Tuesdays With Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie - an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson.

~

"A What?? Hahahahaha ..."

Stop laughing.

"I'm sorry. Couldn't help it. Got tissue? Thanks."

"You want to do a what again?"

A book review.

"Hahahahaha ... WaaaHahahahaha ... I'm sorry. Thousand apologies. Haaa ..."

"When was the last time you read a book before this one?"

Err ... about ten, twenty years ago?

"Right. After that many years, having finished ONE book, you want to do a review?"

Yeah. Well, not exactly a review, more some thoughts on the book.

"So you want to tell your 'thoughts' on the book to the world?"

Well, my world is not that big. 20 regulars? 15 max.

"Right ... Actually, what made you pick up reading again? Your new-found interest in writing?"

Err ... Yeah.

"Okay. Okay. Let's hear it. Start with a short intro?"

~

I remember coming across the book at Tesco's book section a few months ago. It has an eye-catching title. Not thick. No big words. The kind of book that endears to me. As I'm wandering around the book store today, it catches my eyes again.

"The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house ...", "The class met on Tuesdays.", "Kissing him good-bye earned you extra credit.", "A funeral was held in lieu of graduation.", "Although no final exam was given ... The paper is presented here.", "The last class of my old professor's life had only one student. I was the student." are the kinds of statement that capture my imagination.

Since Chinese New Year break is coming up, I'm thinking of kindling my interest in reading with the spare times, and a thin book.

Heck, why not?

I pick up the book and pay for it. My first novel after ten, twenty years.

~

Tuesdays with Morrie - It's about a man who learned that his old college professor, his mentor who he had not seen for twenty years, was fighting a terminal illness from a tv show. They relived the teacher-student relationship towards the last few months of the professor's life. Their classes were held on Tuesdays. They were Tuesday people. He wrote about the professor, their relationship, their interactions towards the last few months of the professor's life, and about life, death, and everything in between that were discussed during the classes. It ended at the graduation, the professor's funeral, on a Tuesday. A teacher to the last. The book is his thesis from those classes.

"The book doesn't reveal too many new thoughts about life to you, does it? Since you dwell on that kind of subject often. You certainly didn't exhibit those can't-put-the-book-down-once-started kind of interest."

True.

"So, nothing much on the story."

It's a true story, I googled it. Mr Albom couldn't twist the facts for the sake of making it interesting, right? Still, I thought the funeral falling on a Tuesday is too coincidental to be true. Don't you think?

"Well, in a lot of ways, life is like a book."

"So, your 'thoughts' on the book?"

The style of presentation.

"The style of presentation? Wait ... is that why I'm talking in quotes and you're not?"

Yeah. Imitation is the best form of flattery. Isn't it?

"Right. It does transform the conversation to another level of imagination, doesn't it? Makes it ethereal. Adds a tinge of echoes to the exchanges."

Agree.

"And the flashbacks interspersed between the chapters?"

Yeah. That too. But I couldn't figure out why the flashbacks are in present tense though.

"Maybe it's because the flashbacks resurfaced in his mind when he was writing while listening to the recorded conversation between him and old Morrie, like it's happening right before his eyes."

Maybe.

"So, another ten years before another book?"

Nope. I'm going to read it again. Slower, this time. Then I was thinking of picking up his next book - The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Interesting title. Not thick. Doesn't seem to have big words. Curious to see Mr Mitch Albom's creativity when he's not restricted by facts.

"Well. Alrighty-then. Couldn't wait for your next 'Review'."

~

Title: Tuesdays with Morrie
Author: Mitch Albom
First Published: 1997


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