In the afterlife, the mind is all...or is it?
I picked up this book at my local secondhand bookstore because the cover caught my eye. I liked this 1998 movie of the same name, with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. Some people/movie critics didn’t.
Let’s get into the gist of the story before I tell you exactly why and how the movie is different – and, most importantly, why this is a rare case of “movies that are better than the book.”
Gist of the Story
We begin with a foreword from the author (never a good idea) telling us his story is not really a story, only a fictionalization of characters and places. He also points us to a huge reading list at the back of the book should we, the reader, wish to test his facts.
It just gets worse from here.
The story begins as a psychic drops off a novel to the deceased’s brother and then promptly running away. The story was related to the psychic by Chris Nielsen, dead. We go through a few painful chapters where Chris, the narrator, is correcting the psychic’s spelling and then we get into the meat of the tale. Chris, recently deceased from a car accident doesn’t know to move on to heaven, or as they refer to it in this novel, Summerland. He, instead, hangs around the house, talking incessantly of his wife, Ann, and generally feeling mopey. His son, Richard, enlists the help of Perry, another psychic, who seems to be able to ‘see’ Chris, although he can’t hear him. Ann unwillingly agrees to a seance where Chris’s etheral shell is manipulated by Perry and havoc ensues when Chris’s astral self walks into the room to witness this all.
Right, something I should explain here that took me most of the novel to understand. There is our physical body, our etheric double (which I really don’t know the purpose of) and our astral self. Kind of a holy trinity of being.
Anyway.
Chris finally makes it to Summerland where he is met by a long dead dog and his cousin, Albert. Albert shows him the ropes of the ‘third realm’ (There are higher realms we never get to reach here).
All the while Chris is still talking about Ann. Ann this, Ann that, Ann’s so great, blah, blah, blah. I felt like killing Chris all over again. Now, we discover that Chris and Ann are…brace yourself…soul mates. Mild gagging occurs (on my end).
SPOILER ALERT Chris goes down to the hall of records to find out when Ann is due to die and join him in Summerland. 24 more years. He decides he can live with that. He takes a nap. When he wakes up, it turns out Ann offed herself with sleeping pills. Chris decides he must pull an Orpheus and get her back from Hell, which turns out to be just the Hell she has created for herself.
The book goes on to create not quite a happy ending, but further talk of rebirth and reincarnation. It all gets really squiffy.
Here’s what happened in the movie, briefly: Chris dies and goes to Heaven. The kids die and meet him there (along with the dead dog). Ann is overcome with grief and offs herself. Chris goes to save her from her own personal Hell and is successful. Happy ending.
What differs between the book and the movie: the books is told in the style “a day in the life of dead Chris.” It’s very painful, especially dealing with a lot of cliches regarding the afterlife and what might happen after we die. The movie is visually stunning. It has Robin Williams. Need I say more?
See the movie, forget the book on this one.
First Lines, Last Words
The manuscript you are about to read came into my possession the following way.
Carefully.
Quotable
The mind is all.
Book Rating
Overall rating 2.73/5
Beside the Bed 3.9 More than a little embarrassed to have this John Edwardian type of afterlife-aura book beside my bed but should I have died, it might have been fitting.
Sleepless for the Story 2.5 The only reason I was sleepless is because I wanted it to be over. On a more positive note, the chapters were short.
Regifting this Read 1.8 Only to someone I knew would be into the afterlife stuff or possibly an avid reader of Sylvia Browne. I believe in an afterlife myself, but not this one necessarily. This book is actually going back to the secondhand store for credit.
For more on my book ratings and a further description, check out this page.
My name is Britty and I'm chief bottle-washer at this site. I'm a book-lover, student and freelance writer when I'm not being a mom of three and wife of one.
