What Dreams May Come
raises an enormous question both frightening and fascinating: what happens to
us after we die? This book attempts to answer the question with what sounds
like impossible science, but as Richard Matheson takes us from life to death,
heaven to hell, you can’t help but wonder if he’s got it right. It’s written
with such brutal clarity it sounds like he’s talking from beyond the grave.
Beneath the science and the speculation lies a story worth reading, a story
about heartache and misery and the very definition of soulmates. Quite simply, What Dreams May Come
is incredible.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
The story starts off with a
woman delivering a manuscript to a man. The story is from his brother, Chris
Nielson, who is dead. Chris dies in a car crash and you follow his twisting
journey from hovering in limbo watching his family mourn his death until
finally he ascends into heaven. However, heaven is empty without his beloved
wife, Annie, and after he discovers that she killed herself shortly after he
died, he decides to rescue her from hell. Once Chris reaches heaven, the story
really started for me. Before then he’s stuck in a limbo between death and the
afterlife, and quite often I struggled to work out what was going on or how to
picture things. And I didn’t understand why he couldn’t spell to begin with,
although I’m glad he could since him writing the actual spelling letter by
letter got tedious fast. It’s one of the best ideas of a story I’ve heard of,
and for the most part it delivers. I found myself reading chapter after chapter
well after the time I wanted to stop. Fascination and intrigue grabs you by
both shoulders, shakes you and doesn’t stop until the book is done.
In heaven the narrative picks
up speed. Although, maybe Albert, Chris’ guide, could have dialed the science
down a notch. I enjoyed Chris exploring heaven the way he imagines it and
learning about how the mind is everything in the afterlife. If one wants to go
somewhere, one has to imagine. That goes both ways, though. I had trouble
picturing how it would look, and since this is Chris’ version of paradise, only
Richard Matheson holds the original article. All of our imaginings of Chris’
world are pretenders, but that’s not our fault. That’s a great thing about
books. Nobody has the same experience. One thing the story nailed was the stark
contrast between heaven and hell, and not even in the most obvious way. Replacing
the usual image of fire with darkness and suffocating despair, you really get
the sense that this place, hell, is just the most horrific place anyone could
ever visit. And when Chris is deceived by an ancient roman member of the
damned, it’s official. He’s in hell.
THE FATALIST
I dare you to read this book
and not think about your own beliefs, both religious and philosophical. What Dreams May Come
disturbed me more than once with its narrative. The story is told by a
religious man who believes in life after death. And because of the science
described and his own beliefs, it worried me that this is what the afterlife
is. I’m an atheist, and I don’t believe in the afterlife. I can’t fathom the
idea that this is in some way a test or that we’ll live again. So to think that
I will live
again and how I feel or what I do determine where in the afterlife I land,
that’s terrifying. My chances aren’t great of landing a nice spot in heaven.
What’s more, and I know it serves the story well, but I hated how Annie’s
suicide is basically seen as a crime, a break in the rules. And yes, Albert
mentions more than once that rules exist in the afterlife. What?! There’s
massive science explaining why a suicide breaks the rules and the harmony in
the afterlife, but that ruffled my feathers a little. Also, Chris finds out in
heaven when she’s due to die naturally. Her suicide broke that pre-determined
path, hence her exile in hell. This is an issue of fate, again, something I
don’t believe in. The thought that my life is out of my control is an awful
one. At times, it sounds like heaven is more backstabs and bad jokes than clear
skies and rainbows.
That’s the great thing about
this book, though. Take all of the above arguments and everybody else’s and
you’ve got the seed of a brilliant discussion. This is a book club choice. You
read this, and I guarantee you’ll have something original to say about it
because it asks you
your opinions without ever using the words: do you believe in life after death?
By reading this book, you’re offering those thoughts. Once I finished the story
I couldn’t get it out of my head. It’s not perfect. There’s far too much
science going on which often slows the pace down and there’s even a reading
list at the end spanning five to six pages. The questions asked here are
impossible to answer, at least right now. Sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t
smart enough to read the whole thing since they babble about the inner workings
of the afterlife far too much. But the worst thing. The thing that made me want
to break a hole in the sky and see the book crashing into the sun was that
damned ending. The author landed on that oh-so perfect last sentence. He had
the perfect ending in the palm of his hand. Nope, he kept it going with this
preposterous revelation. I won’t say what, but the story didn’t need it. I’ve
never been this angry about a book ending before. Whatever, bad ending, too
much science, it doesn’t kill the score. What Dreams May Come
is brilliant, you should read it.
Comments
Post a Comment