One aspect of “Beautiful Ruins” that I really enjoyed was
how each characters story was left so open ended throughout the book. The way
it was not told in chronological order allowed the reader to remain intrigued
about how everything would turn out. However, I did feel as though some of the
characters mentioned in the book were not completely necessary. Characters such
as Ron and Umi, were minor characters to the overall story, even though they
may have played major roles in some of the main characters lives.
We really were only given glimpses of their lives and did
not get to hear their whole stories. I really liked how Walter chose to give
the reader a brief overview of what ended up happening to those characters
lives at the end of the book. It gave the reader closure, and a better idea of
why he chose to include those characters.
Nevertheless, I still had questions about some of the
characters, one being Maria. Maria strongly impacted Alvis, mainly because of
the way she comforted him one night during the war. “Alvis began slowly,
telling her in Italian how he’d been stationed in Italy during the war, how
he’s met her on a deserted road and walked her home one night, how on the day
he met her he’d reached a point where he didn’t care of he lived or died, but
after meeting her he had cared again.” (Walter 230). I can understand how Alvis would feel grateful
for the way she comforted him and was there for him when he needed someone in
the war, but how did their two small encounters change the way he thought about
life?
Maria felt it as well, but chose not to say anything, yet
she truly cared for Alvis, the way he cared for her. “And in that flash, the
two moments they’ve shared are perfect, and she loves him more than any man she’s
ever known- which is maybe why she pretended not to know him, to not ruin it,
to save him the embarrassment of having cried.” (Walter 326). How could they
both gain so much from those two instances, and have it impact their individual
lives the way it did?
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