Well while reading, The Measures Between Us by an American author, Ethan Hauser, who works as an editor in the NY Times, I had to keep my mind open. Looking at the reviews on Good reads, my mind easily drew the conclusion that the book is going to be pathetic. But while down to 140-150 pages, my mind started to open up and I cursed myself so much for not opening up my mind more broadly from the beginning. I'd like to describe the book in just one word- it's insanely terrific, bloody raw, and to feel that, guys you need to give a lot of your patience and heart into it!
Have you ever wondered that too much rain causes pain? Sounds rhyming!
Ethan Hauser has shed light into the minds of those humans who share their life with a river, which floods up during the monsoons. Hence, a flooding river around a small town in Boston and a young woman named Cynthia are the key players of this plot and all the other character's lives and emotions are centered on these two. Sounds strange! But basically this is a book which highlights people suffering from depression and mental turmoil caused due to a river's rage in the monsoons and also due to the turmoil inside their soul.
Now while reading this book about depression, I can't stop myself from quoting from John Green's The Fault in Our Stars:
"Depression is a side effect of dying."
And Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the American poet has quoted about depression as:
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
Synopsis:
Cynthia was actually sad, but she made it look like all bright, and colorful and okay. Henry a psychology professor is in too much love with his beautiful wife, Lucinda, but somewhere in his heart he wants to get appreciated and for that he is already traveling the dark path in his marriage. Vincent is the father and a woodwork professor who is still confused as to how to handle her only daughter, Cynthia's sadness and gloominess and moodiness, and is also on the line to lose his job. Mary the mother who had always been so distant to Cynthia is now finding it more difficult to keep her heart and mind at peace while understanding Cynthia's inner turmoil. Jack, who is an intern working under Henry and is obsessed about investigating and studying about climate changes and the river's behavior along with the emotions of those who residing beside the river and is dying to ask so many questions to Cynthia. Lucy, Henry's wife, is pregnant with their first child and she is facing her inner demons which she is scared to let them out and eventually goes distant from Henry, often wishing if she could end up like Cynthia in a mental institute.
Well the above is the blurb, you might be thinking, where's the story, where's the flow of a typical novel? But no, this is not your regular novel. You can say, this book is more of a study of certain characters who are everyday fighting with themselves to balance both their heart and mind equally.
Yeah, I know sounds boring when there is no story. Well, frankly speaking there is no continuous story to fall for, this is what you get in this book- a through characteristic study of individuals who are suffering from "depression" of their own, a study about growing close and growing distant, a study about relationships those matter the most.
There are two couples- one is suffering with their daughter's mental illness and sadness and pain, and the other is getting ready to welcome a new child simultaneously facing their own nervousness and confusion.
The characters are sinister, and somewhat disparate in their own. It is a different book so you need to see it from a different angle, it can't be compared to your everyday novel. Hence, I'd like to applause for the author for pulling the chords of uniqueness in his book so skillfully and brilliantly. And frankly, this book might not bring out myriad of emotions but it enlightens us with its aura and grandeur and helps us learn about pain and grief and about finding yourself distant from so many things and so many loved ones. I hats off to the author for letting me see through the raw and nipping emotions of these characters. Only thing that left me disappointed is that the author had left so many mysteries unsolved! As they say: "Left to your Imagination!"
Verdict: Without a strong plot, the book cannot win any hearts at all!
Courtesy: I'd like to immensely thank the author, Ethan Hauser, for giving me this opportunity to read and review his book.
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Author Info:
Ethan Hauser received his MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His fiction has been published in Esquire, Playboy and New Stories From the South: The Year’s Best, and he was a finalist for the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award. He lives in New York and is a former editor at New York Times, where his journalism also appears.
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