Well, all thanks to this novel for it added all the necessary ingredients to make my trip back home an awesome one and yep thanks to my dear friend too who suggested it to me. It was my first novel of Sidney Sheldon and ye i loved the story telling and i am already on my way for his second novel "If Tomorrow Comes" and i am sure i would love this one too.
The story has many things in it, ranging from male dominance to how bad someone's greed can be, to how hard a doctor's life is. Starting with that of male dominance, i can say that it's not of that level as described in the book knowing the fact that the book was published in 1994. Ofcourse things would have been like that only in those days. But you just can't ignore it for the present society because that stupid dominance still does exist (and more than that it's the sexist comments people do make or harass women in some way or the other) and we all can feel it, the only thing being that the level has gone down with time, thanks to the determined efforts of the women as well as the awareness that is spreading in the society.
Then i was also lost in my thoughts while reading the daily schedule of a doctor as was described. I can for sure take some lessons from that but at the same time, such a scenario still does exist in government hospitals and that's very dangerous from two points. Firstly most of the good doctors want a good payment, so why would they work for govt. hospitals where the load is too much, when instead they can work for private hospitals or set up their own private practice and live a luxurious life thereafter. And then you are left with doctors like Arthur Kane who can operate on your good kidney leaving you on dialysis forever.
Secondly, when a doctor works for such long hours, he/she is surely to feel frustrated and this is not good for it leaves no time for themselves or their families and this might lead to some disastrous results as was the case with Tom Chang.
It was also inspiring to read of the childhood of Paige and especially of her father. It's natural to me to feel inspired when i read of someone like him. Even though he was a fictional character, people like him do exist and they do motivate us to do some good for the society. Then the childhood of Honey do show us the pressure of performing well in a brainy family. But it does give an insight to the case of honey traps which is surely not a good thing at all, whatever case it may be. This led to the wrong diagnosis of her patients, however we cannot blame Honey for it. A large share goes to her parents who never respected her feelings and this surely gives us the lesson that every child is born different and you can never pressurise them for something they don't want to become, and their feelings need to be respected and they should not be mocked for their ideas for they would then never share anything with you.
Then there are people like Kat who never lived their childhood, rather it was some kind of horror for them.The words of her aunt were truly inspiring. "You can keep running and hiding and blaming the world for your problems ,or you can stand up for yourself and decide to be somebody important by knowing that you're important. First you get an image in your mind of who you want to be, child, and what you want to be. And then you go to work, becoming that person."
Not to forget Barker. People like him do exist whom we hate so much that we always wish something bad for them or atleast wish to get rid of them, the reason being their cold and arrogant nature towards us. But these are the people who want something good for us and are always there to extend their helping hand.
There were many other characters like that of Ken, who could even kill someone for his greed or Alfred, whose work didn't surprise me that much for that can happen with anyone given the circumstances.
Then, what about the title of the novel NOTHING LASTS FOREVER... I was thinking of it and the sense that it made to me was that all the three of female doctors had to go through different phases of joy and sorrow in their lives and may be that's what life is all about. Nothing is permanent out there. And if extended further, the same can be said for the relationships that we do share with different people throughout our life.
And finally the person of the novel. It's difficult one to choose,but I am more inclined towards Paige Taylor than anyone else for all her characteristics that Sheldon has shown to us. Overall a marvelous storytelling and looking forward to read more novels of him!
