So that I can always find my university piece of work.
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‘One day’ is a contemporary romance novel written by British author David Nicholls. The book was published in 2009. The novel possesses a very peculiar form of narration as through the whole story the writer engages his readers in a 20-year long time travel describing the main events on the particular date – on the 15th of August.
Two main characters of the book are Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew who firstly meet on that magical day in Edinburgh. They have just graduated from the university and this initial part of their relationship is quite romantic but at once they give up that dawning feeling and are trying to maintain friendship through the years. They are so opposite as individuals. Emma strives for living meaningful life, changing the world, she moves to London in search for something great which will help her achieve all her goals – she is a dreamer. And Dexter is a nonchalant guy from a wealthy family who longs for becoming famous, he wants to see the world, enjoys being always woozy and is often involved in aimless relationships. But still they have something in common, stay in touch, even spend a vacation together. Dexter becomes a successful presenter on TV while Emma works at the Mexican restaurant and later teaches at school. For several years they breaks up their friendship because Dexter is rude with Emma as to her teaching practice, and she was not satisfied with his addictions. During that pause Emma starts writing children’s novels, Dexter loses his job, marries and has a child. Soon this marriage fails and finally Emma and Dexter are not afraid to admit their shared feeling and try to build their life together as a married couple. It seems that this attempt is destined to be successful but in the end Emma dies in the accident after they have been married for two years.
Certainly the main theme of the book is love which will forever be actual. “Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? … Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.” – this quote from the book shows that we must grasp every opportunity to be happy and take risks throughout the way. There is only one life and we do not realize that everything fades away and unfortunately, everybody does too. Pride relates to the topic of love in this story. They both chase their own dreams regardless of each other, but in their inner worlds they know that together they would act more effectively. Having become famous Dexter even looks down on Emma getting smart with her because of her profession. It is easy to hurt a person but such mistakes can lead to catastrophes in relationships and the consequences are sometimes unalterable.
The issue of no less importance is adolescence, not in terms of aging matter, but of perception of our world and aspirations we pursue during the lifetime with the starting point being a teenager. Emma wants to do something useful, to do good things in life: “Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at…something. Change lives through art maybe…” She climbs in her life overcoming obstacles, adjusting to not very pleasant conditions of work, trying relationships to find soon that this is not a perfect match. But finally having reached that peak she gets what she deserves and what she yearns – she manages to reveal the talent for writing, so she creates new worlds for children making them happy. And also she changes Dexter’s life, helps him to find his own path in life as a husband and an owner of a restaurant. Dexter also has his wishes, he makes mistakes sometimes but in the end he finishes that searching for his self in harmony.
Frightening part of Dexter’s life when he is constantly intoxicated reminds of every-day problem in our world. So many people (teenagers are among them) from different fields of activity get used to alcohol and drugs and very often it is tragedy in the final. Representatives of TV, music, cinema spheres do not think that a lot of people admire them and follow their lives and this bad example also has a great influence. In the book Dexter loses his mother, but even visiting her while she struggles cancer he is drunk.
David Nicholls force us to face the crucial fact which we sometimes take great pains to abandon: life is not a fairy-tale, nothing is endless. Yes, this novel which initially seems to be a novel about love-story ending with a wedding turns out to be a tough explanation of life being a coward thing to deal with. Everyone has twists and turns, everyone chooses his succession of actions which will bring him to that particular kind of happiness which he would appreciate. But that rose-tinted vision of the world won’t do – each and every day we should fight our sobering reality and, once again, preserve every millisecond spending time with dearest people who any moment can leave us.
Love on top 