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I'm not 100% sure why I decided to read The Notebook (1996) by Nicholas Sparks. I know why I bought it: a few years ago I saw it and two other Sparks novels offered in a yard sale for next to nothing, and decided I should probably read one of them just for professional research. I also know that, when I got them home, I wondered what had come over me. Then, a year or two ago, I saw most of the 2004 movie version of The Notebook on cable, and was modestly impressed. (A top-notch performance from Gena Rowlands, as one might expect, while Rachel McAdams is likewise always good.) But it didn't persuade me to pull the book off the shelf. Yet a couple of days ago, something did -- perhaps just the thought that there could hardly be a novel more different from The Man with Two Bodies (see http://realthog.livejournal.com/28277.html).
Whatever . . .
There's not a huge amount of plot in this shortish novel. In the frame (and, as we discover, principal) story we join the elderly, failing Noah Calhoun in the nursing home where daily he reads from his notebook to his Alzheimer's-suffering wife Allie the tale of their love affair; the bulk of the book is taken up with that surprisingly simple tale. (The reasonably well written raunchy bit, for those who want to cut to the chase, runs from page 125 to page 129 in the hardback edition.)
I'd anticipated that I'd find the book nauseatingly twee, but I have to confess that eventually I did fall into its spell -- not during the long flashback to the young couple but in the book's again longish final section (i.e., the second part of the frame), when alongside Noah we confront the monstrous theft Allie's disease has perpetrated upon her, and discover his absolute devotion to this woman he's loved for over sixty years. Noah describes all this in a manner that's both sentimental -- as it would obviously have to be -- and at the same time rather down-to-earth. Having seen extremely intelligent close family members of my own lose their wits in their final times, I found myself really quite affected.
I'm not planning to rush to the shelves for another Sparks novel any time soon, but I'm very glad I didn't consign these rash purchases to a library sale/thrift shop, a fate that's been on the cards for them more than once. Perhaps I'll take one with me the next time I fly across to the UK -- that's about the level of reading The Notebook is.
