London Book Club: August

Posted on October 19, 2009 in Uncategorized

In his book, The Five People you meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom proposes a theory regarding what happens to a person when they die. The central character in the novel is a man called Eddie. Albom uses several of Eddie’s birthdays as a way of depicting the various stages of Eddie’s life. In the wider picture, Albom later refers to these events and reveals why certain incidents occurred, how Eddie’s actions affected others, and how other people’s actions affected his life.

In the preface to the book, Albom tells us that the book is supposed to represent a particular idea of Heaven. I get the impression that while reading most of the book club paid more attention to the theory suggested by Albom rather than the different characters in the book, as when we had finished reading the book we didn’t actually remember who all of the five people were (although between us we did manage to name all five, which is the good thing about large book clubs)!

I feel that the reason the five different people failed to make a lasting impression on us was that, on a deeper level, what we were actually concentrating on was understanding the theory that Albom was proposing (regardless of whether or not we found it to be a plausible concept). Most people at our book club are English graduates and are thus in the habit of analysing the theory proposed by an author. However, at the same time I think this does also demonstrate that the storyline was written clearly enough for readers to actually focus on the message that the author was trying to purvey: that Heaven is a place where your life is revealed to you by five people who you affected in some way or another (including people whom you considered to be strangers).

There were mixed feelings at book club about this book. For quite obvious reasons, people who had strong feelings about the book (either positive or negative) reacted in this way due to their own religious beliefs. For example, to one person who is a devout atheist, the book appeared to be preaching the concept of Heaven as a place you go to when you die, when in fact they personally would just use the word in a very casual way; for example, they might use the phrase ‘I’m in Heaven!’ because they’re at their favourite sporting event. Although to someone who is religious and has a preconceived idea of Heaven, the book appeared to be challenging their preconceived idea of Heaven and to many people that too is either annoying or a disappointment.

The book also led to a discussion about why a person dies. The author had appeared to suggest that when we die we all die for a particular reason, for example, to save the life of another, thus making us all martyrs in our own little ways.

As a whole, most people thought the story was quite sentimental, and thus we felt it was a book that would be enjoyed by women, but might not be quite so appealing to men. It’s also interesting that the screenplay adaptation does not actually appear to be quite as popular as the book itself.

Serena Alam