The Little Things

Through another beautiful coincidence I recently came across the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I picked it out of the book exchange because I knew about the movie by Peter Jackson although I had not seen it. I knew however the main plot; that it is narrated by a dead 14-year old girl who is murdered by a serial killer and then narrates from heaven how the world continues without her. I have always had a morbid fascination with serial killers and the darker corners of the human mind, finding it fascinating and disturbing at the same time, what some people are capable of doing. Alongside with my fascination of death and ghosts I have always wanted to watch the movie, but as chance was I ended up reading the book first instead, another blank coincidence. I remember a specific occasion standing in Blockbuster in Copenhagen picking up some of my complimentary free movies due to my employment in another of their franchises and choosing between The Lovely Bones and another film and opting to go with the alternative. Now I am glad I did because I am sure I would probably not even have read and certainly not have enjoyed the book correspondingly had I not. 

This book is extremely well written and furthermore it really hit the mark personally for me aimed straight at my softest emotional core and I think a soft spot in most other people as well; childhood. Mainly through Susie's (the dead narrator) flashbacks back towards the time she was alive of time spent with her family, little seemingly insignificant moments of standing on her porch in her sleeping wear a cold winter morning, looking at her parents' hobby grave rubbings with her sister and watching her baby brother play with his friend. The way these memories are described really reminded me of seemingly as insignificant moments from my own childhood, playing with my brother and his friend, reading through my father's books and rolling on my grandmother's lawn. To reiterate a cliché, these little things are what life is all about because somehow they are the moments that always stay with you. Deep down inside of you these moments of a happier and carefree time will always stay with you and define your inner characteristics no matter how many layers you add on through your life and how different a person you become. Not to say that all these moments occur in childhood. Little random moments that stay with you for years and years continue to occur all through your life. Some of the epiphanies that form the backbone of this blog could even be said to be of similar character. Sometimes it is just a feeling or a thought that creates the memory. 

What really made The Lovely Bones hit home as well is the fact that this girl who meets a terrible and way too early end holds on to precisely these moments in the afterlife, which I find a truly beautiful thought. From the afterlife she continuously watches over her family and observes how they evolve following her departure leading to other really emotional scenes. In many ways the gap she leaves behind greatly affects the personal legends of her family and friends, including directly through all her belongings, some of which take up a lot of space in the plot of the book, accentuating my notion in the earlier post that objects have legends as well that can affects us as much as personal legends if coincidence wills it.

No book has ever made me cry as much as this one, mainly because of the aforementioned connections to my own memories it brought forward making the tragedy of the book feel all the more real. However it is by no means a sad book and what Susie's story leaves you with is a real appreciation of and thirst for life. And it's all about enjoying the little things J