Before I Go to Sleep
參賽者：張〇誠（應外三）
名次：第三名
書名：Before I Go to Sleep
得獎作品：
The author divided the whole novel into 3 parts: Today, Journal, and Today. At the beginning of this fiction, Christine woke up and knows nothing, including her name, identity, and all her own memory. The only thing she could pick up was that she was 20 or so, but actually she was almost 50 already. Then, she realized she was now sleeping with an unknown guy, who then claimed that he was Ben and her husband as well. Later, he told her about how they first met and their wedding. After handing Christine a scrapbook containing some so-called memory between him and her, he went out for work. With uncertainty, she browsed through the book. Later, a ringing sound filled the room. A man whose name was Dr. Nash called, claiming that he and Christine had been meeting about the disease for a couple of weeks. The most important thing he told her was that under the shoebox in the closet lay a journal that Christine had been keeping for weeks. The first part of this novel ended with an appalling sentence: Don’t trust Ben! Then part two of the novel began; in other words, the journal that Christine Lucas had been keeping will lead readers, and the memory-lost protagonist, onto the path to gradually discover the thrilling trauma of herself. In the last two parts of the novel, Christine gradually found out some inconsistencies between what Ben told her and what she discovered herself. Therefore, she decided to trust only herself, started a journal, and relied on her own way to discover the hidden world.
There are two main reasons for me to admire this book. First, I assumed the use of first person point of view was remarkable. As mentioned above, the second part of the novel is Christine’s daily journal. Just like reading our own journal, I read Christine’s and the images of the setting emerged as if I was experiencing the story written in words by myself. Simply because of this, when I was skimming through the journal, it seemed that I were Christine herself. It felt like that I was with Christine to feel happiness and sadness, to doubt what she heard, to explore the unknown past. Second, the novel also provided a penetrating insight to the anxiety and struggle of a sufferer from memory loss. For Christine, her own world was not managed by herself. However, it was built based on others’ statements. However, for everyday new Christine, those who claimed themselves as secret doctor, intimate friend, or even lovers are no more than strangers. It is undeniably difficult for her to trust all they said. She was like a drowning swimmer, while those who were still in touch with her are her only reliance. She thought of running away; tragically, she could not even do this because tomorrow she would wake up and remember nothing. The depiction of the frightened mood was not only outstanding but remarkable.
This novel began with a line from Parviz Owsia, “I was born tomorrow/ today I live/yesterday killed me.” This line, or poem, perfectly described the hardship that Christine suffered. For her, tomorrow was a brand-new life, for she could not remember anything. The life she could really handle was only today. The yesterday her was already killed as long as yesterday passed. This novel, as far as I am concerned, is a total success because its plot was well-organized and aroused readers impulse to keep turning the pages. In my opinion, the author simply figured out a brilliant theme of a novel. Christine, a mid-aged woman, still thought of herself as a young lady. The huge memory void successfully created conflict, which made this novel thrilling and exciting. Certainly, memory loss is one of the most cliché plots in soap operas. Yet, the use of first person point of view was brilliant enough to support the whole book. The depiction of fear and helplessness in this book was beyond description. A book of detailed depiction of humanity will be marvelous. This book is the one.
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