Of Meetings and Meetings Again...

Year 2011 passed by hurriedly, busy with the role of a new mom and my love of reading quite unintentionally ignored...I read very little, of which the book that was the most interesting was one by Anita Shreve, “The Last Time They Met’'. 


The book narrates a story of two lovers, who meets after many years, under unusual circumstances but with overwhelming love  for each other. The novel flashes back in time in a very intriguing fashion, recording the chance encounters of the protagonists at the age of fifty-two, twenty-six and seventeen, in the same order…

The story reveals the undying love between two persons despite the various turn of events in the course of their lives, which are not similar for the two.  The novel weaves brilliantly the anticipation and promises on one hand and the pathos, constraints and heartbreak on the other. The last chapter discloses the first meeting of the two and what happened afterwards and relates to the upheavals in the lives of the two people in love..

Shreve wraps up the whole narration in the last page of the book so masterfully casting a rare magic spell of storytelling, compelling the reader to remain maddened as well as satisfied and with an assured longing  to read the story all over again. ..

The novel gets its hypnotic and suspenseful side thanks to the reasons and chances due to which the lovers meet in wonderful coincidences but could not remain together for life..