Book Review : The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

(photo credit: google books)

One word to describe this book, beautiful. To be honest, I noticed of this book after the film "Carol" trailer caught my attention. I did't watch the film at first, but glimpses of the film already provide me some visual to imagine according to the story. It is far more easier to imagine the book with the face of Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara).

Basically, this book is about love, forbidden love between a young, fresh, a little lost woman with an independent, seasoned and resolute woman. The love relationship here is not complicated, but I feel that they are unsure of how deep of their feeling towards each other. Added to that is the uncertainties with the concept of homosexuality. There are no burning flame love or grand proclamation of love towards each other but everything is brought down to very basic love emotion: compatibility with each other. I guess that's why travel consists most part of the story. 

Apart from the romantics between the two, (I am not born in the era of this book setting) I truly understand how important the invention of mobile phone is today. I'll just say telegram is a chore, hotel is very important and postcards really something back then. Or I should say, telegram while travelling is a chore, going next town to pick up telegram, this hotel to pick-up telegram, and next hotel to leave a telegram (oh my, I can't even). Postcard is the best, it's just simple and concise. I cannot not think about this all the time reading this book.

Finally, I really really like the ending of this book. Some say in every relationships, there is a "reacher" and a "settler". In this story, I think they are both the "reacher".