I found “The Eyes of the Amaryllis” inspiring and uplifting. The Amaryllis is a ship that was lost during a hurricane which took Geneva Reade's husband including all the crew members of the ship. This incident left no traces. For thirty years, Geneva has been waiting and walking the shores looking for a sign from the ship and her husband, a sign she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, would eventually come.
I knew it was very throbbing and excruciating chapter in Geneva’s life then when her husband is nowhere to found. It’s not easy then to wait for signs in about thirty years with no assertion if it would really come. But for Geneva, she patiently waited for that moment to come. This is spun with touches of the supernatural. It is ultimately about accepting things as they are and letting go of that which you so dearly want to cling on to.
Many children nowadays find their grandparents mysterious and weird. When I was still six years old, I also thought that one. But, unlike Jenny in the story, as her granny shares the mysterious things in her life, I hadn’t thought even at once that my Grandmother seems to be mad. Instead, I really love to listen to my grandmother as she shares creepy stories in her life as well as her love life way back ages and ages then.
In the Song of Solomon 8:7, it states that many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it. I simply find this inspiring in relation to the story of the Eyes of the Amaryllis. Indeed, real love doesn’t drown, and isn’t overcome by an ocean. Geneva’s love for the captain is really deep and true that she has waited patiently for a sign she knows is coming. Although her only son refuses to visit the place where he lost his father, she refuses to leave it and move in with his family. I found this book was rather similar to "Daughter of the Sea" by Berlie Doherty. Both books praise the ocean to a great deal.
I really found this book amazing--so many themes, including the line between fantasy and reality, between the living and the dead, the sea and the land, understanding between the generations, --memory and moving on after a great loss. But I just wonder then how if The Eyes of the Amaryllis was set on Cape Cod today. Would the novel have worked more effectively than setting The Eyes of the Amaryllis in the past? Moreover, there's the open question of what to believe about Gran's long vigil by the sea, and what mysteries the sea might hold. Does the signs after the thirty years of Geneva’s waiting really signifies that her husband is still alive but just trapped by the sea which Geneva really believes it so? Or it’s just a mere imagination and all are just coincidence of things? How long will this so- called deadly game with the sea last? A game that only the sea knows how to win. What winning really means in this story? And as I read this book, I’ve got to question myself if will I do believe in things that can’t be explained?
I think, though for while Geneva's husband does indeed send his wife a sign, the sea is not happy with the gift and demands it back and by force, as it happens, but this will not stop for the love and longing both of them feels. Death would also not be a hindrance in expressing their love for each other even if Granny would face her death then. So even when Geneva would be saying farewell in this world, there would be still signs that her husband will send. This shows that the line between reality and imagination is indefinable. This is maybe a ghost story, but for sure, this is a story of an endless love.
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