I should say this is one of the most realistic and most romantic stories I have ever read. I read it 8-9 years back. I read it in just one night and that too below a golden halo of a table lamp. Probably the setting where you read a story has an impact on you somewhere. I just fell in love with this book.
This is a story that will reach out to you irrespective of whether you have been in love before or not. It will shake you and bring you face to face with some of the most troubling questions in your life.
This is a tale of a beautiful love that sparkles between a lonely war bride(Francesca) and a National Geographic photographer(Robert). Francesca is all alone at her house as her husband and children are all away on a 3-4 day trip(I forgot where). Robert is single and a detached person. The nature of his job seldom lets him stick to one place for long. He traverses different places with his camera and very little paraphernalia.
Robert is on a project to do some kind of a story on bridges in Madison County. It is here that he takes a wrong turn and meets Francesca(or was it the best mistake of his life?). She offers to help this lost photographer by showing him around. Francesca herself has seemingly lost all the recklessness of youth and become a mother and a wife. She has just been playing these roles that are so dangerously and silently devouring the womenfolk for ages.
Francesca realizes that she did forget all those fine qualities such as being passionate, being wild, just being free! And then what if you have someone you identify with totally, someone who you know understands you knocking at your doorsteps? Francesca realizes what she has been missing all this time. There is time for every purpose under heaven, right? She realizes that there is more to her persona than just fulfilling her duties as a faithful wife and a loving mom.
They have a little time at hand(precisely 4 days). They dance, they sing and they lose control. They share the same pangs of loneliness and that draws them together. Most importantly they live!
Do any of you think this was being unfaithful on Francesca’s part? At least I would not say so! I’d say this is as pure as your love for the man or woman in your life. In fulfilling their duties, women usually forget what they really wanted from life for themselves. If it is love and passion for Francesca, I do not see anything wrong here. Closeness(some may read this as intimacy) does not necessarily stem from who she is close physically with. It’s YOU who is closest.
Read this book and enjoy life as it should be enjoyed. With Francesca you will take the same emotional trip and you will cry with her. You will realize what separation really means.
You will undergo a feeling of restlessness in the last few moments before this beautiful chapter in your life comes to a close. Would you have taken that one chance in your life? And do you consider it to be wrong?
And what about Robert? Is it that he was there only to have fun? Or did something touch him so deep that he can never ever imagine a life without Francesca? Is this the true definition of soul mate? And how do we come to know about this true love story and how did it make it to the book? The same book which touched me neath the golden halo of that table lamp will touch you no matter when and where you read it.
Remember this is true story and not a storybook love. Reality is very different than what we would want it to be. So does Francesca take her chances with this stranger before he leaves and the end of this tender story is written? Just hear the story before he leaves and we write the end. **A moment’s all it takes to say goodbye. Right?
Go Francesca! Go. Don’t wait until tomorrow; for tomorrow is not only far away, it sometime never comes.