I saw this one as a film long before I read the book. The movie really resonated with me, I was surprised to learn that someone in their early fifties could get Alzheimer’s disease, and then saddened to watch the main character’s inevitable decline. Unfortunately, I didn’t get nearly as much feeling out of the book. While it had far more details and incidents reflecting what patients and families of those with early onset Alzheimer’s go through, it lacked a sense of emotion for me. The writing style is very straightforward tell-don’t-show, which often leaves me feeling bored and uninvested. It’s not just me- lots of reviewers were very moved by this book, but a few on LibraryThing felt the same way I did.
For what it is, though, I read the whole thing through, interested to learn but feeling at a distance from the whole thing. The novel is told from Alice’s point of view- a university professor at Harvard, specializing in linguistics. What a horrific thing, for a person so invested in and deeply understanding language, to be aware she’s going to loose it, to watch and feel it unravel from her mind day to day. At first she didn’t realize anything was wrong. Anybody will forget a word here or there, miss an appointment, loose their car keys, especially as they’re getting older. But then Alice forgets to get on a flight for an important conference. She can’t recall what she’s teaching in the middle of a class. She gets lost in her own neighborhood, doesn’t recognize her grown daughter, and more. The inconsistencies in her mind and moments of confusion become more frequent and alarming, so she seeks help and a diagnoses, and of course is shocked and appalled at being told she has Alzheimer’s. She’s supposed to have so much ahead of her still- research to finish, students to mentor, grandchildren on the way . . . The story is just as much about how it affects her family too, though it’s seen through Alice’s eyes and as the disease progresses her account becomes somewhat unreliable. The reader is able to see what’s going on even as Alice forgets who people are and what she’s doing.
The ending was sad, but also heartwarming, at least in my opinion. Even when Alice lost her ability to teach and had to be minded constantly by family and caretakers, she became more content in small daily pleasures, and her relationship with one of her daughters actually seemed to improve, as she no longer criticized and held her daughter up to a high standard, but just accepted things. The husband did not seem nearly as understanding and supportive as the reader would hope, but I bet it’s a realistic depiction of how some family members react. Very much worth reading, though honestly I just did not enjoy the book much. I see the author has written other novels about brain injury and illness (one about Huntington’s disease, another about a woman who suffers a car accident and can no longer perceive or feel anything on her left side) that look interesting, but being aware of the writing style, I’d really have to be in the right mood for them.
Borrowed from the public library.
