I've started reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It's narrated by the main characters Suzanne "Susie" Salmon who was murdered and is now in heaven. In the book, Susie will switch between a memory and the present a lot, sometimes it makes sense with the present, and sometimes its not so obvious.
For example, in the beginning of the book she goes from describing how living in heaven is in detail. She says " I could not have what I wanted most: Mr Harvey dead and me living. Heaven wasn't perfect. But I came to believe that if I watched closely, and desired, I might change the lives of those I loved on Earth.......... My father was the one who took the phone call on December ninth. It was the beginning of the end. " Something I thought was weird was how she said "heaven wasn't perfect" because that's basically the complete opposite of what people think. I also noticed how she usually has flashbacks of sad moments on Earth, rather than extremely happy ones. This is one of the things that makes the book have such a heavy, sad, tone (besides the fact that she's dead). She Also, sometimes it's hard to figure out why she switches to certain things in the past, because sometimes it seems as if those things have nothing to do with each other, and that they are completely unrelated.
Because I haven't gotten that far in the book, I've also noticed that it's kind of hard to tell what Susie's personality is. I think that she always looks down on Earth because that's the thing she wants the most. To be alive again, to go to school, to live with her family and friends. It was stuff she didn't really think about before she died, but now she realizes that those little things make a big difference now.
Kimberlee- Great post! I like how you looked at the book a different way. I also read the book so it was cool to see it from a different point of view. But i think one thing you should think about, is Susie really in "heaven"? Or is she some where else?
ReplyDeleteReally good post! It's sad that heaven isn't perfect. But perhaps it's better that way because if one never felt sad, one would take happiness for granted, take perfection for granted, and when one believes "perfect" is normal, perfect isn't perfect anymore. Heaven can't be perfect, I think, since you can never have your family in heaven if they are alive, and doesn't everyone's spirit partially live in their loved ones? When we have lost all our loved ones, we have lost part of ourselves as well, and that is actually worth being sad about, regardless of heaven's "perfection".
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