTEN. This is not time travel fantasy that has romance. It is a novel of true love that has a time travel fantasy setting. All love stories need to have a setting which is more conceptual than the main story line itself. Matheson has not introduced anything dramatic and new in terms of time travel. The time travel technique has been borrowed from Jack Finney’s Time and Again. Matheson’s story is about love not about time travel. The time separation has been deliberately stressed upon in the book so that his message of how true love can never be denied despite separated by 75 years comes across. If time travel interests you go and read Jack Finney’s Time and Again. If your interest is love and finding your soul mate, read on and then go on to read the book.
Collier in 1971 had somehow come across the photo of an actress (Elise) from 1896 that intrigues him. He finds he must know her life and starts researching her. He finds that she is the same actress who he had met at a college function. When he met her, she had a very strange reaction to him like she had known him and then she died right after. Collier just gets more infatuated with the actress and is sure that he loves her. The more that he investigates her he becomes convinced that he somehow had gone to the past and met her. Collier starts to study theories on time travel and then uses virtually the same method used in Finney's books to travel back to 1896 to be with her.
I don’t want to give away the story and want to just focus on the message.
I'd like to believe that Richard and Elise's souls traveled to a place where time was not an issue, and at last, their love could flourish. This life was meant just for them to learn the love’s most difficult yet simple lesson. That you do not need a reason to fall in love. The person’s existence should be enough. For him to be in love, Collier’s only reason was Elise existence. How many of us can tell our love that I love you because you….(fullstop.) Nothing more – but just you. So for Collier it was enough that Elise birth was the only reason for him to love her. And Collins is such a weak, almost hysterical figure, that reading the story alone one would wonder why a woman would fall for a man like him other than he was her true love. Deliberate. Elise is a successful actress and Collier a weak, hysterical and almost on death bed so as to emphasise that for Elise it did not matter. Here is a man who loves her just because she was born and had no other reason to love and therefore his love was beyond time. If you love anyone for a reason, then what happens to your love when the reason is gone? It is so easy for any man to fall in love with an attractive star like Elise but what happens when she becomes old? Does that mean that her lover will have to keep finding new reasons every now and then? Or if you love a person because that person has certain qualities that are visible or manifest them around you and therefore bring joy/pleasure to you then what happens to your love when that person is dead and gone? Isnt it a bit selfish that love then for you is what you get out of it for your own benefit - rather like being in love with your own self so therefore you will "be in love" with anything that feeds your needs. Or if he/she has Alziehmer's disease and does not know you or does not love you any more. But if you love a person for just being born and therefore being in existence then it will last beyond death and time. No matter what happens to a person – whether death, dismemberment, or simply old age or even separation – nothing can deny the fact that the person was born.
By the way, this book is a killer. Extremely beautiful as Collier takes a journey into the past to find his soul mate but yet packaged with a profound sadness. They are intertwined rather like true love which is what this book is all about. The last few pages of the book are painful, abrupt and unexpected. But shouldn’t true love have these elements as well, or else it cannot exist? If you have been in love and heart broken at least once then you will understand the higher love and the related pain that comes with it by relating it to your own circumstances. The ecstasy of a higher love can probably be only measured by the sadness that accompanies it. Because more often than not, true love is recognized only after its gone.
And wherever there is higher love of the sort Elise and Collier experienced, there are miracles waiting to happen. True love cannot be denied. When true love asserts itself, Time and Universe both first come to a standstill, then step aside and say “YES, YOUR WISH IS GRANTED” so that true love can find its way. Even if it means allowing someone to travel back 75 years in time to be united with his love. Truly blessed.
More on this twin aspect of love when I review the book “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough next.
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