Aug 13, 2001 01:41 PM
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After getting top recommendations from friends and looking at some very promising reviews on https://amazon.com and https://bn.com, I decided finally to give this book a try. Richard Bach writes this book about finding the ”perfect” soul mate in life, and how he found his soul mate. The true love story, basically focuses on his journey from being a non-believer in love to a good man...only that in doing so, you come across Bach as character, who is immensely turn-off, and I cant imagine anyone going honkers over him!!
The Story
’Did you ever feel that you were missing someone you had never met’ asks Richard Bach on the covers of the book, and gives you a idea of what this book might be all about. The story begins with his quest for that ”perfect” soul mate he has been searching for a long time. He is a great lover of planes, and has a good stock of them; and flies them whenever he pleases to. To him, flying is the greatest joy that could be experienced. He has a feeling everyday, that today he will meet is soul mate. He misses a stranger whom he has never met. He has went through infinite relationships with women, but none of them come across as his true partner.
But one day, he finds Leslie a Hollywood movie star. His relationship with her begins as friends, and very nearly keeps it at that. When he realizes that he is probably in love with her, he tries to distance her from him...but fails. Eventually, both Leslie and Richard decide to give each other a chance to see if they like each other. They decide to change for each other to put up together. To that they live across jungles, trailers, infact half America! They undergo a series of changes in life together through a journey of 4 years, and finally discover each other as true soul mates. They marry, have a series of dreams where they think they have attained salvation, give seminars on love, and finally settle down.
My Analysis
For me, the book fails at all points. I find Richard to be a overtly selfish character, who knows nothing in life except philosophy. He wants a ”perfect soul mate” who is committed to him, respects his freedom and independence, doesn’t become too involved in his life, and finally, shouldn’t expect any commitments from him! Richard wants all these characters in that one women, but probably doesn’t want to do the same to her. He doesn’t want to be committed to her. He believes that he can date and go to bed with any women he likes, in-spite of being in love with her, as a perfectly acceptable situation, coz it his freedom of thought. This comes across to me as completely ridiculous frame of mind.
Add to that, Richard doesn’t know that he has a mind. He earns a million dollars, but doesn’t know a hint what to do with it...more than that he doesn’t simply care. So what happens to money...simple, a worthless accountant of his, invests his money in losing business, and thereby causing complete losses of his money, and he ends up having to pay a million dollars to the INS. I cannot imagine a person being so neglectful of money, whatever reason it is. Again, it is Leslie, who manages to get him out of trouble, by using the INS loop holes and doling him out.
What ever true character is shown, is shown by Leslie, who gives up everything for this one man whom she is in love with. No, she doesn’t despair when she is sick, and needs Richard badly...but our Richard wants to go on a more important date with a another woman, who at that point of time is more important than a Sick Leslie. Leslie almost gives up, but writes what I would call as one of the most wonderful exhibition of writing. She writes her mind out, and man, does she write is beautifully! Richard who almost discards this letter, then decides to talk to Leslie and decides to give his love a try. They decide to give their love a chance to develop, and mature, and this almost takes them 4 years. Again all across the book , you see that Leslie is the one who is more compromising than Richard, and she is the one who turns out to be more giving in love than Richard.
The prose of the book is quite good, and the only reason why I rated this book 2 stars! Added to that, some of Leslie’s dialogues are wonderful, and especially the letter she writes to him. The novel is thankfully not so big, otherwise I would have never finished it!
Finally
Richard for me comes across as a person who believes that ”true love” is just about getting love, but need not necessarily be giving love. Currently, the couple have divorced, but his perception to love now says that “you need not stay with your soul mate to be in love”, obviously an egoistic opinion. I really don’t recommend this book to anyone coz instead of defining true love, it puts it across as a selfish thought. For me, Richard Bach still doesn’t realize the true meaning of love, and maybe its he himself who needs to re-frame his mind. He probably doesn’t realize that
”love is not finding the perfect person….love is viewing an imperfect person perfectly.”
The End.
