The Forgotten Garden - an unforgettable book

"You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing."

Reading this book was not much different than being inside a garden - as beautifully written as the garden described by the author. Each of the three heroines and their lives came to your mind with vivid senses: red flowing hair, the scent of the sea, the foggy cottage on a Cornish cliff, the antique shops... The author weaved a complicated but lovely pattern of different backdrops of times, places and people. It wasn't hard for the reader to follow at all which is what impressed me the most.

Many hours I lost myself in this garden though there was never a rush to finish it, to get to the bottom of the mystery. Yes, I'd like to know the answer but it was all right to just stroll along - getting through the maze, looking at the birds, smelling the fragrance of apples ripening on the branches, listening to the sound of the not-so-distant ocean... Along the way, you learned of Eliza's secrets, Nell's struggles and Cassandra's heartaches. While they tugged your heart strings at different intensity, you also knew that their strength was not to be underestimated.

I came away with the quote at the start of this post which was spoken by Ruby, a middle-aged woman whose warmth and cheerfulness is familiar (I think we all have a friend or two like Ruby) and she is wise - maybe more so than our protagonists. You would agree with me if you've read the book. Not sure if it's coincidence that one of my new year's resolutions is to "be content" and that I would pick up this book. It's a promise, then, I shall make to myself: I am making my life out of what I have, not what I am missing. Amen.

Killer Perfume - there is no end to the haunting.

SPOILER ALERT!  IF YOU WISH TO READ THIS BOOK, DO NOT READ THIS POST!!

I’ve finished the book for a couple of days now and the book is still haunting me relentlessly. How does he know? How does he know that one tiny drop of his “perfume”, which was made of 25 exquisitely beautiful virgins just coming into their womanhood, that would make the populace of Grassee loved him, adore him and were mesmerized by him. It is a spell he casted over them so cunningly, so underhanded. Then with the rest of the vial, he doused himself in the horrendously smelling cemetery of Paris that he would be eaten alive, literally, by a mob for they loved him so much that they wanted to possess him – to have a piece of him. How does he know that too much love would turn one into a monster? He had freely admitted that he cannot love, he knew only hatred – how to hate and be hated. Is it because the line between love and hate is so very thin and blurry?

Grenouille created the perfume in hope to create love – not just to be loved as his original intent– but also to have the ability to love. What a crushing discovery it was for him that, yes, others can love and do love him by his deceitful tricks; and that, yes, he can appear to others as an ultimate desirable being; yes, he can play with the whole world’s emotions just by one droplet of his creation. But what good does it do him when he has no capacity to love them in return? “To hell with it…” he said. To hell with it he went, with his perfume.

At what point love can become excessive? Is that really a possibility? If it does get to the “point”, is it still “love”? I hinder no hatred or disgust for Grenouille; rather, I carry this heavy load of sadness for him. Oh, and the contempt for the people!! Do we not see it still? People’s admiration and adoration for certain public figures sometimes are dauntingly stupid; or there is no reason or explanation why some people linger on with certain partners or mates of theirs when others would’ve packed up and leave?  How beastly people behaved when Grenouille showed himself to be this all-desirable being - or was that really what human nature is - to succumb to the primal needs of the act of loving? I don't know, I don't know...