*cough* Okay I’m here again to make another novel review. It’s rare for me nowadays to make a decent review because I seem to get all lazy when I’m about to start one so in the end I can’t make any. So first off, I’m giving this five stars. It was really good and heart warming, nothing less from Mitch Albom.
The story is about the significance of time and how it all began from kids running on a hilltop. A boy counting his every step to sticks and stones for measuring the moments he had with his sweet heart and bowls for the very first water clock until he was banished from the land because of his refusal to take part in building the highest tower in “human history” the Tower of Babel.
They endured scarcity of food and water but then Dor (the name of the boy) still continued on doing his work which is trying to measure the passing sun and moon to days and later months. Of course, he didn’t call it like that. Because of the situation he and his wife Alli endures, Alli was very happy when they were visitors who passed by their humble abode in the outskirts of the town they were banished from. Those people had blots on their skin, so Dor advised Alli not to touch them. In the end she got too emotional with the old woman because they shared the feeling of not fitting in the world and ended up being sick with the same disease. Dor was angry. And when his wife didn’t wake up the next day he ran towards the Tower of Babel and tried to Stop Alli’s suffering by trying to confront the Gods, and that where he became Father time who will be cursed (although according to the wise old man it was a blessing) for eternity to hear the pleas of the people on earth to stop, fast forward and bring back time. He tried escaping but he couldn’t.
After what felt like forever, the wise old man again appeared before him and gave him a task, he would learn about the purpose of his existence as father time through the existence of two people on earth.
The truth is, I couldn’t understand why I felt my eyes moisten in the later parts of this novel, this is not about the two people who were chosen but it was about Dor’s desire to go back in time and erase his regrets of not being able to enjoy every passing moment he had with his wife. The only thing that made sense in his world was Alli, she made him feel things that he couldn’t feel with any other person on earth.
Time is precious, we should live each moment appreciating the things that we usually ignore. We tend to always overlook what’s important because we are too conscious of our time, too conscious of our work, too conscious of making ourselves better off that we can’t afford giving ourselves the luxury to let time pass, spend time with our parents, observe the night sky, wake up to see the sunrise those kinds of things. People who are too absorbed of those things that are immaterial are empty.
In that part where Dor made Victor see the future that awaits him, he showed us that the earth has become so different from the world we live in now, too advanced too convenient to live in but what they lack is a very fundamental element of human existence, feelings. I won’t state here anymore what they were doing but that was it. For them, what they were seeing through Victor was a very rare experience they know they will ever experience in their entire lives. They may live longer than our generation due to medical advances (but I doubt it, Albom stated this) but they lack what’s important. Ah, this reminds me of Psycho-pass. Shogo said that he was tired of the empty society that they were living in.
I’m scared, because I guess no matter how we try to make things easier for us, we really can’t escape despair, those kinds of things and the complex our society becomes the more miserable are it’s people.
Notes from the Underground 