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'What Dreams May Come' review by Book Club member Nick...


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.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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