After watching the movie Shutter Island which I reviewed here, I knew I had to get the book and read it asap to get the answer to the twists the movie presented, so I went online to reserve the library book and thankfully, I was the first in the reservation list. The other book I had reserved some time ago, called Super Freakonomics which is some sort of a sequel to the book Freakonomics which I reviewed here, had also arrived at the Central Library so I picked both books up at the same time together with another 2 books that caught my eye.
When I got home, the first book I read was Shutter Island of course and because I've discarded the nasty habit of reading the last few pages of a book first (it spoils the pleasure), I only got my answers at the end of the book - Andrew Laeddis/Edward Daniels/Teddy was insane - the hospital was not trying to make him crazy or make him believe he was crazy so that they could imprison him out of fear he would blow the whistle on their experiments on patients. Andrew Laeddis could not accept what had happened - his wife killing their 3 children, in particular, Rachel, his 4 year old daughter, closest to his heart (according to the book) and he murdering the person he loved the most in the world, his wife.
The line in the movie "Would you rather live as a monster or die as a hero?" is not in the book at all. I read though that the author of the book had taken the stance that Teddy did not consciously opt for the lobotomy to erase all his memories because if this was the case, that Teddy had shown some awareness, the lobotomy would not have been carried out. So this answers the second twist in the movie too.
The Slog Reviews: 8/10. As for whether one should read the book, I would say that if one has not watched the movie, one could well enjoy it but if one has watched the movie and read my reviews on both the movie and book, then maybe one could give it a miss. Because some of the lines in the movie are lifted right off the book and the movie brings to life not just the characters but the relationships as described in the book, in particular, Teddy's deep love for his wife.
The book describes the relationship between Teddy and Dolores in a moving manner too:
When he met her
"He thought: so this is what it feels like to love. No logic to it - he barely knew her. But there it was just the same. He'd just met the woman he'd known, somehow, since before he was born. The measure of every dream he'd never dared indulge."
When he thinks of her (when he is Teddy and not Andrew)
"But as the years passed, he missed her more, not less, and his need for her became a cut that would not scar over, would not stop leaking...I held her. This world can't give me that. The world can only give me reminders of what I don't have, can never have, didn't have for long enough...We were supposed to grow old together. I wanted to watch the lines etch themselves into your flesh and know when each and everyone of them appeared. Die together. And if I knew for certain that all it would take to hold her again would be to die, then I couldn't raise the gun to my head fast enough"
"What was the point of buying groceries, shaving...if none of it brought him closer to her..."
When he has just pulled his 3 children's bodies from the lake she drowned them in
"If he could sacrifice his own mind to restore hers, he would. Sell his limbs? Fine. She had been all the love he'd ever known for so long. She had been what carried him through the war, through this awful world. He loved her more than his life, more than his soul."
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