Book review
Tuck Everlasting, is an everlasting novel about the concept of living over mere existing. Most of us have seen the movie ‘Tuck Everlasting’ as children, Alexis Bledel stole our hearts as the pretty Winnie Foster with it. I have forgotten all of it now except the magnificent view of the forest as Winnie & Mr.Tuck. I read the novel just this year after wanting to read it for years simply because I kept forgetting.
Things can come together in strange ways. The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A Ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calender. Fixed points they are and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late.
Tuck Everlasting begins with this as this and opens into Treegap. In the village of Treegap lies an age-old secret, which will be revealed to Winnie Foster very soon. Winfred Foster is born in the Foster family who owns the Treegap wood, with a “Move on – we don’t want you here’ sign you can say they are not very friendly people.
How true? Winnie plans on running away from her house as she feels caged by the constant attention and watch of her mother and grandmother. So one morning she runs away into the woods of her family’s ownership. In the woods, she hears a sweet melody, the same music she heard last evening. Her grandma said that it is elf’s music. So she sets out to have a look at the elf.
Instead, in the clearing of the woods, she finds a boy and falls in love at first sight. The boy, Jesse sees her too and asks her to come out of her hiding place. Winnie is thirsty and wants some of the spring water but Jesse stops her from having it. Jesse’s mother Mae and brother Miles soon arrive the clearing. Soon, Winnie is riding a horse for the first time. Most of all, her dream of getting kidnapped is finally taking shape. Oh! has she dreamt of getting kidnapped, but she never imagined her kidnappers will be as alarmed as she was.
So why did Jesse stop Winnie from drinking that water? There’s the big secret.
The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it. How deep, after all, can it go?
Mae and the boys take Winnie to their house deep into the woods. There she meets Mr. Tuck, Mae’s husband. The ‘Tuck Family’ tells her the story of how they became immortal after drinking the water from that spring. She listens to their story carefully.
Away from her mother’s watchful eyes and nagging she falls in love with their freedom to live. She goes fishing with Mr. Tuck and eats without worries, haves fun for the first time in her life. Unbeknown to her soon she finds herself falling in love with Jesse.
There’s a problem, though the fact that she is kidnapped and her family is looking for her. Here comes out antagonist of this novel. A man in a yellow suit who has been looking for the Tucks for as long as he can remember. He strikes a deal with the Foster family in return of Winnie.
Rest of it? Might as well read the novel now my friend.
Tuck Everlasting and the concept of living forever….
I loved the pure simplicity of this novel so much. Published in 1975 and even today it continues to make sense. The Tucks are immortal. The man in a yellow suit wants to create a business out of that ‘Spring water’ that can make people immortal. Mr.Tuck wishes to be mortal again. To change, to live with time and die with it. Winnie has an option to become immortal with the spring being in her woods. Winnie has all the reasons in the world to drink from the spring. For all that’s worth and more, our choices in life make a huge difference.
So here’s the question: what would you say if you can have a chance at eternity, will you take it or drop it?
- Goodreads rating – 3.89
- REVIEW – Hemangini