A story about idealism and loss, as shown in a relationship between Sarah and Fielding, a couple whose relationship was bound to end in tragedy from the start. See the movie first and if you like it, read the book. The movie is my favorite of all time. I watch it again and again and cry every time. I feel like the characters show you two different paths that an idealistic person could take, almost like Anna and Levin in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Sarah is passionate, religious, and radical. Her version of social change is very grassroots. Fielding takes a a more carefully planned change-from-the-inside as an elected official approach. He, like Levin, is the more practical, but also more disillusioned one. Their arguments about the best way to change the world are like the arguments I've had inside my head as my more idealistic self contends with the realistic side. The opening scene starts with a Joni Mitchell song "You're in my blood like holy wine. You taste so bitter, and so sweet. Oh, I could drink a case of you. And I would still be on my feet." Towards the end, Sarah says "Before we were just sketches and we could still imagine we could fit together. But now we've been painted in so deeply, you know the lines are so dark. It seems wrong to think we belong together. But I think it...it's what we want..But let's not forget how few people get what they want. And those that do - well, they're not really the lucky ones, are they?...[The lucky ones:] are those who do what they are meant to."
Now I understand why so many people appreciate Scott Spencer's work. Thanks to a user on LJ for recommending I try again after my disappointment with Willing. Fielding Pierce is a man who wants to be a part of the system. When he falls in love with a woman who believes the system is flawed and devotes her self to working for those who can't fight for themselves, it would seem that there's no way the relationship would work. And it wasn't working when she was killed as part of collateral damage in a political assassination. This sets Fielding on a path of loving what he has lost, but at the same time, achieve his goal of playing the political game so well he ends up running for election for Congress, with all the right backers. Still clinging to the dream of what might have never been with Sarah, he appears to slowly be losing his grip on reality. The story is set for the most part in wintery Chicago, a place Spencer seems to know really well. He also has a good grasp of what it is to grieve for the future when the rest of the world has already moved on.
What do You think about Waking The Dead (2000)?
I want to start out by saying that Scott Spencer has the most beautiful command of language that I've read in a long while. I honestly didn't expect to like this book much, but the story completely drew me in. I feel like there are so many levels to the plot besides just being about an aspiring politician obsessing over a deceased girlfriend: family and how their expectations (or lack thereof) shape you, the corruption of politics (sometimes in spite of the best of intentions), true service to God vs. lip service, ect.I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. Truthfully, I spent at least half the book somewhat convinced that the protagonist had completely lost his mind, and I don't know if the conclusion confirmed or denied that suspicion entirely; therefore, if you like for everything to be neatly tied up by the end of a novel, you might need to prepare yourself for disappointment in this case.
—Sara
