A very awesome read. I had to watch the movie after reading the book but was vastly disappointed by the movie. Wilbur Larch was an obstetrician and head of an orphanage in St Clouds, Maine in the 1920s. He was a non-religious man who believed that everyone had freedom of choice and that he merely gave people what they wanted and would not give recommendations. He delivered unwanted children and also performed abortions which at that time was illegal. Homer Wells was an orphan who was adopted and returned twice and so would, as Larch thought, forever belong to St Clouds. Larch loved homer and trained him to become an obstetrician so that he would one day replace him. However Homer disagreed with Larch on abortions and said that he would never perform one as he believed the fetus had a soul.
Then came Wally and Candy, a beautiful couple who came to St Clouds for the sole purpose of abortion. Homer fell in love with Candy at first sight and followed them back to Wally's family's apple orchard to work as a picker. Wally then went to the war to fly the Burma route during WWII. His plane was shot down and he was thought to be dead. Candy who was never good at being alone fell in love with Homer but they kept their affair a secret out of the protection of wally's mother's heart. Candy then got pregnant and in order to continue keeping things a secret, they delivered the baby at St clouds and then told everyone that they had adopted an orphan. This secret they kept till Angel, their son, was a teenager. Before their return to the apple orchard, they received news that Wally had been found (very Pearl Harborish) but was paralyzed after being bitten by Japanese B mosquito. He was also sterile after acquiring an infection during catherization in Burma. Candy married Wally even though she told Homer that she loved him but she couldn't leave Wally now that he was a cripple. Homer continued working on the orchard despite Larch's continuous efforts in asking him to return to St Clouds to replace him. Larch then started faking documents (medical degrees etc) and stories so that Homer could officially become the head of the orphanage. Homer continued to refuse until he had to perform an abortion for one of the pickers who was abused and impregnated by her father. That was he relented on the belief that abortion is immoral. Larch then died of an accidental ether overdose and Homer had no choice but to return to St Clouds as his replacement. It was before his departure that he told Angel the truth and Candy the truth to Wally (although throughout the story there was the impression given that Wally already knew).
The story is beautifully written as it portrays the dark and beautiful sides of the human nature. Dr Larch and Homer's father and son love for each other, Homer's unrelenting and insufferable love for Candy, Meloney's worship of Homer as her hero and her pursuit of him for decades, Dr Larch's and his nurses' devotion to the orphanage, the secrets that were hidden, the crimes committed (incest, fights, prostitution, etc), Homer as the prodigal son who returned to the orphanage, etc.i don't know how the movie could turn out to be so dull.
18 July 2015
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