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Message in a bottle
Sparks, Nicholas






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1. Title: Message in a bottle
Author: Nicholas Sparks
Publisher: Bantam Books London
First year of publication: 1999

2. The message in the bottle is the ?reason? why Theresa goes looking for Garrett. If she hadn?t found the letter, she would never met Garrett.

3. The story is set in 1997. The first letter Theresa find says 22 July 1997.
I don?t think it is very important to know the exact date. You do know now how long the bottle has been on the sea. And you also know in witch month and season they live in. But you could read it without to know.

4. Actually, there only passes two or three hours. Theresa sits on the beach, thinking about Garrett from the moment she found the letter, until he died. And that ?story? begins at august 1997 and it ends somewhere in December two years later. (the day that Theresa sits on the beach, thinking about Garrett)

5. The theme has something to do with love! I think it is identical to the tittle.
I don?t think the writer tried to make a point or a statement wit the story. It?s more a dream he tells. I mean, doesn?t everyone wants to find a very romantic message in a bottle, and fall in love with the writer?

6. The story is told by someone who doesn?t have a place in the story. The writer tells it, as he have seen all this happening.

7. The story is sets in three places. In Boston, in North Carolina and at the sea. It doesn?t matter where Theresa lives (Boston), as long as she lives far away from Garret. But it is very important that Garrett lives at the beach. He is the kind of man that lives by the sea. He loves the sea, and I think that is why he send those letters to Catherine (his dead wife) by sea.

8. There are two main characters: Theresa and Garrett.
Theresa is a 36-year-old mother of a 12-year-old son. She divorced her ex-husband, because he cheated on her. Since then she went out whit a couple of men, but none of them could give her what she wanted. She is a kind person, and afraid that she, but also her son, get hurt again.
I don?t think that she learned something very important at the end of the story. She might know now how it is to love someone with all your hart, for the rest of your life. And she knows how Garrett felt when his wife died, but it isn?t something she could use in the rest of her live.
Garrett on the other hand, did learnt something. He learned that he can move on with his live, without feeling quietly to Catherine.
Garrett is a man of every women?s dream. He is a very good looking man. And he lives at the beach, has his own shop, and his own sailboat. He just has a little problem with getting over his wife, Catherine.

9. I think there are two turning points that are important. One is when Garrett finds the letters at Theresa?s home. After he find the letters, he doesn?t want to know anything from Theresa. And the other is in the end, when Garrett dies.

10.
July 22, 1997
My Dearest Catherine,
I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I can almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent of wildflowers that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away.
I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier near Wrightsville Beach. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sunlight. I am struck as I see you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I think as I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when you finally turn to me, I notice that others have been watching you as well. ?Do you know her?? they ask me in jealous whispers, and as you smile at me, I simply answer with the truth. ?Better than my own hart.?
I stop when I reach you and take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again.
I raise my hand and gently touch you cheek and you tilt your head and close your eyes. My hands are hard and your skin is soft, and I wonder for a moment if you?ll pull back, but of course you don?t. You never have, and it is at tomes like this that I know what my purpose is in life.
I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to project you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be.
But then, as always, the mist starts to form as we stand close to one another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us.
I feel my throat begin to close and my eyes well up with tears because I know it is time for you to go. The look you give me at that moment haunts me. I feel your sadness and my own loneliness, and the ache in my heart that had been silent for only a short time grows stronger as you release me. And then you spread your arms and step back into the fog because it is you place and not mine. I long to go with you, but your only response is to shake your head because we both know that it is impossible.
And I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away. I find myself straining to remember everything about this moment, everything about you. But soon, always too soon, your image vanish and the fog rolls back to its faraway place and I am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry.
Garrett.

This is the letter that Theresa find at the beach. I thought it was very touching.

11. There wasn?t a part that didn?t interested me. It?s a very romantic book, it could be a dream of me. I think that is why I really enjoyed reading the book.

12. I would like to be Theresa. I would like to live the life she has. A good job, a great kid, and than you find a bottle with a very romantic message in it. And when you find the writer of the message, you fall in love with each other. That?s the perfect way of finding the one!

13. There is no character I could hate. I couldn?t hate Garrett, Theresa or her son. I also couldn?t hate Garretts father, Jeb, or Theresa?s friend, Deanna. They are just to nice to hate.

14. At first I wasn?t satisfied at the end of the book, it is really a pity that Garrett died, and I hated it that the book was at his end. I could read another 200 pages. But later I understand it better, why Garrett died. It is a very beautiful end. In the beginning he has lost his wife, and got over it, and now Theresa has lost the one she loved, and she has to get over it in future.

15. When Theresa goes on vacation with Deanna, an good friend of hers, she find a bottle on the beach. There is a message in the bottle. After reading
it, she lets Deanna read it. They both cry when they read it. It?s probably about a woman, named Catherine, who died, and the writer must love her very much. Deanna thinks it might be a good idea to write about it in Theresa?s column.
When the column about the message has been published, Theresa receives a lot of mail about it. Also a letter from a woman who found a same sort of letter a few years ago.
After founding both letters, Theresa gets a little curious about it. She tries to find another letter. And she does. Now she has three letters from the very mysterious man named Garrett. She decides she should go look for him. And after a few phonecalls she knows where he lives and that he owns a shop. She takes the first plane to North Carolina.
When she is in the shop and asks for Garrett, a jong man tells her he should be at the docks. When she goes down there to look for him, she finds him. When she looks at the boot Happenstance, the boot of Garrett, Garrett walks down the stairs. After a few words of hello, Garrett asks her if she would like to go sailing with him this afternoon. They really are attracted to each other.
This is the beginning of their relationship. When they come back from the sailing trip, Theresa forgets ?by accident? her jacket. The next day, when she picks her jacket up, they have dinner and a beach walk. The next day they meat each other again, and by the time Theresa has to go back to Boston they have a relation.
A few weeks later Theresa visits Garrett with her son. They have a great time together. They see each other again a few weeks later, and never talk about the distance between them. This goes on for about a year.
When Garrett finds out he really loves Theresa, he decided to ask her to come and live with him in North Carolina. When he tells Theresa what he wants her to do, they get an argument about it. Theresa wants to be a few minutes alone and goes to the shop to get a bottle of wine. When she arrives back home she finds Garrett whit his letters in his hand. He is really upset, and he isn?t able to talk reasonable about it and takes the first plane to North Carolina.
When he arrives at his home, he has a very good talk with his father, and a few hours later Theresa stands for the door. They spent the rest of the day in bed, and by the end of the day, they have a conversation. Theresa tells Garret she doesn?t want to continue until he is sure he is over Catherine. And she goes home, leaving Garrett deeply unhappy.
When Theresa has left Garrett writes two letters, one to Theresa, and one to Catherine. The letter to Catherine has to be send to Europe, and must be thrown into deep water. But there is a storm ahead, and Garrett doesn?t make it back to the docks.

My Darling,
One year has passed since I sat with your father in the kitchen. It is late at night and though the words are coming hard to me, I can?t escape the feeling that it?s time that I finally answer your question.
Of course I forgive you. I forgive you now, and I forgave you the moment I read your letter. In my heart, I had no other choice. Leaving you once was hard enough; to have done it a second tome would have been impossible. I loved you too much to have let you go again. Though I?m still grieving over what might have been, I find myself thankful that you came into my life for even a short period of time. In the beginning, I?d assumed that we were somehow brought together to help you through your time of grief. Yet now, one year later, I?ve come to believe that it was the other way around.
Ironically, I?m the same position you were, the first time we met. As I write, I?m struggling with the ghost of someone I loved and lost. I now understand more fully the difficulties you were going through, and I realise how painful it must have been for you to move on. Sometimes my grief is overwhelming, and even though I understand that we will never see each other again, there is a part of me that wants to hold on to you forever. It would be easy for me to do that because loving someone else might diminish my memories of you. Yet, this is the paradox: Even though I miss you greatly, it?s because of you that I don?t dread the future. Because you were able to fall in love with me, you have given me hope, my darling. You taught me that it?s possible to move forward in life, no matter how terrible your grief. And in your own way, you?ve made me believe that true love cannot be denied.
Right now, I don?t think I?m ready, but this is my choice. Do not blame yourself. Because of you, I am hopeful that there will come a day when my sadness is replaced by something beautiful. Because of you, I have the strength to go on.
I don?t know if the dead con come back to this earth and move about unseen by those who loved them, but if they can, then I know that you will always be with me. When I listen to the ocean, it will be your whispers; when a cool breeze caresses my cheek, it will be your spirit passing by. You are not gone forever, no matter who comes into my life. You are standing with God, alongside my soul, helping to guide me toward a future that I cannot predict.
This is not a good-bye, my darling, this is a thank-you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. But most of all, thank you for showing me that there will come a time when I can eventually let you go.
I love you
T.
On a December day, a year after Garrett died, Theresa sits at the beach, and thinks about this all. She have write a letter to Garrett, and throws it in the see


Verwerkingsopdracht 9: Vergelijk het boek met de film.

De film en het boek zijn heel erg verschillend. De rode lijn is wel hetzelfde, maar er zijn een heleboel dingen bij verzonnen, en weggelaten.
*Het eerste grote verschil tussen de film en het boek is, in de film woont Garrett nog altijd in hetzelfde huis, in het boek was hij na Catherines dood verhuist naar een kleiner huis. Er staan in dat huis ook nog allemaal dingen van Catherine, ze was een schilder en die dingen staan er dus allemaal nog.
*Het tweede grote verschil is iets dat niet in het boek voorkomt. De familie van Catherine, haar ouders en haar broer. Garrett heeft ruzie met haar familie, omdat die vinden dat hij Catherine van hun heeft afgepakt. Later in de film, wanneer Garrett de schilderijen van Catherine aan hun geeft, wordt de relatie beter. De broer van Catherine helpt hem zelfs bij het maken van zijn boot.
*Dat Garrett een boot maakt komt ook niet in het boek voor. In het boek bezit hij zijn eigen duikersshop, en geeft hij duikerslessen. Dit komt helemaal niet in de film voor.
*De film gaat ook veel sneller. In het boek bezoeken Theresa en Garrett elkaar meerdere malen, en dan pas vindt Garrett de brieven. In de film vindt Garrett de brieven al bij het eerste bezoekje. Bovendien heeft Garrett in de film maar twee brieven geschreven, en is de derde brief door Catherine geschreven. In het boek heeft Garrett 17 brieven geschreven, en heeft Catherine geen een brief geschreven. En zelfs de brieven zijn helemaal verschillend.
*De manier waardoor Garrett overlijd is ook heel anders dan in het boek. In het boek komt Garrett om in een storm. In de film komt hij ook ten overlijden in een storm, alleen gebeurt het nu tijdens het redden van een andere familie, die door de storm in problemen komt.

Het is raar om de film te zien als je het boek hebt gelezen. Het boek haalt de film omlaag. Ik vond de film namelijk nog niet half zo mooi en ontroerend als het boek. Er zijn een heleboel dingen weggelaten, dit kan natuurlijk niet anders, maar het is zonde. De sc?nes zijn te kort, en je ziet de liefde tussen Garrett en Theresa niet echt ?opbloeien?. Terwijl het eigenlijk best een hele mooie film is.
Ik vind het boek dan ook vele malen mooier. Het is ontroerender en je voelt de romantiek meer. En ik denk dat ik het boek nog wel een keer ga lezen, en als het in het Nederlands vertaald is, ga ik het ook in het Nederlands lezen.