SWEET 17: A Movie Review of Nicolas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember
By Vicson Aypa Mabanglo
Get your tissues ready.
Nicholas Charles Sparks was born the second son of Patrick and Jill Sparks on December 31, 1965 in Omaha,Nebraska. As a child he lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska. The family finally settled in Fair Oaks, California. He graduated as the valedictorian of his high school class in 1984 and attended the University of Notre Dame on a track scholarship. He graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in Finance with high honors in 1988. He worked numerous jobs since college, including: waiter, phone salesman, and real estate appraiser. His first published work was a book with the Olympic athlete Billy Mills that published in 1990.
What is the meaning of love? Have you ever experience the four letter word, LOVE?
The narrator of the story, Landon Carter, who is a 17 year-old senior in Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1958, begins his story with the line, “When I was seventeen, my life changed forever.” He asserts that no one in his hometown would question that a 17 year old could know that, at such a young age, his life was irrevocably different. They know, because they have lived it with him. As he tells his story, he is 57 years old, but he says he can remember every detail like it was yesterday. He relives it often in his mind as he has over the forty years since it happened and he feels both sadness and joy in the re-living. He’d like to take all the sadness away, but he knows that he would also lose the joy, so it takes it all in every time he reminisces. Each time the events of that year come back to him, it’s almost as if he can see himself grow younger, losing the wrinkles around his eyes and feeling his legs and arms become more muscled. He watches in his reminiscence the landscape of the town as he knows it now return to its narrow roads and acres of farmland. He suddenly imagines himself actually there – Landon Carter in front of the Baptist Church at the age of 17. And he tells us that he promises to tell us the story without leaving anything out. He warns us that first we will “smile, and then we will cry – don’t say you haven’t been warned.”
By Vicson Aypa Mabanglo
Get your tissues ready.
Nicholas Charles Sparks was born the second son of Patrick and Jill Sparks on December 31, 1965 in Omaha,Nebraska. As a child he lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska. The family finally settled in Fair Oaks, California. He graduated as the valedictorian of his high school class in 1984 and attended the University of Notre Dame on a track scholarship. He graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in Finance with high honors in 1988. He worked numerous jobs since college, including: waiter, phone salesman, and real estate appraiser. His first published work was a book with the Olympic athlete Billy Mills that published in 1990.
What is the meaning of love? Have you ever experience the four letter word, LOVE?
The narrator of the story, Landon Carter, who is a 17 year-old senior in Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1958, begins his story with the line, “When I was seventeen, my life changed forever.” He asserts that no one in his hometown would question that a 17 year old could know that, at such a young age, his life was irrevocably different. They know, because they have lived it with him. As he tells his story, he is 57 years old, but he says he can remember every detail like it was yesterday. He relives it often in his mind as he has over the forty years since it happened and he feels both sadness and joy in the re-living. He’d like to take all the sadness away, but he knows that he would also lose the joy, so it takes it all in every time he reminisces. Each time the events of that year come back to him, it’s almost as if he can see himself grow younger, losing the wrinkles around his eyes and feeling his legs and arms become more muscled. He watches in his reminiscence the landscape of the town as he knows it now return to its narrow roads and acres of farmland. He suddenly imagines himself actually there – Landon Carter in front of the Baptist Church at the age of 17. And he tells us that he promises to tell us the story without leaving anything out. He warns us that first we will “smile, and then we will cry – don’t say you haven’t been warned.”
The story was written in an omniscient point of view. He presented the story with himself narrating as Landon. He narrates the story well enough revealing every single element of the story.
Langdon is the narrator of the story who tells us how he grew up in the town of Beaufort, North Carolina, fell in love with Jamie Sullivan, and completely changed in his seventeenth year. He tells his story in flashback, forty years after it happened, as if he lived it only yesterday.
Jamie Sullivan is the real angel of the story, not just a character in the school play. She is depicted as a rather strange young girl who wears her long hair in a bun and dons the same sweater and plaid skirt almost everyday. There are several other literary devices that pop up at various times in the story. One of the most prevalent ones is foreshadowing which frequently presents clues of something that will happen later in the novel. Some examples of foreshadowing include: when Landon opens the story with the words that his life changed when he was seventeen years old, he is preparing us for profound events that he’s never forgotten, when Landon warns us that we will laugh and we will cry, he foreshadows the loving relationship that will develop between him and Jamie and the fact that she is dying.
Another element that is important to note is irony – when something happens, or is seen, or is heard that we may know, but the characters do not, or that appears opposite of what is expected. Some examples of irony include; Landon promises Jamie that he won’t fall in love with her if she’ll go to the homecoming dance with him, but that’s exactly what happens.
Other elements that are present in this novel are symbols and metaphors. Symbols are the use of some unrelated idea to represent something else. Metaphors are direct comparisons made between characters and ideas. There are many symbols and metaphors used by the author such as when Jamie sits on the floor at the orphanage on Christmas Eve with a sleeping child on.
Once again, a great book and touching story from Nicholas Sparks. It's heartbreaking, and bitter-sweet. Tear-jerking, at the same time, with a lot of depth and meaning. It's not only about true love, but also about a father's love for a daughter. We can also feel the resentment of a father who played the role of a mother as well. The relationship between the hero and the heroin reminds a person of their puppy love experience during high school. The girl next door with a guy who is so opposite in character. The spirituality highlighted here also shows what things faith can do in terms of motivating a person through hardships. A must read romance novel. The movie can't compare to the book, the book is just way better.
I was pleasantly surprised about how much I enjoyed this story. It was far from the sappy, hokey love story I was expecting. Though the main characters are teenagers, their experiences are adult in nature and very touching.
The author has selected his words very carefully, so that several of the readers' emotions are affected. This book made me laugh, cry and everything in between. A word of caution however: sensitive people will be bawling at the book's ending.
I don't feel there are any drawbacks to A Walk to Remember. I was able to predict the plot's events before they happened. However, I'm not sure that was such a bad thing in this case.
This short Nicholas Sparks novel should only take a day or two to read, so it makes an ideal library selection. A Walk to Remember also makes a good gift. It offers wonderful lessons in love and faith from which anybody could benefit.
It is a beautifully written book. It evokes a stronger sense of sorrow and grief at the end because of the way Landon's character is portrayed in the book as opposed to the movie
Jamie Sullivan is the real angel of the story, not just a character in the school play. She is depicted as a rather strange young girl who wears her long hair in a bun and dons the same sweater and plaid skirt almost everyday. There are several other literary devices that pop up at various times in the story. One of the most prevalent ones is foreshadowing which frequently presents clues of something that will happen later in the novel. Some examples of foreshadowing include: when Landon opens the story with the words that his life changed when he was seventeen years old, he is preparing us for profound events that he’s never forgotten, when Landon warns us that we will laugh and we will cry, he foreshadows the loving relationship that will develop between him and Jamie and the fact that she is dying.
Another element that is important to note is irony – when something happens, or is seen, or is heard that we may know, but the characters do not, or that appears opposite of what is expected. Some examples of irony include; Landon promises Jamie that he won’t fall in love with her if she’ll go to the homecoming dance with him, but that’s exactly what happens.
Other elements that are present in this novel are symbols and metaphors. Symbols are the use of some unrelated idea to represent something else. Metaphors are direct comparisons made between characters and ideas. There are many symbols and metaphors used by the author such as when Jamie sits on the floor at the orphanage on Christmas Eve with a sleeping child on.
Once again, a great book and touching story from Nicholas Sparks. It's heartbreaking, and bitter-sweet. Tear-jerking, at the same time, with a lot of depth and meaning. It's not only about true love, but also about a father's love for a daughter. We can also feel the resentment of a father who played the role of a mother as well. The relationship between the hero and the heroin reminds a person of their puppy love experience during high school. The girl next door with a guy who is so opposite in character. The spirituality highlighted here also shows what things faith can do in terms of motivating a person through hardships. A must read romance novel. The movie can't compare to the book, the book is just way better.
I was pleasantly surprised about how much I enjoyed this story. It was far from the sappy, hokey love story I was expecting. Though the main characters are teenagers, their experiences are adult in nature and very touching.
The author has selected his words very carefully, so that several of the readers' emotions are affected. This book made me laugh, cry and everything in between. A word of caution however: sensitive people will be bawling at the book's ending.
I don't feel there are any drawbacks to A Walk to Remember. I was able to predict the plot's events before they happened. However, I'm not sure that was such a bad thing in this case.
This short Nicholas Sparks novel should only take a day or two to read, so it makes an ideal library selection. A Walk to Remember also makes a good gift. It offers wonderful lessons in love and faith from which anybody could benefit.
It is a beautifully written book. It evokes a stronger sense of sorrow and grief at the end because of the way Landon's character is portrayed in the book as opposed to the movie
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