The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Heaven

Granted, it is a heaven where God and angels are not explicitly mentioned, but in a strange way they are still present if you want them to and absent if you prefer to. The point that most intrigued me in Alice Sebold's representation of heaven was the idea of what could be called 'over-lapping, virtual realities'. Everybody lives in his or her heaven, but shares at the same time these heavenly parts that they have in common with others. As a Christian, this makes perfectly sense for me. By definition, heaven has to be perfect, but my heaven is not necessarily perfect for you ;-) Susie's heaven is full of dogs, dance and music. And people she used to know or people that have something in common with her. Her heaven is perfect for her, but she knows that other people in heaven experience a different version because they need another heaven than she does. Perhaps for me the most intriguing part of the book, and I wish that a lot of fanatics and fundamentalists (Christians and others) will take notice and start to think: Perhaps my perfect heaven is not what everybody else needs. Or even: There might be a heaven out there, I don't agree with – and that is just fine! And perhaps, just perhaps, a few theologians start to take notice of this concept and re-think the idea of a 'cookie cutter one for all heaven'. But enough of the heavens, lets go back to earth!

Without giving away the plot, the story evolves around those left behind and how the murder of Susie and the whereabouts of her 'Lovely Bones' affect everybody. In short the family implodes, then explodes and in the end kind of stitches together again. And Susie is watching. The novel is mostly fast-paced, but it would be unfair to omit that in the middle it is a bit drawn out and --- slooowly. Only for a few pages, and others might even see it as a way the writer choose to express and to give emphasis to what happened. Whilst this part of the story might or might not appeal, one set of scenes, where Susie exchanges places for a short time with a former schoolmate, is just odd and perhaps the weakest point in the whole novel. But thankfully, also this is just a short sidestep out of the flow of a great novel.

'The Lovely Bones' by Alice Sebold is a great novel that is rightly since months on the Bestseller lists and most likely will stay there for many months to come. It is not a graphic novel, nor does it indulge in gruesome details, nor does it conjure up horrible images in your mind. In my opinion, it is kind of a gentle horror novel, and perfectly ok to be read by teenagers, but not by younger children. Without wanting to sound sanctimonious, the scene at the beginning when Susie grows suspicious and questions herself if it would be a good idea to walk with the man that would become her murderer might actually open eyes for youngsters that think: 'Will not happen to me, nobody that knows me will hurt me.'

What else rests to say about 'The Lovely Bones'? Heaven is just the first stage. The ones that love us, never leave us. Live is for living – even if you are dead ;-) The book ends with the dead of the murderer (sorry, not telling you how he dies), I would have loved (if that is the right word) to read about his afterlife experience. Because that is for me the biggest shortcoming of the story, it only tells us what happens to the good and innocent, but evades the question what happens to the evil and distorted ones after dead. The next big point that didn't get covered well is how the murderer became one. Nobody is born a murderer, what converts a person into one? But perhaps that is a question for another novel ...