The Light Between Oceans - A man's sacrifices for his family

Before this happened, never, had I read much about the big island continent-country of Australia. So, I have been intrigued from time to time to know about more of this land. I wanted to read it from an Australian.

Before reading, the past encounters with this nation was in the form of the 2008 movie aptly named Australia starring our very own "Logan aka Wolverine" Hugh Jackman with Nicole Kidman and directed by Buz Luhrmann. I got to know somethings about the land, kangaroos and Aboriginal  Australians in 1930-40s. It is a very good film to know about a history of Australia. Then there were two more movies. 

Tracks (2013) starring Mia Wasikowska depicting a true story of 1977 about a Girl's solo journey with  her dog and four Camels across the Australian desert covering 2700 kilometres. 

The third was a 2014 film The Water Diviner starred and directed by our "Gladiator" Russel Crowe, It shows the journey of an Australian Farmer to Turkey on search for his three sons who never returned after World War I.

These three movies made me very much more attracted towards Australia. Next I wanted to read a story set in Australia. I wanted to know better. I searched for more resources in the internet. My hunger was quenched when I stumbled upon a novel title The Light Between Oceans written by debutant author Margot L. Stedman.

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The genre of the novel is historical fiction, my favourite genre. And that too set in an Australia starting at the early 1920s. I just love delving into the past reading about the olden days. I am kind of old school when it comes to stories!

We have always seen or read about the sacrifices a woman has to undergo for her family and society. But we rarely see or read or hear about the sacrifices a man has to go through. This novel exactly does that. 

It is surprising that a man's pain and sacrifices are being so delicately written by an author who herself is a female. This made me read it even more. I wanted to know how much a man's hard life is being appreciated by society. I wanted to know it from a woman's point of view, and Ms. Margot was the best way to know it. 

This novel made me understand the way of life of a section of people in Australia at the period of war time, After the World War I.  The man is Tom Sherbourne, a soldier of World War I fighting for the First Australian Imperial Force at the Western Front in war ravaged Europe. He returns home to Australia and suffers from survivors guilt. He was not at all injured while his fellow man were killed in War. 

This is depicted in the first pages at the train station of Partageuse when he sees fellow Australian soldiers missing a leg or an arm going about and he cannot take in the scene.  He feels guilt to the core and mourns that his life was spared. 

He has come here to work as a lighthouse Keeper to escape society and live in total isolation in the small uninhabited island of Janus rock. and that very day, his plan to live in isolation fades away, as he catched the eyes of Isabel Graysmark feeding birds at the seashore. 

He meets his employer with the town's headmaster', where he again encounters Isabel. She is the daughter of the headmaster. Gradually they start having affection for each other. After Isabel curates a picnic with him, she proposes to him about marraige.

Tom is reluctant at first, telling her that he is suffering from trauma of the war. So will she be able to cope up alone with just him at Janus Rock. She says that she is willing to leave Partageuse and spend life just with him in Janus Rock.

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Janus Rock is a small island, which is located at the meeting point of Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean in Southwest of Australia. They get married and start living a happy life. Tom starts to heal and his trauma gets lessened after marraige under the love of Isabel. But soon life gets cruel to Tom and Isabel. 

She undergoes two miscarriages and one stillborn. She is depressed after losing them. Her hope to have a child diminishes. Tom is sad but he supports his wife completely. He even consoles her saying that, she is enough for him. He is ready to just let his entire life be with her only and has no regrets about being unable to have a child. The two will live happily ever after.

Tom keeps all his light-keepers records meticulously. He records every event on the log book. And one day he and Isabel gets sight of  a small boat on the shore of Janus Rock. They run to it and finds a dead man. To their surprise they recover a baby girl. Isabel is overwhelmed by the sight of the baby. 

Immediately the instinct of a mother springs out of her and she starts to nurture the baby. Tom gives a proper burial to the dead man. He arrives home when he is offered to touch the baby. A feeling of sentiment gets hung over them.

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At last, Tom decides to write about the event in the log book. Isabel completely opposes it and asks him what if they can have this baby as their own. They will bring her up into a fine girl. Tom wants to deny but seeing the love and happiness return to Isabel after her desperate ordeal, agrees to hid the fact from people and bring up the baby. They name her Lucy.

Tom starts to get more relieved and he is grateful for his wife's happiness and that she can live so heartily and bring up Lucy. Tom starts growing affection for Lucy, He begins to love and care her. They spend a good deal of time together until they go back to Partageuse for the christening of Lucy.

Tom discovers Hannah Potts grieving her dead Austrian husband Frank Roennnfeldt and small baby daughter Grace in a boat. Her husband was considered a German, even when he was Austrian. At that time during the era of World War I, Australia, specifically UK and Germany were at loggerheads. 

The local man despised Hannah for marrying Frank. On Anzac Day, few local people chase them. Frank, in order to escape and save Grace, jumps on a boat and shores away to the ocean. And that day, due to ocean turbulence, the boat capsizes and he dies protecting Grace. This boat arrives at Janus Rock where Tom finds them. Lucy Sherbourne is Grace Roennfeldt, the lost daughter of Hannah Roenfeldt.

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He is terrified and and feels utter guilty. but he cannot tell this to Isabel. He knows he cannot snatch away Lucy and give her back to Hannah. He is stuck between love and morality. What he will do to them?

He decides to keep it a secret and goes back. Again on a trip to Partageuse, on the occasion of commemorating past and present light-keepers, he is invited along with Isabel and Lucy. This time Hannah and Isabel meets, when Gwen, Hannah's sister tells her sister's sad story, Isabel realises the situation but keeps silent. Tom present in front of them them too remains silent. 

But Tom secretly leaves a note anonymously for Hannah inform her that her daughter is alive and well fed. But he does not reveal anything more. He hopes Hannah get consoled that at least Grace is alive. A hope to find Grace rekindles. Her father doubles the prize money for whoever finds Grace. 

Few years pass by, Lucy starts growing. She is a child now. But a gradual discontent arises between Tom and Isabel. He is torn between giving Lucy back to Hannah and jeopardising Isabel's life or keeping Lucy a secret forever. He sends another anonymous souvenir to Hannah who instantly realise it belonged to Grace the day they got on the boat. He hopes that Hannah gradually finds them. He is laying the trap to get caught.

The problem is a supply man Bluey recognises this souvenir, and on greed from his mother, reveals everything to the Police. They arrive at Janus Rock. 

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Tom sees them coming. He approaches Isabel and tells her that he will protect her, as always he has done. He tells her not to speak anything. He will make up a story and tell the Police that it was him who forced Isabel to keep the baby as they had lost three babies, that it was not all all Isabel's fault. She had no choice but to agree with him. This way only he will suffer and Isabel will be saved from prison. That he is the only conspirator in this story. 

Isabel gets infuriated. She cannot believe it, her own husband did that to her. He planed all along these years to give Lucy back to Hannah. She feels betrayed by him and gets angered. She can never forgive him for making her separated from Lucy.

He narrates the police his kind of story and they are taken back to Partageuse. Lucy is snatched form Isabel and given to Hannah. Lucy cannot stay with Hannah and gives her a hard time. There is no way Lucy understand that Hannah is her actual mother and she yearns to go back to Isabel and Tom. 

Isabel wants to take revenge on Tom. She decides to let Tom suffer. When the police questions her whether Tom murdered Frank, she keeps silent and this gives the police an idea that Tom indeed kill Frank in order to take away Grace. 

Tom is shocked to know that his own wife does not defend him. But he agrees to be it like that. He writes Isabel a letter stating that he completely understand why Isabel has done so and he is ready to live like that.

He happily accepts the punishment given to him by Isabel. He is ready to sacrifice everything to keep Isabel protected, even if that makes Isabel hate him forever. Even if that makes a murderer. Deep inside he knows, by returning Lucy to Hannah, he has relieved Isabel from a major guilt. 

What happens next is for you to read. Whether Hannah is able to make Grace realise that she is not Lucy? Whether Lucy forgets about Tom & Isabel completely in due course of time? How much Isabel's parents hate Tom for his dreaded act? Will Isabel adamantly wait to see that Tom gets heavy sentencing and suffers and rots in jail? Will she take her revenge? 

The novel is written in quality prose. The words are simple but they are woven so beautifully with each other forming so meaning and emotional sentences that you going to fall in love with the book. It shows the complex sets of emotions human can have. A Man who has guilt for being alive after the war, a man who rediscovers love and family he never expected, his turmoil in being difficult to keep one leg on each boat and how he manages to go to extreme levels to solve a dire situation which will result in grave consequences for his own family.  It tells how a wife has to choose between her man and her child and how are unconditional love can turn into hatred. 

The hate he gets from his wife for his massive betrayal of snatching a baby from her hands and giving it to another woman, the real mother. And his readiness to suffer even for crime of murder he never committed just so that his wife remains safe from justice. 

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The last chapters are very invigorating. You will gets so much confused about what is going to happen after all. So many twist and turns. The author keeps us glued to the novel until the end. This a story of intense human emotion filled with a grip of thriller. 

We will realise the vast complexities that we human beings have and what heights can we go or not go to take take extreme decisions. Read the novel and you will certainly love it. There is even a movie based on the book starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. I have not seen the movie completely. But readers, if you really love reading novels, first read the book and then see the movie. That is the best way to fully appreciate a beautiful story.

Let us delve into the myriad complexities of human emotions. It is a short novel of about 360 pages. But I tell you every page is so breathtakingly captivating in its own right. The way Stedman has weaved every subplots and the multitude of sentiments that we humans harbour deep inside our hearts and the times when we vent every one of them. 

The complete devotion and love for a person and then hating the same person is brilliantly showed thought this novel. We can never understand this deep subconsciousness inside our minds and most of all in our hearts. How a single act can bring about terrible and humongous altercation in people's life. How they can build as well as destroy relationships is the crux of this novel.