No Bones about it, a Lovely book! (Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold)

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Product:	Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Date:	20.04.08 (130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Perfect use of POV and writing

Disadvantages: Manly-macho Men might cry.

Suzie Salmon was only 14 years old when George Harvey raped and murdered her in a room he dug out under the frozen cornfields. Alice Sebold's novel "Lovely Bones" is Suzie's observations of life on earth, after she's dead and is in heaven.

Yes, I know this sounds a bit strange, and could easily have been very morbid or creepy. It also could have been horribly sentimental and maudlin. Instead, "Lovely Bones" is one of the more beautifully written stories around. First of all, Sebold's use of the dead Suzie in heaven as the narrator is a stroke of genius. It is very rare that a writer is able to write in first person, omnipresent voice without sounding like a god or some kind of "Big Brother" know-it-all, or worse, some inanimate object that somehow is given a brain and communication ability and is transported around to further the story. In fact, first person omnipresent is an extremely rare literary point of view because with it, there's an extremely fine line between totally horrendous and amazingly exquisite, and it usually results in the former. That Sebold has succeeded in making this latter, proves that this book can be considered a modern classic.

Suzie has the ability to view all things happening on earth, as well as feel their emotions. Her observances of these goings on are mixed with her own experiences in her heaven. The story also goes from Suzie's initial separation from the living world as well as the contrast of a dead 14 year old Suzie remaining 14 while those she left behind grow and change over the years before her eyes. And yet, Suzie isn't a static character in this story despite her never changing age. On top of all this, we also get the inclusions of Suzie and her family's past since no proper separation can be exclusive of their history with those they lived among, and how each person recalls their memories of them. One thing that makes this book so special is how Sebold combines all this together - the past with the present, the static with the ever changing. And we, as readers, get an insight into loss and the lost at the same time - the latter of which we almost never get to see.

Of course, most of what we get here is Suzie's visions of what her family, friends, neighbours and even her killer go through on earth, interspersed with her own experiences of what she is going through in her own heaven. So again, we have these two sides of the story with the constant being Suzie herself. Those she observes allow her to see what we never could actually know while we are alive - that being what impression we have had on the world around us when we are living, as well as what effect our lost has on those who were around us. This gives us a psychological aspect to the story that only this particular literary point of view can offer.

Into this, we get a mystery as well. While Suzie reveals her murderer to us readers with total candour, the world below can't and doesn't know who killed her or what happened to her body. This helps us get a sub-plot of watching the attempts to solve this crime and what happens when an investigation doesn't always go as one would hope. Sebold uses this sub-plot to include the detective Len's professional and emotional involvement in the case, which we normally wouldn't get. But since Suzie can observe his actions and feelings, we are allowed this glimpse into a law enforcement officer who knows his job well and yet cannot separate his emotions from each and every case - with this being one he gets perhaps a little too involved in. Moreover, we also see George Harvey and how he acts and reacts to the investigation, which adds to the mystery. We, the readers, get involved in wanting the living characters to know what Suzie knows about George, and yet, like Suzie, are helpless in forcing their hands towards the correct clues which would lead to the proper conclusions.

However, complex this may seem, the beauty here is how totally simply this has been done. The language here is on the minimalist side - much like one would expect from a teen-aged girl, one who has always felt love from her family and yet is still innocent of romance, despite her one romantic encounter - her kissing Ray, the boy she had just begun to have feelings for before she died. This is tempered by the way she died as being a rape and murder. One might think that the circumstances of her death would make Suzie adverse to her own adolescent longings of what physically consummating her emotions for Ray would have been like. And yet, she is and always will be young, so it is also natural that she would continue to wonder about that. With such honest emotions to portray, Sebold keeps the language here lyrical bordering on poetic, but with the naivete that a young girl of 14 would have - all without becoming sappy. What's more, the way Sebold ends this book is the absolute model of perfection - not too much, not too little but the type of punch that evokes an Oh... My... Goodness, WOW!

There have been some people who have said that this book will change their view of what life after death is all about - as if there's something tangibly real in how Sebold makes Suzie's presence and describes her heaven, but I have my doubts. Personally, I see Sebold's heaven and how Suzie is in it, as more of a metaphor or allegory than anything spiritual. The fact that Sebold doesn't mention god or religion even once throughout this whole book is certainly an argument for my interpretation here. What I experienced here is far more of an ethereal encounter with strong psychological overtones. It is far more about how we deal with death and the memories of those we have lost than about what happens to us after we die. Using the ruse of a 14 year old Suzie and her heaven gave Sebold the opportunity to look at it all in as many dimensions as possible, while allowing it to be voiced as modestly as possible.

In short, this is a masterpiece novel - one with sensitivity, emotion, and mystery all wrapped up in a magical package that couldn't feel more real. Mind you, while I couldn't give this book less than five stars and totally recommend it with all my heart, I can't say that this is going to appeal to those manly-men who feel too macho for this type of book. That's unfortunate, since I personally feel that anyone who has ever lost anyone dear to them should consider this as required reading. Sure, it could make you cry - and I certainly did, especially at the end - but a real man shouldn't be ashamed of that, especially if it is this book that causes him to do so.

Thanks for reading!

Davida Chazan © April 2008

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Technical Stuff:

This book is available new from Amazon for £4.74 or though their marketplace from 1p.

Alice Sebold has her own webpage at http://www.alicesebold.com/ which is mostly promoting her newest novel, "Almost Moon".

Apparently, this book is being made into a movie which is supposed to be released in 2009 staring Oscar nominated actress for her part as young Briony Tallis in "Atonement", Saoirse Ronan. Hm... I'm not sure if I want to see this or not.
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Summary: Alice Sebold's Modern Classic Novel about Loss & Separation