This summer I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, The Case Against Obama, by David Freddoso, The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Shortly after I began reading The Lovely Bones, I went to bed fearful of what my mind would subconsciously fabricate during my dreaming that night. Although a main issue addressed in the novel is death, my nightmares involved themes closer to home. While reading about the death and afterlife of Susie Salmon, I began to relate to a character whose life differed so much from my own. I have not been murdered, I did not grow up in suburban America in the 1970’s, and I do not have closeness to my parents as she had. Yet, I could not help but feel intense sadness for Susie and also understand a yearning that Alice Sebold beautifully sprinkles throughout Susie’s inner thoughts. Susie’s longing to relive certain moments, to feel someone’s lips against hers again, or simply just to smell the scent of something lost is a familiar sentiment to me. The Lovely Bones addresses the difficult issues of family connection, loss and recovery in a direct and honest manner.
The theme of family impacted me the most. Susie helplessly watches her family fall apart as her mother deserts their household after an extramarital affair, her father is seen as a lunatic by society, and her sister’s confusion and resentment of her death continues to plague her every time she peers into a mirror. As Susie watches this hell up in heaven she sees the ugly aftermath of her death in the people who were closest to her. My family struggled through a period of difficulty last year. Just as Susie’s mother, Abigail, had escaped, I often wished I could drive to the beach and never come home. Susie longs to kiss her first crush and pet her old dog; just as I reminisced about the exuberant father I remembered who was now upset, stressed, and unfamiliar. I felt that I watched my parents fight from a helpless heaven and could not ease my own pain or the pain of my mom and dad; I observed my perfect family almost disintegrate without any ability to stop my worst nightmare. I found solace in developing a connection to Susie. I shared her confusion and disbelief as her life seemed to crumble beneath her. Although Susie’s situation may have been depressing, Sebold uses aesthetic language and her gifts as a writer to captivate her readers.
Alice Sebold uses simple yet searing language to create an innocent Susie who is wise beyond her years. Although only fourteen when she was brutally murdered and disembodied, Susie has an eloquence and adultness of an older soul. Sebold creates a character with the impatience and shortsightedness of a child, yet also the ability to understand and recover with a remarkable maturity. This complexity of character fascinated me. As Susie watched her family carry on with their lives she felt inner anguish and depression, yet she was eventually able to accept her fate.
What truly touched me was the conclusion of the novel. Although the ending was uplifting, I believe Sebold purposefully left her characters imperfect and scarred by Susie’s death. The sense of closure, yet without forgetting the horrific event of the fourteen-year-old’s death made The Lovely Bones feel real. Sebold stresses that recovery is an everlasting process and although Susie describes that she “began to see things in a way that let [her] hold the world without [herself] in it,” I could not help but feel that she still felt anguish and sadness, yet had been able to bury these feelings deep enough to have somewhat of a rebirth. The Lovely Bones argues that endings are not always perfect, yet with time and growth there can be an end to my nightmares.
