Nothing Endures.

Reading this book was ok. I liked in a different sort of way…. However, if any of you are like me, and you always look around a book’s cover for a synopsis of some sort of the book, you were bound to look at the back cover and find the quote:

Nothing endures,
Not a tree,
Not love,
Not even a death by violence.

This quote made me think what in the story was being an allusion to these things. I pondered the fact that nothing can endure, and why those three things were chosen to exemplify. This is what I came up with:

A tree can’t endure. All living things die. However, I think it’s also referring to the tree in which held the pact of the Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session. The tree which so many teen boys jumped off of; the tree which Finny was jostled out of by Gene; the tree which ultimately brought out the truth and started the end. Now that it was all in the past of Gene Forrester, he should consider it gone, unimportant. It did not endure time passed in his mind. Right?

Love cannot endure. How could it? People die, and your love for them will fade. Your emotions leave. Finny is gone, any friendship will not prosper; love cannot flourish after you proved that you can destroy it. Your love will ultimately die. Right?

Death by violence is tragic. The war was powerfully violent. Many died. But the pain will subside, the people will forget the tragedies, and new generations will be born. If it is believed that Gene did kill Finny in a subtle act of hidden violence and through a string of events, it will be eventually forgotten. The pain will be gone from the dead, the loved ones should heal, and the killer will go on, and the wrong will be forgotten, lost among the countless moments in history. It does not endure. Right?

I know some of this isn’t true. From my view, most all of it is false. A tree will last in memories, and live on. Love will always be present, unbroken, even if it seems to be torn away. A death by violence will always be there, no matter who remembers it or takes notice. However, this might be what Gene believed after being so affected by what happened during his last years at Devon. I don’t remember if this quote was in the book or not, or if it was in it, if it was thought by Gene. It just seems like the logical way to trace it.

Do you agree with my take on this quote, or any of the conclusions I made? I admit I’m not the best at voicing my thoughts, but this is what I came up with. Time to be opinionated, folks. Tell me what you think. :]