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What Dreams May Come
The New York Times bestseller
A LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS HEAVEN AND HELL
What happens to us after we die? Chris Nielsen had no idea, until an unexpected accident cut his life short, separating him from his beloved wife, Annie. Now Chris must discover the true nature of life after death.
But even Heaven is not complete without Annie, and when tragedy threatens to divide them forever, Chris risks his very soul to save Annie from an eternity of despair.
Richard Matheson's powerful tale of life---and love---after death was the basis for the Oscar-winning film starring Robin Williams.
A LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS HEAVEN AND HELL
What happens to us after we die? Chris Nielsen had no idea, until an unexpected accident cut his life short, separating him from his beloved wife, Annie. Now Chris must discover the true nature of life after death.
But even Heaven is not complete without Annie, and when tragedy threatens to divide them forever, Chris risks his very soul to save Annie from an eternity of despair.
Richard Matheson's powerful tale of life---and love---after death was the basis for the Oscar-winning film starring Robin Williams.
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1978
632 people are currently reading
17325 people want to read
About the author
Richard Matheson
754 books4,820 followersBorn in Allendale, New Jersey to Norwegian immigrant parents, Matheson was raised in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1943. He then entered the military and spent World War II as an infantry soldier. In 1949 he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and moved to California in 1951. He married in 1952 and has four children, three of whom (Chris, Richard Christian, and Ali Matheson) are writers of fiction and screenplays.
His first short story, "Born of Man and Woman," appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950. The tale of a monstrous child chained in its parents' cellar, it was told in the first person as the creature's diary (in poignantly non-idiomatic English) and immediately made Matheson famous. Between 1950 and 1971, Matheson produced dozens of stories, frequently blending elements of the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres.
Several of his stories, like "Third from the Sun" (1950), "Deadline" (1959) and "Button, Button" (1970) are simple sketches with twist endings; others, like "Trespass" (1953), "Being" (1954) and "Mute" (1962) explore their characters' dilemmas over twenty or thirty pages. Some tales, such as "The Funeral" (1955) and "The Doll that Does Everything" (1954) incorporate zany satirical humour at the expense of genre clichés, and are written in an hysterically overblown prose very different from Matheson's usual pared-down style. Others, like "The Test" (1954) and "Steel" (1956), portray the moral and physical struggles of ordinary people, rather than the then nearly ubiquitous scientists and superheroes, in situations which are at once futuristic and everyday. Still others, such as "Mad House" (1953), "The Curious Child" (1954) and perhaps most famously, "Duel" (1971) are tales of paranoia, in which the everyday environment of the present day becomes inexplicably alien or threatening.
He wrote a number of episodes for the American TV series The Twilight Zone, including "Steel," mentioned above and the famous "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"; adapted the works of Edgar Allan Poe for Roger Corman and Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out for Hammer Films; and scripted Steven Spielberg's first feature, the TV movie Duel, from his own short story. He also contributed a number of scripts to the Warner Brothers western series "The Lawman" between 1958 and 1962. In 1973, Matheson earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his teleplay for The Night Stalker, one of two TV movies written by Matheson that preceded the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Matheson also wrote the screenplay for Fanatic (US title: Die! Die! My Darling!) starring Talullah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers.
Novels include The Shrinking Man (filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man, again from Matheson's own screenplay), and a science fiction vampire novel, I Am Legend, which has been filmed three times under the titles The Omega Man and The Last Man on Earth and once under the original title. Other Matheson novels turned into notable films include What Dreams May Come, Stir of Echoes, Bid Time Return (as Somewhere in Time), and Hell House (as The Legend of Hell House) and the aforementioned Duel, the last three adapted and scripted by Matheson himself. Three of his short stories were filmed together as Trilogy of Terror, including "Prey" with its famous Zuni warrior doll.
In 1960, Matheson published The Beardless Warriors, a nonfantastic, autobiographical novel about teenage American soldiers in World War II.
He died at his home on June 23, 2013, at the age of 87
http://us.macmillan.com/author/richar...
His first short story, "Born of Man and Woman," appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950. The tale of a monstrous child chained in its parents' cellar, it was told in the first person as the creature's diary (in poignantly non-idiomatic English) and immediately made Matheson famous. Between 1950 and 1971, Matheson produced dozens of stories, frequently blending elements of the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres.
Several of his stories, like "Third from the Sun" (1950), "Deadline" (1959) and "Button, Button" (1970) are simple sketches with twist endings; others, like "Trespass" (1953), "Being" (1954) and "Mute" (1962) explore their characters' dilemmas over twenty or thirty pages. Some tales, such as "The Funeral" (1955) and "The Doll that Does Everything" (1954) incorporate zany satirical humour at the expense of genre clichés, and are written in an hysterically overblown prose very different from Matheson's usual pared-down style. Others, like "The Test" (1954) and "Steel" (1956), portray the moral and physical struggles of ordinary people, rather than the then nearly ubiquitous scientists and superheroes, in situations which are at once futuristic and everyday. Still others, such as "Mad House" (1953), "The Curious Child" (1954) and perhaps most famously, "Duel" (1971) are tales of paranoia, in which the everyday environment of the present day becomes inexplicably alien or threatening.
He wrote a number of episodes for the American TV series The Twilight Zone, including "Steel," mentioned above and the famous "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"; adapted the works of Edgar Allan Poe for Roger Corman and Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out for Hammer Films; and scripted Steven Spielberg's first feature, the TV movie Duel, from his own short story. He also contributed a number of scripts to the Warner Brothers western series "The Lawman" between 1958 and 1962. In 1973, Matheson earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his teleplay for The Night Stalker, one of two TV movies written by Matheson that preceded the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Matheson also wrote the screenplay for Fanatic (US title: Die! Die! My Darling!) starring Talullah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers.
Novels include The Shrinking Man (filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man, again from Matheson's own screenplay), and a science fiction vampire novel, I Am Legend, which has been filmed three times under the titles The Omega Man and The Last Man on Earth and once under the original title. Other Matheson novels turned into notable films include What Dreams May Come, Stir of Echoes, Bid Time Return (as Somewhere in Time), and Hell House (as The Legend of Hell House) and the aforementioned Duel, the last three adapted and scripted by Matheson himself. Three of his short stories were filmed together as Trilogy of Terror, including "Prey" with its famous Zuni warrior doll.
In 1960, Matheson published The Beardless Warriors, a nonfantastic, autobiographical novel about teenage American soldiers in World War II.
He died at his home on June 23, 2013, at the age of 87
http://us.macmillan.com/author/richar...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,460 reviews
February 1, 2018
I enjoyed this thought provoking book. I have read Matheson before and I like his writing style. I feel like his prose is such that it will draw a wide variety of people in. The fact that it is so accessible with very little filler or unnecessary flowery-ness is a plus for me.
When deciding whether or not to read this book, you must think about how you feel about stories that conjecture about the afterlife. If that is a touchy subject for you or you are uncomfortable reading about possibilities outside of your beliefs, this is not the book for you. However, if you enjoy exploring possibilities, like to see what someone else speculates, or are fascinated with the "what ifs" and the "maybes", then this is a very good book worth checking out.
Warning: this could be a very difficult book for someone who has recently experienced a loss. Please proceed with caution if that is you.
When deciding whether or not to read this book, you must think about how you feel about stories that conjecture about the afterlife. If that is a touchy subject for you or you are uncomfortable reading about possibilities outside of your beliefs, this is not the book for you. However, if you enjoy exploring possibilities, like to see what someone else speculates, or are fascinated with the "what ifs" and the "maybes", then this is a very good book worth checking out.
Warning: this could be a very difficult book for someone who has recently experienced a loss. Please proceed with caution if that is you.
March 23, 2019
Unique, mindblowing and utterly preposterous heap of outrageous twaddle. Richard Matheson, author of the great apocalypse novel I Am Legend, decides to take on The Big One full frontal with no messing about. This novel describes exactly what happens to us after we die. The Afterlife! In full surroundsound 3D Panavision!
So a guy is sitting peacefully at home in 1976 when a strange visitor calls : “I am a psychic type medium and your dead brother Chris has dictated the whole of this manuscript through me! So here you are, take it or leave it.”
The rest of the novel is the first person story of Chris, who died horribly in a car crash, and what then happens.
The first thing is, he’s very upset and more than a little confused to be standing around watching his earthly body die, be wept over by his wife & children, then attend his own funeral. It’s all hey, I’m here, why can’t anybody see me! But then he gets beamed up to a place they call Summerland, some call it Heaven (but its correct name is The Third Sphere), and wakes up in the prettiest of all country parks and meets his old dog who had died but now bounds up wagging its tail. Hello Katie! Then cousin Albert turns up and he turns out to be a most helpful companion. He answers every question to the best of his ability and THERE ARE MANY QUESTIONS.
So here is a summary of interesting points.
HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR STAY IN HEAVEN
1. When you die your life really does flash before your eyes, but slowly, and backwards, and you relive everything.
“It’s a time when men and women come to know what they truly are. A time of purging… a period during which each soul is cleansed by a self-imposed recognition of past deeds – and misdeeds.”
“Self-imposed,” I repeated. “There is really no outside judgement then?”
“What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own when self-pretense is no longer possible?” he asked
Well, whole theologies teeter and crumble to the ground at this point. There’s no judgement day! You do your own judging! But where do these suddenly-acquired moral standards come from? If you didn’t think that fiddling tax returns was a crime at all when you were alive and fiddling, why suddenly should you realise it was a bad thing now you’re dead?
(I should say right now that in this version of the Afterlife, God hardly gets a look-in. And Jesus? Nowhere, man.)
2. Earth ties have less meaning. Relationships of thought, not blood, are what count. So you might meet your mother and just go Hey how’s it going, Mum? And mosey right on by. Well, you were never that close.
3. You choose what age you are in Heaven. Some people like being old! “Wouldn’t it be silly to have nothing but young people here?”
4. All the buildings and rolling countryside and gorgeous arboreal panoramas and exquisite shrubberies are made of a kind of mental stuff which comes from somewhere called The Matrix (yep, that one) and anyone can make themselves a detached Palladian-style house in its own grounds by getting a few brainy types together and concentrating, but you gotta learn the skills first. It’s not magic. And once you lose interest in your house or your library or your dog it vanishes. Back into The Matrix.
5. Your new body doesn’t need food, and has no stomach or intestines. So logically there are no bathrooms or toilets in Heaven. As for clothes – “They’re as real as your body. Everybody – except certain natives, of course – has, in their mind, the conviction that clothes are indispensable. The conviction garbs them after death.”
Albert does not discuss the question of naturists at this point. Could be there are nude beaches in Heaven, but he doesn’t say.
6. “What about reproductive organs?”
“You still have them because you expect to have them. In time, when you understand their lack of purpose, they’ll disappear.”
“That’s weird,” I said
(I think that already some readers might be going off this version of the afterlife a bit. But wait---)
“Still, part of my relationship with Ann [his wife] was physical.”
“And there are people here who love each other, who have sexual relations. The mind is capable of anything… in time, of course, these people usually realize that physical contact isn’t as integral here as it was in life.”
So there’s great news for you - there is sex after death!
7. In heaven you communicate telepathically. I think that really goes without saying.
8. Parts of Heaven look like England. (page 96). I knew that! And the other way round is true too!
9. When you no longer have a physical brain you can think better. This is rather challenging for a person like myself. I think that if you don’t have a physical brain you can’t think at all because you've gone, baby, gone like snow on the water, but could be I’m wrong. Which brings us to
10. This guy Chris was an atheist and a firm believer that there was no afterlife whatsoever, but he still ended up in Heaven. Nice to know!
11. Heaven has countries just like Earth!
“Where exactly are we?” I asked.
“In a counterpart of the United States,” he told me. “One naturally gravitates to the wave length of his own country and people.”
“There’s an equivalent, here, to every country on earth then?”
“At this level…”
Again, Albert does not address the thornier aspects of this – what happens to a Kurdish person after death, or a Catalan – neither have their own countries on Earth, so will they still be campaigning for independence in Heaven?
Also, is there immigration in heaven? What about border control? Or maybe every country now has none of those earthly problems like, you know, perpetual war and malaria and so forth. These things were not fully addressed. Actually, they didn't get a mention.
12. Heaven is not Christian. Or, well, it is if you’re a Christian, but if you’re a Muslim, say, it will be a Muslim heaven.
“You’ll find in the hereafter the particular heaven of each theology.”
“Which is right then?” I asked, completely baffled now [as well he might be, so am I].
“All of them and none. Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew – each has an afterlife experience which reflects his own beliefs. All are real. Each is a portion of the overall reality.”
Logically (if logic exists in Heaven that is) that means every tinpot cult gets its own bit too, unless there's a bureau somewhere that issues certificates. This whole thing could get as messy in Heaven as it is on Earth.
13. Although there is work to be done in Heaven, “there’s no need for a Health Department, a Sanitation Department, Fire or Police Department nor for food or clothing industries, transportation systems, doctors, lawyers, realtors.” (Imagine being a realtor in Heaven - nice view of the choirs of angels during the Autumn months, madam. Actually, no angels are to be had for love nor money in this version of Heaven. I wanted my money back. No angels? Come on!)
The work that people do is , as far as I could figure, making yourself ready to either get reborn or proceed to one of the higher levels, like in your usual computer game.
14. There are seven levels, probably. “He explained that earth is surrounded by concentric spheres of existence which vary in width and density, Summerland (aka Heaven) being the third. I asked how many there are altogether and he answered that he wasn’t sure but had heard there are seven.”
15. Don’t mourn the dead because it prolongs their adjustment to the afterlife. Sort of gives them a migraine.
16. Cremation, not burial! It will be so much easier for you if there are no mortal remains. Trust me on that. “People can’t forget their bodies easily. They keep wanting to see the thing they once believed to be themselves. That desire can become an obsession. That’s why cremation is important.”
17. Life in Heaven is real nice but a little bit too much like Stepford Wives.
18. The theatre is alive and well in Heaven, but there is censorship.
“Are plays written on earth performed in the theatres here?”
“If they’re appropriate,” she said. “Nothing that’s sordid though. Nothing conceived merely to harrow an audience.” So, Neil Simon is okay, Samuel Beckett probably not.
19. Don’t commit suicide. This is a real big no no. You will be condemned to stay in a rubbishy decaying version of your own house where all the facilities have been shut off and there is nothing in the fridge and your pets limp and there are tarantulas popping up all the time. You will be there until the time when you were supposed to die naturally (which is written down somewhere I guess). Then you can proceed to Summerland where there is a sale on.
20. What happened is that Richard Matheson read a ton of books about the afterlife and combined all their ideas into this ridiculous novel. Most of these books seems to be THEOSOPHIST. Otherwise known as COMPLETE POPPYCOCK. But it’s nice to know that my severe negativity towards the concept of the afterlife will not prevent me from popping up in Summerland when the time comes. See you there!
So a guy is sitting peacefully at home in 1976 when a strange visitor calls : “I am a psychic type medium and your dead brother Chris has dictated the whole of this manuscript through me! So here you are, take it or leave it.”
The rest of the novel is the first person story of Chris, who died horribly in a car crash, and what then happens.
The first thing is, he’s very upset and more than a little confused to be standing around watching his earthly body die, be wept over by his wife & children, then attend his own funeral. It’s all hey, I’m here, why can’t anybody see me! But then he gets beamed up to a place they call Summerland, some call it Heaven (but its correct name is The Third Sphere), and wakes up in the prettiest of all country parks and meets his old dog who had died but now bounds up wagging its tail. Hello Katie! Then cousin Albert turns up and he turns out to be a most helpful companion. He answers every question to the best of his ability and THERE ARE MANY QUESTIONS.
So here is a summary of interesting points.
HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR STAY IN HEAVEN
1. When you die your life really does flash before your eyes, but slowly, and backwards, and you relive everything.
“It’s a time when men and women come to know what they truly are. A time of purging… a period during which each soul is cleansed by a self-imposed recognition of past deeds – and misdeeds.”
“Self-imposed,” I repeated. “There is really no outside judgement then?”
“What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own when self-pretense is no longer possible?” he asked
Well, whole theologies teeter and crumble to the ground at this point. There’s no judgement day! You do your own judging! But where do these suddenly-acquired moral standards come from? If you didn’t think that fiddling tax returns was a crime at all when you were alive and fiddling, why suddenly should you realise it was a bad thing now you’re dead?
(I should say right now that in this version of the Afterlife, God hardly gets a look-in. And Jesus? Nowhere, man.)
2. Earth ties have less meaning. Relationships of thought, not blood, are what count. So you might meet your mother and just go Hey how’s it going, Mum? And mosey right on by. Well, you were never that close.
3. You choose what age you are in Heaven. Some people like being old! “Wouldn’t it be silly to have nothing but young people here?”
4. All the buildings and rolling countryside and gorgeous arboreal panoramas and exquisite shrubberies are made of a kind of mental stuff which comes from somewhere called The Matrix (yep, that one) and anyone can make themselves a detached Palladian-style house in its own grounds by getting a few brainy types together and concentrating, but you gotta learn the skills first. It’s not magic. And once you lose interest in your house or your library or your dog it vanishes. Back into The Matrix.
5. Your new body doesn’t need food, and has no stomach or intestines. So logically there are no bathrooms or toilets in Heaven. As for clothes – “They’re as real as your body. Everybody – except certain natives, of course – has, in their mind, the conviction that clothes are indispensable. The conviction garbs them after death.”
Albert does not discuss the question of naturists at this point. Could be there are nude beaches in Heaven, but he doesn’t say.
6. “What about reproductive organs?”
“You still have them because you expect to have them. In time, when you understand their lack of purpose, they’ll disappear.”
“That’s weird,” I said
(I think that already some readers might be going off this version of the afterlife a bit. But wait---)
“Still, part of my relationship with Ann [his wife] was physical.”
“And there are people here who love each other, who have sexual relations. The mind is capable of anything… in time, of course, these people usually realize that physical contact isn’t as integral here as it was in life.”
So there’s great news for you - there is sex after death!
7. In heaven you communicate telepathically. I think that really goes without saying.
8. Parts of Heaven look like England. (page 96). I knew that! And the other way round is true too!
9. When you no longer have a physical brain you can think better. This is rather challenging for a person like myself. I think that if you don’t have a physical brain you can’t think at all because you've gone, baby, gone like snow on the water, but could be I’m wrong. Which brings us to
10. This guy Chris was an atheist and a firm believer that there was no afterlife whatsoever, but he still ended up in Heaven. Nice to know!
11. Heaven has countries just like Earth!
“Where exactly are we?” I asked.
“In a counterpart of the United States,” he told me. “One naturally gravitates to the wave length of his own country and people.”
“There’s an equivalent, here, to every country on earth then?”
“At this level…”
Again, Albert does not address the thornier aspects of this – what happens to a Kurdish person after death, or a Catalan – neither have their own countries on Earth, so will they still be campaigning for independence in Heaven?
Also, is there immigration in heaven? What about border control? Or maybe every country now has none of those earthly problems like, you know, perpetual war and malaria and so forth. These things were not fully addressed. Actually, they didn't get a mention.
12. Heaven is not Christian. Or, well, it is if you’re a Christian, but if you’re a Muslim, say, it will be a Muslim heaven.
“You’ll find in the hereafter the particular heaven of each theology.”
“Which is right then?” I asked, completely baffled now [as well he might be, so am I].
“All of them and none. Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew – each has an afterlife experience which reflects his own beliefs. All are real. Each is a portion of the overall reality.”
Logically (if logic exists in Heaven that is) that means every tinpot cult gets its own bit too, unless there's a bureau somewhere that issues certificates. This whole thing could get as messy in Heaven as it is on Earth.
13. Although there is work to be done in Heaven, “there’s no need for a Health Department, a Sanitation Department, Fire or Police Department nor for food or clothing industries, transportation systems, doctors, lawyers, realtors.” (Imagine being a realtor in Heaven - nice view of the choirs of angels during the Autumn months, madam. Actually, no angels are to be had for love nor money in this version of Heaven. I wanted my money back. No angels? Come on!)
The work that people do is , as far as I could figure, making yourself ready to either get reborn or proceed to one of the higher levels, like in your usual computer game.
14. There are seven levels, probably. “He explained that earth is surrounded by concentric spheres of existence which vary in width and density, Summerland (aka Heaven) being the third. I asked how many there are altogether and he answered that he wasn’t sure but had heard there are seven.”
15. Don’t mourn the dead because it prolongs their adjustment to the afterlife. Sort of gives them a migraine.
16. Cremation, not burial! It will be so much easier for you if there are no mortal remains. Trust me on that. “People can’t forget their bodies easily. They keep wanting to see the thing they once believed to be themselves. That desire can become an obsession. That’s why cremation is important.”
17. Life in Heaven is real nice but a little bit too much like Stepford Wives.
18. The theatre is alive and well in Heaven, but there is censorship.
“Are plays written on earth performed in the theatres here?”
“If they’re appropriate,” she said. “Nothing that’s sordid though. Nothing conceived merely to harrow an audience.” So, Neil Simon is okay, Samuel Beckett probably not.
19. Don’t commit suicide. This is a real big no no. You will be condemned to stay in a rubbishy decaying version of your own house where all the facilities have been shut off and there is nothing in the fridge and your pets limp and there are tarantulas popping up all the time. You will be there until the time when you were supposed to die naturally (which is written down somewhere I guess). Then you can proceed to Summerland where there is a sale on.
20. What happened is that Richard Matheson read a ton of books about the afterlife and combined all their ideas into this ridiculous novel. Most of these books seems to be THEOSOPHIST. Otherwise known as COMPLETE POPPYCOCK. But it’s nice to know that my severe negativity towards the concept of the afterlife will not prevent me from popping up in Summerland when the time comes. See you there!
March 21, 2019
Well now, this one will get you to thinking about how you live your life!
Remember the movie GHOST with Patrick Swayze....that's what I first thought of when disaster strikes and a good man finds himself watching the love of his life as she grieves his death. (no spoiler here)
Struggling to come to terms with his own demise from the great beyond and terribly missing his wife, Chris pleads to know when she will finally join him....but discovers disturbing news.
The storyline then turns to a place where dark thoughts consume the mind and violent spirits lead you astray.
"The way will be dark at times, but it leads assuredly to light" and yet another frightening direction for Chris to travel in search of his soul mate.
First published in 1978, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME is deeply thought provoking and a powerful tale of life after death.
(Hope to locate a copy of the film with Robin Williams)
UPDATE: March, 18, 2019 - WELL DONE MOVIE......especially the identities of the heavenly friends, Katie the dog's appearance, and the way it all played out in the end. (Such a young Robin Williams, so sad his fate)
May 10, 2022
Si pudieras vivir en el mundo de tus sueños después de tu muerte, ¿qué crees que debería tener aquel mundo para que fuera perfecto?
En realidad 3,5
Hoy me siento un poco confuso, los libros de Richard Matheson me hacen sentir así. Generalmente cuando una obra literaria tiene una adaptación en el cine, lo más normal es que los seguidores de aquella historia comparen ambos proyectos, y les sea fácil elegir qué contenido les gustó más. No siempre el libro es mejor que la película, aunque en el mayor de los casos, sí. Sin embargo, para las historias de Richard Matheson no aplican estos criterios. Cuando leí Soy Leyenda algo que me sorprendió bastante fue lo diferente que es el libro con respecto a la cinta, pero lo más sorpresivo fue ser consciente de que, después de conocer ambas producciones, me era imposible elegir que trabajo era mejor. Creí que era una situación anómala que solo se presentaba en ese libro en particular, pero esto mismo me acaba de suceder con este otro, y ya no puedo engañarme a mí mismo creyendo que es una coincidencia. Realmente, me siento un poco anonadado por no entender la razón por la que sus libros sufrieron tantos cambios en las adaptaciones correspondientes. Eso sí, para ambos casos, tanto películas como libros me han gustado muchísimo, eso es lo verdaderamente positivo.
La historia de Chris y Annie es tan romántica, y tan bonita, que no puedo negar que siento envidia por no tener un lazo romántico tan profundo con ninguna persona, tal y como lo viven los protagonistas. Una relación amorosa no es solo sexo y placer, y con este tipo de historias se comprueba esta teoría al ser testigos de esa relación tan bonita que está gobernada por la comprensión, el apoyo, el sacrificio, y un verdadero amor. Cuando se ama se sufre por el dolor y/o ausencia de la otra persona, algo que Chris y Annie viven todo el tiempo, y que logra consternar al lector tocándole las fibras más profundas de su corazón, o por lo menos así me ocurrió a mí. Además, el uso de flashbacks me ha parecido una gran herramienta para esta historia porque nos ayuda a diferenciar claramente entre los momentos felices y los tristes que ha vivido la pareja, algo necesario si queremos comprender a fondo los sentimientos y preocupaciones de ambos personajes. Sentimientos que logran atravesar todas las fronteras posibles porque sin importar el lugar donde se hallan, siempre están pensando el uno en el otro, como verdaderas almas gemelas.
No obstante, a pesar de que la historia romántica de Chris y Annie es muy bonita —pero cruel— siento que no es el mejor aspecto del libro. El mejor, sin duda alguna, es la ambientación. ¡Qué genialidad, cuánto ingenio! Son tan geniales y sorprendentes los diferentes escenarios que el autor crea, pasando del utópico paraíso en el que todos desearíamos vivir, al oscuro y lamentable infierno del que a toda costa nos gustaría huir. Son tan buenos los escenarios, las descripciones, la cantidad de características en las que ha pensado el autor, que en verdad, no les niego, me gustaría que al morir pudiera encontrar un mundo así tan bello, perfecto, y con tantas posibilidades y caminos. Sé que en infinidad de libros podremos encontrar cientos de paraísos perfectos, o eso creo, pero este en particular me ha encantado de inicio a fin: Es una completa maravilla. La descripción de las experiencias sensoriales al fallecer, el poder de la mente, la importancia de las oraciones, todo, todo me encanta de esta ambientación. En esas secciones donde Matheson se enfocó en la descripción de los escenarios, les juro que no me importaba el resto de la historia. En esos momentos solo quería seguir leyendo, y seguir imaginando en mi mente un mundo tan bonito, bello y perfecto como el que se describe en estas 320 páginas.
La prosa, ha sido diseñada para leerla como un poema, sintiendo cada palabra, haciendo una pausa especial tras cada coma, y aunque al inicio puede parecer excesiva la cantidad de comas que nos encontramos, la verdad es que se nota que el libro tiene este estilo a propósito para que leyendo la historia así, con esos pequeños silencios, logren las palabras calarnos con más fuerza en nuestro interior. Además, contar la historia por medio de un manuscrito se convierte en una opción válida para que la historia logre tener lógica, a pesar de lo fantasioso que llega a ser el argumento principal. Igualmente, la sección del final también ofrece una dosis adicional de lógica; lógica que nos ayuda a comprender las creencias religiosa en la que se basó el autor, para crear su historia.
¿Y cuáles son mis insatisfacciones? Pues bien, no puedo negar que haber visto la película primero, hace muchos años, ha influido un poco en que por momentos me haya sentido insatisfecho. Hay escenas de aquella cinta muy especiales, e inolvidables, y que de hecho hasta las recuerdo con voces y diálogos en mi mente. Por tanto, ha sido algo triste esperar la aparición de aquellas escenas en este libro, y ha sido más triste terminar la obra y comprender que esas situaciones nunca las escribió el autor en realidad. Sí, en las adaptaciones cambian escenas, u omiten detalles para entretener al espectador, pero hay secciones muy especiales de la película que son bastante diferentes en el libro, por lo que he sentido un sinsabor que no me ha permitido deleitarme por completo con esta historia. El final cambia, el rol de sus hijos en los libros prácticamente ni existe —de hecho tienen más importancia los animales—, el encuentro con su padre, etcétera, etcétera. Si tuviera que elegir forzosamente si prefiero el libro o la adaptación, elegiría la ambientación del libro, pero los diálogos de la cinta, sería una decisión justa.
En resumen, un libro que aunque mantiene las líneas generales de la famosa cinta protagonizada por Robin Williams, si presenta algunos cambios interesantes —no todos— que nos permitirán vivir esta historia como si fuera nuestra primera vez. Siempre he pensado que los libros que nos tocan el corazón, independientemente de las fallas que puedan llegar a tener, siempre valen la pena darles la oportunidad, y este libro es uno de ellos. He decidido calificarlo con 3,5 estrellas porque la película, que resultó siendo más conocida que el propio libro, ha creado una sombra gigantesca en torno a esta historia; una sombra que no se puede ignorar, y aquellos detalles que no están aquí, no puedo negar que sí que los he echado de menos. Historia romántica, bonita, cruel, pero inspiradora. Utópica, y también distópica a la vez. Buen libro.
En realidad 3,5
Hoy me siento un poco confuso, los libros de Richard Matheson me hacen sentir así. Generalmente cuando una obra literaria tiene una adaptación en el cine, lo más normal es que los seguidores de aquella historia comparen ambos proyectos, y les sea fácil elegir qué contenido les gustó más. No siempre el libro es mejor que la película, aunque en el mayor de los casos, sí. Sin embargo, para las historias de Richard Matheson no aplican estos criterios. Cuando leí Soy Leyenda algo que me sorprendió bastante fue lo diferente que es el libro con respecto a la cinta, pero lo más sorpresivo fue ser consciente de que, después de conocer ambas producciones, me era imposible elegir que trabajo era mejor. Creí que era una situación anómala que solo se presentaba en ese libro en particular, pero esto mismo me acaba de suceder con este otro, y ya no puedo engañarme a mí mismo creyendo que es una coincidencia. Realmente, me siento un poco anonadado por no entender la razón por la que sus libros sufrieron tantos cambios en las adaptaciones correspondientes. Eso sí, para ambos casos, tanto películas como libros me han gustado muchísimo, eso es lo verdaderamente positivo.
La historia de Chris y Annie es tan romántica, y tan bonita, que no puedo negar que siento envidia por no tener un lazo romántico tan profundo con ninguna persona, tal y como lo viven los protagonistas. Una relación amorosa no es solo sexo y placer, y con este tipo de historias se comprueba esta teoría al ser testigos de esa relación tan bonita que está gobernada por la comprensión, el apoyo, el sacrificio, y un verdadero amor. Cuando se ama se sufre por el dolor y/o ausencia de la otra persona, algo que Chris y Annie viven todo el tiempo, y que logra consternar al lector tocándole las fibras más profundas de su corazón, o por lo menos así me ocurrió a mí. Además, el uso de flashbacks me ha parecido una gran herramienta para esta historia porque nos ayuda a diferenciar claramente entre los momentos felices y los tristes que ha vivido la pareja, algo necesario si queremos comprender a fondo los sentimientos y preocupaciones de ambos personajes. Sentimientos que logran atravesar todas las fronteras posibles porque sin importar el lugar donde se hallan, siempre están pensando el uno en el otro, como verdaderas almas gemelas.
No obstante, a pesar de que la historia romántica de Chris y Annie es muy bonita —pero cruel— siento que no es el mejor aspecto del libro. El mejor, sin duda alguna, es la ambientación. ¡Qué genialidad, cuánto ingenio! Son tan geniales y sorprendentes los diferentes escenarios que el autor crea, pasando del utópico paraíso en el que todos desearíamos vivir, al oscuro y lamentable infierno del que a toda costa nos gustaría huir. Son tan buenos los escenarios, las descripciones, la cantidad de características en las que ha pensado el autor, que en verdad, no les niego, me gustaría que al morir pudiera encontrar un mundo así tan bello, perfecto, y con tantas posibilidades y caminos. Sé que en infinidad de libros podremos encontrar cientos de paraísos perfectos, o eso creo, pero este en particular me ha encantado de inicio a fin: Es una completa maravilla. La descripción de las experiencias sensoriales al fallecer, el poder de la mente, la importancia de las oraciones, todo, todo me encanta de esta ambientación. En esas secciones donde Matheson se enfocó en la descripción de los escenarios, les juro que no me importaba el resto de la historia. En esos momentos solo quería seguir leyendo, y seguir imaginando en mi mente un mundo tan bonito, bello y perfecto como el que se describe en estas 320 páginas.
La prosa, ha sido diseñada para leerla como un poema, sintiendo cada palabra, haciendo una pausa especial tras cada coma, y aunque al inicio puede parecer excesiva la cantidad de comas que nos encontramos, la verdad es que se nota que el libro tiene este estilo a propósito para que leyendo la historia así, con esos pequeños silencios, logren las palabras calarnos con más fuerza en nuestro interior. Además, contar la historia por medio de un manuscrito se convierte en una opción válida para que la historia logre tener lógica, a pesar de lo fantasioso que llega a ser el argumento principal. Igualmente, la sección del final también ofrece una dosis adicional de lógica; lógica que nos ayuda a comprender las creencias religiosa en la que se basó el autor, para crear su historia.
¿Y cuáles son mis insatisfacciones? Pues bien, no puedo negar que haber visto la película primero, hace muchos años, ha influido un poco en que por momentos me haya sentido insatisfecho. Hay escenas de aquella cinta muy especiales, e inolvidables, y que de hecho hasta las recuerdo con voces y diálogos en mi mente. Por tanto, ha sido algo triste esperar la aparición de aquellas escenas en este libro, y ha sido más triste terminar la obra y comprender que esas situaciones nunca las escribió el autor en realidad. Sí, en las adaptaciones cambian escenas, u omiten detalles para entretener al espectador, pero hay secciones muy especiales de la película que son bastante diferentes en el libro, por lo que he sentido un sinsabor que no me ha permitido deleitarme por completo con esta historia. El final cambia, el rol de sus hijos en los libros prácticamente ni existe —de hecho tienen más importancia los animales—, el encuentro con su padre, etcétera, etcétera. Si tuviera que elegir forzosamente si prefiero el libro o la adaptación, elegiría la ambientación del libro, pero los diálogos de la cinta, sería una decisión justa.
En resumen, un libro que aunque mantiene las líneas generales de la famosa cinta protagonizada por Robin Williams, si presenta algunos cambios interesantes —no todos— que nos permitirán vivir esta historia como si fuera nuestra primera vez. Siempre he pensado que los libros que nos tocan el corazón, independientemente de las fallas que puedan llegar a tener, siempre valen la pena darles la oportunidad, y este libro es uno de ellos. He decidido calificarlo con 3,5 estrellas porque la película, que resultó siendo más conocida que el propio libro, ha creado una sombra gigantesca en torno a esta historia; una sombra que no se puede ignorar, y aquellos detalles que no están aquí, no puedo negar que sí que los he echado de menos. Historia romántica, bonita, cruel, pero inspiradora. Utópica, y también distópica a la vez. Buen libro.
October 16, 2022
As hard as I tried to make myself care about this book and its characters, I just could not.
First of all, it is very tedious, with too much exposition and endless infodumps in the dialogue form. The story gets so bogged down in the exposition that it becomes very dull to follow. At times it reads like a technical manual, with dry and repetitive narration. In this book, Matheson for the most part tells instead of showing, which makes it hard for me to enjoy the story. The characters are poorly fleshed out, and the relationships between them are one-dimensional.
The afterlife world that could have had such potential to be exciting and fantastical is filled instead with arbitrary rules and regulations, and seems like a rather dry, boring, and bureaucratic place. What really frustrated me is that based on these rules, if a person, let's say, struggles with self-esteem or a mental illness, he or she would be eternally screwed here. Not cool.
Overall, reading this book felt like being beaten over the head with a lesson in morality, which was not that well-written either. Giving it 2 stars is almost a stretch, but I have read many books that were much worse.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
First of all, it is very tedious, with too much exposition and endless infodumps in the dialogue form. The story gets so bogged down in the exposition that it becomes very dull to follow. At times it reads like a technical manual, with dry and repetitive narration. In this book, Matheson for the most part tells instead of showing, which makes it hard for me to enjoy the story. The characters are poorly fleshed out, and the relationships between them are one-dimensional.
The afterlife world that could have had such potential to be exciting and fantastical is filled instead with arbitrary rules and regulations, and seems like a rather dry, boring, and bureaucratic place. What really frustrated me is that based on these rules, if a person, let's say, struggles with self-esteem or a mental illness, he or she would be eternally screwed here. Not cool.
Overall, reading this book felt like being beaten over the head with a lesson in morality, which was not that well-written either. Giving it 2 stars is almost a stretch, but I have read many books that were much worse.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
December 14, 2009
I am going to start this review by talking about the one thing that caused this to be a 4-star book rather than a 5-star book. That one thing is the author's note at the beginning.
Now, I almost never read author's notes or introductions, because I find that they inevitably ruin some aspect of the book for me. Whether it is a spoiler, or an introducer's opinion which causes me to think of the book in a certain way, or interpret things in a certain way, or whatever the case may be, it lessens my enjoyment of the book. I never know whether I would have thought of the interpretation on my own without the thought having been planted, for instance, and therefore I feel as if I have been cheated out of the full experience of reading, absorbing and pondering the book. I enjoy that part as much as a good story.
So, with that in mind, I avoid anything written about or pertaining to the book which I am reading, at least until after I have read the book proper. But in this case, no matter which order I'd have read it in, the author's note would have annoyed me and caused me to take a star off. Matheson doesn't spoil anything, technically, nor does he really change the way I interpret the book (honestly!), but what he does, is claim that everything in the book, except the characters, is true.
This is a book about the afterlife. Generally speaking, it's impossible for any of us to know anything about the afterlife until we're no longer living our present life. I know that there are people who hold strong beliefs in the afterlife, or who believe that their religion holds the key to their afterlife, and even those who have died briefly and have come back to tell about their experiences. And these may be similar in nature, but it doesn't make it true. There is no proof to back up the statement that this book makes, which I will get to in a moment. And while it is true that "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence", any claim of "truth" regarding something that cannot be proven by anyone still alive feels very irresponsible.
I don't think that there is anything in this book that would physically harm anyone, and I do think that everyone should be exposed to ideas from all different walks of life, not just their own belief system, so I don't mean "irresponsible" in that way. I just mean that stating something as true when it is virtually unverifiable, and very subject to belief, is a fine line to walk when your career and livelihood depend on not alienating people by your beliefs.
I don't happen to be a religious sort, so in that respect, I was kind of wary of reading this book, given the claim of "truth" that I mentioned before. But I decided to read it as I would any other, and go from there. And while Matheson does touch on "God" and "The Creator" briefly, it is in very general terms, and does not specify any further than that. In fact, he even goes so far as to show people of the Christian faith as being a bit closed-minded in the afterlife that he depicts here, in that they are unable to imagine any other belief system as having an afterlife, and making demands, etc. Nothing outright negative, just that they weren't as open to possibility, so to speak. So I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't preached at, as I was half-expecting.
So, anyway. Now that I've covered the one thing that bothered me, I can move on. For those of you who know anything about my afterlife beliefs, you'll know that I believe that what happens after a person dies is dependent on their own personal belief system. For instance, a Christian who has led a good life and expects to get into Heaven, will. For an atheist who thinks that there is nothing after death, there will be nothing. For someone who believes that they will make it to Valhalla, they will. A follower of Islam who believes that they will make it to Paradise, will. And so on...
I don't really know how long I've held this belief, but I do know that it makes the most sense to me. There are so many religions, and so many sects among each one, that it seems like no two people ever believe the exact same thing. We all interpret religion differently, if we follow one at all, so who's to say what's right? Why fight and kill and hate over a belief? My theory, they're ALL right. Whatever you personally believe is what you will experience. It's kind of comforting, right?
Matheson's book is similar to this, but different in a few major ways.
*********Possible Spoilers Below*********
His book states that there is a sort of ethereal energy plane which occupies the same space as Life, but on a higher level. People who are receptive to higher planes of existence, those who meditate, for instance, are sometimes able to travel in this plane, never realizing it is real, but thinking instead it is a dream or a vision. The higher in the plane we go, the more knowledge we acquire and "divine" we become on our way to rejoining God or the Creator. ("Divine" is my word, not Matheson's.)
What makes his afterlife similar to my theory is that the afterlife plane is a sort of template, onto which the recently deceased imprints their expectations of afterlife. There are certain laws, supposedly handed down from the Creator, which make lower levels (those closer to earth) into a sort of Hell (although there are countless Hells depending on what sort you create for yourself). People who have lived violent lives, for instance, aren't able to rise to the higher levels because they wallow in the misery that they've caused others, and do not seek to better their souls. Sometimes, they aren't even aware they're dead, and just go on living horrible, bleak existences until they ask for and receive help to change and try for more.
The higher levels, of which we only see Summerland, a sort of way station, is adjustable depending on the wishes and beliefs of the individual soul. If your idea of heaven is to have a library full of books in a house by the sea, you have only to create it. So, the higher levels are templates that are adjustable by will, whereas the lower levels are templates that are pre-written by the life you've just led, if that makes sense.
It's a nice thought, that we will all survive death, in a way. It gives us hope that there's not just a one time shot, and if we blow it, or it's taken from us, that's not all there is. We aren't just forsaken and lost forever. It makes me hope that something like this is true, and that I will see my loved ones again when we're gone.
This again is a major theme in this book. Love transcending death. This, I must say, is the facet of the book that most touched and affected me. Matheson's writing about relationships is mesmerizing. He is able, with so few words, to convey to me a lifetime of love and trust and intimacy between Chris, the main character, and his wife Ann, that at times I felt almost like I was spying on their lives. The way that he shows their love made me hope that when my life ends, I can feel as though I've had the kind of connection they shared. Chris's thank you to Ann for being everything to him was heart-rending, and I read it with a pain in my chest and a lump in my throat. Yet I didn't feel like it was contrived or fake, or that I was being manipulated. I just felt as if I was party to his goodbye.
Matheson's writing is simple, but he is a master at depicting life in all its glory and ugliness. He is quickly becoming a favorite author, and despite the fact that I disliked the truth claim, I'm sorry that I put off reading this book for as long as I did. I will definitely need to find and read more Matheson in the future.
Now, I almost never read author's notes or introductions, because I find that they inevitably ruin some aspect of the book for me. Whether it is a spoiler, or an introducer's opinion which causes me to think of the book in a certain way, or interpret things in a certain way, or whatever the case may be, it lessens my enjoyment of the book. I never know whether I would have thought of the interpretation on my own without the thought having been planted, for instance, and therefore I feel as if I have been cheated out of the full experience of reading, absorbing and pondering the book. I enjoy that part as much as a good story.
So, with that in mind, I avoid anything written about or pertaining to the book which I am reading, at least until after I have read the book proper. But in this case, no matter which order I'd have read it in, the author's note would have annoyed me and caused me to take a star off. Matheson doesn't spoil anything, technically, nor does he really change the way I interpret the book (honestly!), but what he does, is claim that everything in the book, except the characters, is true.
This is a book about the afterlife. Generally speaking, it's impossible for any of us to know anything about the afterlife until we're no longer living our present life. I know that there are people who hold strong beliefs in the afterlife, or who believe that their religion holds the key to their afterlife, and even those who have died briefly and have come back to tell about their experiences. And these may be similar in nature, but it doesn't make it true. There is no proof to back up the statement that this book makes, which I will get to in a moment. And while it is true that "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence", any claim of "truth" regarding something that cannot be proven by anyone still alive feels very irresponsible.
I don't think that there is anything in this book that would physically harm anyone, and I do think that everyone should be exposed to ideas from all different walks of life, not just their own belief system, so I don't mean "irresponsible" in that way. I just mean that stating something as true when it is virtually unverifiable, and very subject to belief, is a fine line to walk when your career and livelihood depend on not alienating people by your beliefs.
I don't happen to be a religious sort, so in that respect, I was kind of wary of reading this book, given the claim of "truth" that I mentioned before. But I decided to read it as I would any other, and go from there. And while Matheson does touch on "God" and "The Creator" briefly, it is in very general terms, and does not specify any further than that. In fact, he even goes so far as to show people of the Christian faith as being a bit closed-minded in the afterlife that he depicts here, in that they are unable to imagine any other belief system as having an afterlife, and making demands, etc. Nothing outright negative, just that they weren't as open to possibility, so to speak. So I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't preached at, as I was half-expecting.
So, anyway. Now that I've covered the one thing that bothered me, I can move on. For those of you who know anything about my afterlife beliefs, you'll know that I believe that what happens after a person dies is dependent on their own personal belief system. For instance, a Christian who has led a good life and expects to get into Heaven, will. For an atheist who thinks that there is nothing after death, there will be nothing. For someone who believes that they will make it to Valhalla, they will. A follower of Islam who believes that they will make it to Paradise, will. And so on...
I don't really know how long I've held this belief, but I do know that it makes the most sense to me. There are so many religions, and so many sects among each one, that it seems like no two people ever believe the exact same thing. We all interpret religion differently, if we follow one at all, so who's to say what's right? Why fight and kill and hate over a belief? My theory, they're ALL right. Whatever you personally believe is what you will experience. It's kind of comforting, right?
Matheson's book is similar to this, but different in a few major ways.
*********Possible Spoilers Below*********
His book states that there is a sort of ethereal energy plane which occupies the same space as Life, but on a higher level. People who are receptive to higher planes of existence, those who meditate, for instance, are sometimes able to travel in this plane, never realizing it is real, but thinking instead it is a dream or a vision. The higher in the plane we go, the more knowledge we acquire and "divine" we become on our way to rejoining God or the Creator. ("Divine" is my word, not Matheson's.)
What makes his afterlife similar to my theory is that the afterlife plane is a sort of template, onto which the recently deceased imprints their expectations of afterlife. There are certain laws, supposedly handed down from the Creator, which make lower levels (those closer to earth) into a sort of Hell (although there are countless Hells depending on what sort you create for yourself). People who have lived violent lives, for instance, aren't able to rise to the higher levels because they wallow in the misery that they've caused others, and do not seek to better their souls. Sometimes, they aren't even aware they're dead, and just go on living horrible, bleak existences until they ask for and receive help to change and try for more.
The higher levels, of which we only see Summerland, a sort of way station, is adjustable depending on the wishes and beliefs of the individual soul. If your idea of heaven is to have a library full of books in a house by the sea, you have only to create it. So, the higher levels are templates that are adjustable by will, whereas the lower levels are templates that are pre-written by the life you've just led, if that makes sense.
It's a nice thought, that we will all survive death, in a way. It gives us hope that there's not just a one time shot, and if we blow it, or it's taken from us, that's not all there is. We aren't just forsaken and lost forever. It makes me hope that something like this is true, and that I will see my loved ones again when we're gone.
This again is a major theme in this book. Love transcending death. This, I must say, is the facet of the book that most touched and affected me. Matheson's writing about relationships is mesmerizing. He is able, with so few words, to convey to me a lifetime of love and trust and intimacy between Chris, the main character, and his wife Ann, that at times I felt almost like I was spying on their lives. The way that he shows their love made me hope that when my life ends, I can feel as though I've had the kind of connection they shared. Chris's thank you to Ann for being everything to him was heart-rending, and I read it with a pain in my chest and a lump in my throat. Yet I didn't feel like it was contrived or fake, or that I was being manipulated. I just felt as if I was party to his goodbye.
Matheson's writing is simple, but he is a master at depicting life in all its glory and ugliness. He is quickly becoming a favorite author, and despite the fact that I disliked the truth claim, I'm sorry that I put off reading this book for as long as I did. I will definitely need to find and read more Matheson in the future.
May 12, 2023
What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson was a beautiful story, however, it is sad. Melancholy, suicide and Journey to hell to see your loved one is heavy and emotional. Who deserves a second chance?
November 2, 2024
“What dreams may come” in the sleep of death, Prince Hamlet says in his famed soliloquy, “must give us pause.” In other words, we go on with life, even at the times when doing so seems most difficult, because we really don't know what awaits us beyond the boundaries of this life. There are many different beliefs regarding the prospects for life after death, but we all wonder what it will be like to pass from life into death – and novelist Richard Matheson, a writer famed for his ventures into speculative fiction, sought to explore just such philosophical questions in his 1978 novel What Dreams May Come.
Matheson, in his earlier career, had been better-known for science-fiction, horror, and suspense works like I Am Legend (1954), A Stir of Echoes (1958), and the scripts that he wrote for TV’s The Twilight Zone. Later on, however, he turned more toward speculative fantasy, with works like the 1975 time-travel romance Bid Time Return (Somewhere in Time).
By the time he wrote What Dreams May Come, Matheson was 52; and by that age, one is likely to be confronting intimations of mortality. It makes sense, therefore, that just as Somewhere in Time chronicles a love that could conquer time, What Dreams May Come tells a story of a man whose love and concern for his family continues beyond death.
What Dreams May Come is a framed tale that begins with Robert Nielsen’s recollections of receiving a manuscript from a psychic who said she had spent six months transcribing a communication that she received from his brother Chris – his deceased brother Chris. Robert was angry at the psychic’s presumptuousness, but he eventually accepts the manuscript, and read it repeatedly. He suggests to the reader that “If the manuscript is true, all of us had better examine our lives. Carefully” (p. 12).
With that, we are off into the main action of What Dreams May Come. Chris Nielsen, a man with a young family and much to live for, is involved in a serious automobile accident. He sees himself die on the operating-room table, and “a man in street clothes” (p. 25) gently informs him that he has died. His attempts to deny what has happened to him go on for quite a few pages.
Yet after denial comes, eventually, acceptance. Chris spends a good bit of his immediate post-death aftermath in the family home. There is an attempt by Chris’s family to employ the services of a psychic to achieve a connection with the deceased Chris; but the attempt fails, and in its aftermath a dispirited Chris turns back toward his son’s room and is momentarily surprised to find himself passing effortlessly through the closed door of the room: “I went through it in an instant and the loathsome realization struck me: I’m a ghost” (p. 53).
As Dante the Pilgrim, in Dante Aligheri’s Divine Comedy, is guided through Hell and Purgatory by the Roman poet Virgil, and through Paradise by Dante the Poet’s beloved friend Beatrice, so Chris Nielsen has his own guide – a kindly man in “a white, short-sleeved shirt, white slacks and sandals” (p. 68). This man, named Albert, is Chris’s guide through a peaceful and serene after-life realm called “Summerland.”
Albert as Chris’s guide informs Chris that death “is a state of mind”, asking Chris, “What does that motto on the wall of your office say? That which you believe becomes your world” (p. 70). He goes on to provide Chris with a working definition of death as “a refocusing of consciousness from physical reality to mental – a tuning into higher fields of vibration” (p. 70).
Albert even uses a sort of parable to express to Chris the idea that “Death is merely continuation at another level” (p. 70), asking Chris, “Does a man’s existence change in any way when he removes his overcoat? Neither does it change when death removes the overcoat of his body. He’s still the same person. No wiser. No happier. No better off. Exactly the same” (p. 70).
One of the most interesting parts of What Dreams May Come, for me, comes when Albert informs Chris that “every thought we have takes on a form we must eventually confront”, and adds that “It’s a painful thing to learn, I know” (p. 83). Hearing from Albert that every recently deceased person undergoes “A time of purging”, once one has “no physical body to dull the pain of your re-experienced life”, Chris invokes a religious concept that I found familiar, given the circumstances of my upbringing:
“Is that what the Catholics mean by purgatory?”
“In essence.” He nodded. “A period during which each soul is cleansed by a self-imposed recognition of past deeds – and misdeeds.”
“Self-imposed,” I repeated. “There really is no outside judgement, then?”
“What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own when self-pretense is no longer possible?” he said. (p. 84)
The afterlife, mind you, is not all one big Summerland – a peaceful place of contentment that might remind some readers of the Elysian Fields from Greek mythology. Albert tells Chris that “For everything in life, there’s a counterpart in afterlife. This includes the most beautiful as well as the ugliest of phenomena” (p. 102). Albert’s words foreshadow some of the harsher afterlife experiences that Chris will undergo later in the book.
Matheson did a great deal of research in preparing to write What Dreams May Come, and that research shows through in the way he has Chris recall how “Memories of the death experience started flooding back to me….[I]t had been my etheric double disengaging itself from the nerve ends of my physical body” (p. 107). If he felt “sluggish and stupid, unable to think clearly”, it was because “two-thirds of my consciousness had been inoperative, my mind still enveloped by etheric matter which had been part of my physical brain” (p. 109). The New Age qualities of all this talk about “etheric matter” might be a bit much for some readers.
A crisis in the action of What Dreams May Come occurs when Chris learns that his wife Ann, unable to deal with her grief at Chris’s death, has killed herself. An anguished Chris makes sense of frightening dreams that had plagued him, even amidst the peace of Summerland:
I knew why she’d had those nightmarish visions of her begging me to save her. Again, in memory, I saw her look of terror as she slid across the cliff edge, sank beneath the churning waters of the pool, fell in bloody shock before the bear’s attack. The cliff and pool and bear had all been symbols of my fear for her, not dreams but premonitions. She’d been pleading for my help, asking me to stop her from doing what she’d felt herself about to do. (p. 157)
Chris wants to try to rescue Ann from the unhappy afterlife realm to which her act of suicide has consigned her, but Albert tries to dissuade him. They travel from the paradisacal Summerland to a more hellish place – an afterlife realm where people are making each other unhappy, becoming more unhappy together. Albert says, “Misery loves company, is what they say on earth. It should be: Misery, in company, grows ever worse” (p. 180), and adds that “That’s the pitfall of free will. Any man or woman possesses the capacity to give entry to dark thoughts” (p. 185).
When Chris asks about Hell, Albert tells him that “There’s no one place called Hell….What men have called Hell is a vacuum in which undeveloped souls find themselves after death. A level of existence which they cannot rise above because they are unable to think abstractly but can only dwell on temporal matters” (p. 201). In Ann’s particular case, once Chris arrives at Ann’s particular part of the afterlife, Hell is a hideous, twisted, distorted, decayed version of the home that they once shared. Seeing what is there, and not there, he reflects that “this was her particular limbo and could only possess what she expected to see in it” (p. 206).
Chris, having travelled like Orpheus to Hell to save the woman he loves, tries desperately to help Ann get out of Hell, asking her to recall their relationship and the happiness they once shared.
How she tried. God in heaven, Robert, how she tried. I saw each moment of it on her face. Something in my words had ignited a tiny flame in her mind and now she strained to keep it burning. Not even knowing what had sparked it into life. Not even knowing it was lit but only sensing that it was. Aware of something. Something different. Something other than the wretchedness she’s been existing with. (p. 253)
There is much that is thought-provoking about What Dreams May Come – particularly Chris’s suggestion, near the end of the novel, that “People are not punished for their deeds but by them” (p. 279). This statement seems intrinsic to Matheson’s evident wish to craft a sort of Unified Field Theory of the Afterlife.
The book includes a bibliography of 85 works on the subject of life after death. In a foreword, Matheson urges the reader to read them all, insisting that “there is a persistent, unavoidable uniformity to their content”, and suggesting that reading all of these works about life-after-death is “an enlightening – and extraordinary – experience” (p. 8). As far as he is concerned, the only “fictional” thing about What Dreams May Come is “the characters and their relationships” (p. 8).
You can decide for yourself how “non-fictional” What Dreams May Come is. The book is certainly a good and engaging book, and – like many of Matheson’s other works – it inspired a film version. The 1998 film has a very fine cast (Robin Williams as Chris, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Albert, Annabella Sciorra as Ann, and Max von Sydow as an afterlife “tracker”), and it won an Academy Award for visual effects. Yet I find the film almost impossible to watch nowadays, not for any flaws in the film – it’s a good movie – but because we all know that actor Robin Williams, like the character of Ann whom Chris tries to rescue in both the book and film versions of What Dreams May Come, ultimately took his own life, in 2014. It’s impossible to watch Williams the actor’s work, in a 1998 film where suicide is a key plot element, without thinking of what happened 16 years later to Williams the person.
Such reflections reinforce my sense that What Dreams May Come is an interesting and thought-provoking novel. While I may not buy into a number of Matheson’s speculations regarding the afterlife – I find some of the sources that he cited in his bibliography quite questionable – Matheson remains a gifted storyteller with a pronounced gift for asking the reader to entertain a genuinely engaging “what-if” scenario.
Matheson, in his earlier career, had been better-known for science-fiction, horror, and suspense works like I Am Legend (1954), A Stir of Echoes (1958), and the scripts that he wrote for TV’s The Twilight Zone. Later on, however, he turned more toward speculative fantasy, with works like the 1975 time-travel romance Bid Time Return (Somewhere in Time).
By the time he wrote What Dreams May Come, Matheson was 52; and by that age, one is likely to be confronting intimations of mortality. It makes sense, therefore, that just as Somewhere in Time chronicles a love that could conquer time, What Dreams May Come tells a story of a man whose love and concern for his family continues beyond death.
What Dreams May Come is a framed tale that begins with Robert Nielsen’s recollections of receiving a manuscript from a psychic who said she had spent six months transcribing a communication that she received from his brother Chris – his deceased brother Chris. Robert was angry at the psychic’s presumptuousness, but he eventually accepts the manuscript, and read it repeatedly. He suggests to the reader that “If the manuscript is true, all of us had better examine our lives. Carefully” (p. 12).
With that, we are off into the main action of What Dreams May Come. Chris Nielsen, a man with a young family and much to live for, is involved in a serious automobile accident. He sees himself die on the operating-room table, and “a man in street clothes” (p. 25) gently informs him that he has died. His attempts to deny what has happened to him go on for quite a few pages.
Yet after denial comes, eventually, acceptance. Chris spends a good bit of his immediate post-death aftermath in the family home. There is an attempt by Chris’s family to employ the services of a psychic to achieve a connection with the deceased Chris; but the attempt fails, and in its aftermath a dispirited Chris turns back toward his son’s room and is momentarily surprised to find himself passing effortlessly through the closed door of the room: “I went through it in an instant and the loathsome realization struck me: I’m a ghost” (p. 53).
As Dante the Pilgrim, in Dante Aligheri’s Divine Comedy, is guided through Hell and Purgatory by the Roman poet Virgil, and through Paradise by Dante the Poet’s beloved friend Beatrice, so Chris Nielsen has his own guide – a kindly man in “a white, short-sleeved shirt, white slacks and sandals” (p. 68). This man, named Albert, is Chris’s guide through a peaceful and serene after-life realm called “Summerland.”
Albert as Chris’s guide informs Chris that death “is a state of mind”, asking Chris, “What does that motto on the wall of your office say? That which you believe becomes your world” (p. 70). He goes on to provide Chris with a working definition of death as “a refocusing of consciousness from physical reality to mental – a tuning into higher fields of vibration” (p. 70).
Albert even uses a sort of parable to express to Chris the idea that “Death is merely continuation at another level” (p. 70), asking Chris, “Does a man’s existence change in any way when he removes his overcoat? Neither does it change when death removes the overcoat of his body. He’s still the same person. No wiser. No happier. No better off. Exactly the same” (p. 70).
One of the most interesting parts of What Dreams May Come, for me, comes when Albert informs Chris that “every thought we have takes on a form we must eventually confront”, and adds that “It’s a painful thing to learn, I know” (p. 83). Hearing from Albert that every recently deceased person undergoes “A time of purging”, once one has “no physical body to dull the pain of your re-experienced life”, Chris invokes a religious concept that I found familiar, given the circumstances of my upbringing:
“Is that what the Catholics mean by purgatory?”
“In essence.” He nodded. “A period during which each soul is cleansed by a self-imposed recognition of past deeds – and misdeeds.”
“Self-imposed,” I repeated. “There really is no outside judgement, then?”
“What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own when self-pretense is no longer possible?” he said. (p. 84)
The afterlife, mind you, is not all one big Summerland – a peaceful place of contentment that might remind some readers of the Elysian Fields from Greek mythology. Albert tells Chris that “For everything in life, there’s a counterpart in afterlife. This includes the most beautiful as well as the ugliest of phenomena” (p. 102). Albert’s words foreshadow some of the harsher afterlife experiences that Chris will undergo later in the book.
Matheson did a great deal of research in preparing to write What Dreams May Come, and that research shows through in the way he has Chris recall how “Memories of the death experience started flooding back to me….[I]t had been my etheric double disengaging itself from the nerve ends of my physical body” (p. 107). If he felt “sluggish and stupid, unable to think clearly”, it was because “two-thirds of my consciousness had been inoperative, my mind still enveloped by etheric matter which had been part of my physical brain” (p. 109). The New Age qualities of all this talk about “etheric matter” might be a bit much for some readers.
A crisis in the action of What Dreams May Come occurs when Chris learns that his wife Ann, unable to deal with her grief at Chris’s death, has killed herself. An anguished Chris makes sense of frightening dreams that had plagued him, even amidst the peace of Summerland:
I knew why she’d had those nightmarish visions of her begging me to save her. Again, in memory, I saw her look of terror as she slid across the cliff edge, sank beneath the churning waters of the pool, fell in bloody shock before the bear’s attack. The cliff and pool and bear had all been symbols of my fear for her, not dreams but premonitions. She’d been pleading for my help, asking me to stop her from doing what she’d felt herself about to do. (p. 157)
Chris wants to try to rescue Ann from the unhappy afterlife realm to which her act of suicide has consigned her, but Albert tries to dissuade him. They travel from the paradisacal Summerland to a more hellish place – an afterlife realm where people are making each other unhappy, becoming more unhappy together. Albert says, “Misery loves company, is what they say on earth. It should be: Misery, in company, grows ever worse” (p. 180), and adds that “That’s the pitfall of free will. Any man or woman possesses the capacity to give entry to dark thoughts” (p. 185).
When Chris asks about Hell, Albert tells him that “There’s no one place called Hell….What men have called Hell is a vacuum in which undeveloped souls find themselves after death. A level of existence which they cannot rise above because they are unable to think abstractly but can only dwell on temporal matters” (p. 201). In Ann’s particular case, once Chris arrives at Ann’s particular part of the afterlife, Hell is a hideous, twisted, distorted, decayed version of the home that they once shared. Seeing what is there, and not there, he reflects that “this was her particular limbo and could only possess what she expected to see in it” (p. 206).
Chris, having travelled like Orpheus to Hell to save the woman he loves, tries desperately to help Ann get out of Hell, asking her to recall their relationship and the happiness they once shared.
How she tried. God in heaven, Robert, how she tried. I saw each moment of it on her face. Something in my words had ignited a tiny flame in her mind and now she strained to keep it burning. Not even knowing what had sparked it into life. Not even knowing it was lit but only sensing that it was. Aware of something. Something different. Something other than the wretchedness she’s been existing with. (p. 253)
There is much that is thought-provoking about What Dreams May Come – particularly Chris’s suggestion, near the end of the novel, that “People are not punished for their deeds but by them” (p. 279). This statement seems intrinsic to Matheson’s evident wish to craft a sort of Unified Field Theory of the Afterlife.
The book includes a bibliography of 85 works on the subject of life after death. In a foreword, Matheson urges the reader to read them all, insisting that “there is a persistent, unavoidable uniformity to their content”, and suggesting that reading all of these works about life-after-death is “an enlightening – and extraordinary – experience” (p. 8). As far as he is concerned, the only “fictional” thing about What Dreams May Come is “the characters and their relationships” (p. 8).
You can decide for yourself how “non-fictional” What Dreams May Come is. The book is certainly a good and engaging book, and – like many of Matheson’s other works – it inspired a film version. The 1998 film has a very fine cast (Robin Williams as Chris, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Albert, Annabella Sciorra as Ann, and Max von Sydow as an afterlife “tracker”), and it won an Academy Award for visual effects. Yet I find the film almost impossible to watch nowadays, not for any flaws in the film – it’s a good movie – but because we all know that actor Robin Williams, like the character of Ann whom Chris tries to rescue in both the book and film versions of What Dreams May Come, ultimately took his own life, in 2014. It’s impossible to watch Williams the actor’s work, in a 1998 film where suicide is a key plot element, without thinking of what happened 16 years later to Williams the person.
Such reflections reinforce my sense that What Dreams May Come is an interesting and thought-provoking novel. While I may not buy into a number of Matheson’s speculations regarding the afterlife – I find some of the sources that he cited in his bibliography quite questionable – Matheson remains a gifted storyteller with a pronounced gift for asking the reader to entertain a genuinely engaging “what-if” scenario.
February 1, 2023
Many people found this story to be wonderful, perhaps a love story that surpasses all love stories. I did not care for it. I found it to be horrifying and cruel.
It is a story about a man and wife who are deeply in love. The man gets in a car accident and dies. She finds herself in a very deep and dark depression and ends up killing herself. Because of this she is sent to Hades. Now, this Hades is not a Fiery Hell instead she just continues to suffer mentally while there. Of course, it is not God who sends her to hell, It is her Karma that sends her there. Also, it is not going to be forever. Is this that much better than Christianity? Not to me.
What is it about mankind that causes him to desire people to suffer in an afterlife? Is it some kind of lust? Talk to mini Christians and New Agers and you will find that many of them began talking about karma or Haiti's. Seldom is it talk of God's love. Of course, if you read the bible, even God's love is debatable. I believe this is because many different men wrote the bible, And they had different opinions about God. The writer who said that God is Love had it right. He was much more enlightened than the others.
And what is this about karma? It is said by the Hindu's that the western teachings of karma are wrong. Karma means movement, not cause an effect. But perhaps not all Hindus believe this to be true. Still, Near death experiences are just that near death. Noone has come back from the dead to be able to tell you what that life was like.
It is a story about a man and wife who are deeply in love. The man gets in a car accident and dies. She finds herself in a very deep and dark depression and ends up killing herself. Because of this she is sent to Hades. Now, this Hades is not a Fiery Hell instead she just continues to suffer mentally while there. Of course, it is not God who sends her to hell, It is her Karma that sends her there. Also, it is not going to be forever. Is this that much better than Christianity? Not to me.
What is it about mankind that causes him to desire people to suffer in an afterlife? Is it some kind of lust? Talk to mini Christians and New Agers and you will find that many of them began talking about karma or Haiti's. Seldom is it talk of God's love. Of course, if you read the bible, even God's love is debatable. I believe this is because many different men wrote the bible, And they had different opinions about God. The writer who said that God is Love had it right. He was much more enlightened than the others.
And what is this about karma? It is said by the Hindu's that the western teachings of karma are wrong. Karma means movement, not cause an effect. But perhaps not all Hindus believe this to be true. Still, Near death experiences are just that near death. Noone has come back from the dead to be able to tell you what that life was like.
June 1, 2024
4/5
"Травмує не смерть, травмує життя"
Найперше, що мене вразило в цій книзі, те що єдиною вигадкою в ній є герої та їх стосунки, все інше базується на дослідженнях за цією темою.
Але давайте по порядку.
Мені дуже сподобалася ідея книги, трохи менше її реалізація. Інтерпретація життя після смерті, зображення раю та пекла, як форми існування, роздуми про те, що всі думки матеріальні. Інкарнація, дезінкарнація і реінкарнація, астральне, ефірне, фізичне і духовне тіло. Зізнаюсь, що деякі терміни я вперше почула, а деякі роз'яснення досі залишаються для мене незрозумілими. Але це було цікаво. Є над чим задуматися і порозмірковувати, я зберегла багато цитат і навіть розплакалася під час читання деяких моментів.
Сюжет книги не можна назвати динамічним чи захоплюючим, ви не зіткнетеся тут з несподіваними сюжетними поворотами,події розвиваються повільно, а текст насичений багатими описами. Протягом першої частини книги головний герой знайомиться з потойбічним світом, іншу половину книги намагається допомогти своїй дружині.
Головні герої, як на мене були недостатньо розкритими. Кріс всю книгу тільки те й робив, що згадував свою дружину, говорив про неї і чекав зустрічі, що час від часу це набридало. І для мене це виглядало трохи егоїстично по відношенню до дітей. Він стверджував, що був поганим чоловіком для Енн, але в той же час нам не пока��али чому він так вважав. Тим не менш його любов до дружини підкупляла, таке чисте, щире, всеосяжне і саможертовне кохання, хочеться вірити, що воно буває у житті.
Енн також досить погано розкрита, в очах Кріса вона ідеал, прям супержінка, але хотілося дізнатися більше про її минуле, а не лише ті кілька нещасних речень, хотілося побачити більше їхнього сімейного життя, розкриття стосунків з дітьми. Хоча я, мабуть багато прошу, все ж таки акцент тут більше на потойбічному світі.
Не сподобалося, що вік їхніх дітей ми дізнаємося лише в другій половині книги, я губилася у здогадках, скільки їм років, в моїй уяві вони були набагато молодшими, особливо Йен.
Також не сподобався кінець. Я прям розплакалася. І ні, він не поганий, проте в моїй голові був інший фінал, а тут мене ніби обухом по голові вдарили.
Але тим не менш, книга безумовно заслуговує на увагу.
І ще декілька цитат, які запали мені в душу:
"Немає більшого сліпого, ніж той, що не хоче бачити"
"Який вирок може бути суворішим за той, що виносиш собі сам, коли не можеш прикидатися?"
"Травмує не смерть, травмує життя"
Найперше, що мене вразило в цій книзі, те що єдиною вигадкою в ній є герої та їх стосунки, все інше базується на дослідженнях за цією темою.
Але давайте по порядку.
Мені дуже сподобалася ідея книги, трохи менше її реалізація. Інтерпретація життя після смерті, зображення раю та пекла, як форми існування, роздуми про те, що всі думки матеріальні. Інкарнація, дезінкарнація і реінкарнація, астральне, ефірне, фізичне і духовне тіло. Зізнаюсь, що деякі терміни я вперше почула, а деякі роз'яснення досі залишаються для мене незрозумілими. Але це було цікаво. Є над чим задуматися і порозмірковувати, я зберегла багато цитат і навіть розплакалася під час читання деяких моментів.
Сюжет книги не можна назвати динамічним чи захоплюючим, ви не зіткнетеся тут з несподіваними сюжетними поворотами,події розвиваються повільно, а текст насичений багатими описами. Протягом першої частини книги головний герой знайомиться з потойбічним світом, іншу половину книги намагається допомогти своїй дружині.
Головні герої, як на мене були недостатньо розкритими. Кріс всю книгу тільки те й робив, що згадував свою дружину, говорив про неї і чекав зустрічі, що час від часу це набридало. І для мене це виглядало трохи егоїстично по відношенню до дітей. Він стверджував, що був поганим чоловіком для Енн, але в той же час нам не пока��али чому він так вважав. Тим не менш його любов до дружини підкупляла, таке чисте, щире, всеосяжне і саможертовне кохання, хочеться вірити, що воно буває у житті.
Енн також досить погано розкрита, в очах Кріса вона ідеал, прям супержінка, але хотілося дізнатися більше про її минуле, а не лише ті кілька нещасних речень, хотілося побачити більше їхнього сімейного життя, розкриття стосунків з дітьми. Хоча я, мабуть багато прошу, все ж таки акцент тут більше на потойбічному світі.
Не сподобалося, що вік їхніх дітей ми дізнаємося лише в другій половині книги, я губилася у здогадках, скільки їм років, в моїй уяві вони були набагато молодшими, особливо Йен.
Також не сподобався кінець. Я прям розплакалася. І ні, він не поганий, проте в моїй голові був інший фінал, а тут мене ніби обухом по голові вдарили.
Але тим не менш, книга безумовно заслуговує на увагу.
І ще декілька цитат, які запали мені в душу:
"Немає більшого сліпого, ніж той, що не хоче бачити"
"Який вирок може бути суворішим за той, що виносиш собі сам, коли не можеш прикидатися?"
October 14, 2015
(My fan went out on my laptop again so I'm writing this from my iPhone. So if I misspell or something...)
I loved, absolutely loved this beautiful story. I don't agree with the theology. I'm a Christian. Nuf said bout that. The story reads like a myth or legend, and symbolism abounds for the lives we live. THE POWER OF LOVE. That phrase describes the theme. A man dies and goes to a heaven-like place. He wants his wife to come, but learns she has condemned herself to the lower regions through suicide. He risks his soul by descending to save her.
The movie stars Robin Williams, ironic. I threw some thoughts about him in a notebook, and they cover the ideas in the book, death and afterlife. If you feel compelled: Robin Williams/ I miss you/ Man of the World/ comedian/ and hero-/ your laughter died/ with you-/ But I remember Dr. Seuss-/ a beautiful man/ like you/ who told us/ to be happy/ because you came/ and don't cry/ because you left. Your light/ your smile/ your gift/ YOUR GIFT-/ We forgive you/ for hurting us/ But/ only God/ can judge you. He knows/ your heart/ and if you believed. I hope to meet you/ in heaven-/ I want to hug you-/ and say/ We love you/ You made happy faces/ and bright eyes/ You live on/ immortal in the memories/ of recordings/ Your gift never dies -- We still love you.
I loved the depth and power of the story, found it purely captivating and laced with profound truth. My heart wrenched in agony and the pain of empathy, of love for another soul so close. I still hurt, probably will for a while, a good hurt, a love hurt. Matheson writes a reflection of a beautiful soul with an enormous heart, and a genius.
Chris, the main character meets his dog in heaven. Circumstances have separated me for some time from my family and dog. You see, my dog is super emotional and attaches and gets depressed if I'm not around. He's a needy baby, and it hurts knowing he hurts. Sounds strange if you've never had a dog. I pray he'll be with us forever in heaven, like Chris's dog in the story. I wrote another poem about Rascal but maybe another time? I imagine him running in endless fields and seeing me for the first time up there. He freaks out if you leave for ten minutes. I can't imagine what that will be like after waiting years.
Matheson emphasizes the power of thoughts. They can make life heaven or hell. I wonder if sometimes people struggle mentally when they don't realize they don't have to, that they can choose to think differently and step out of their personal hell. When we try to help nobody can reach them. Only self-sacrificial love can heal them, as the book shows.
He also goes over sowing and reaping, a powerful concept, and a true. People say, Karma's a B****" I think s more accurate way to say it may be, "Karma's a B**** to the B****, and s Pal to the Pal.
The climax brings Chris to a decision. Against all odds he strives to convince his wife she can step out of her personal hell. The way he does it sets an example to those, perhaps, who may try to save a marriage dying. GRATITUDE. Made me grateful for my Angel and made me see I need to tell her. Love, true love suffers for the other, is willing to do anything, die on a cross, face derision and hatred, open up to blasts from bullets, whatever. Many leaders of religions have set an example. The story sets pace for the love story of life, and those privileged to experience it while the embers burn for a time.
This story, one of the best, most beloved, wonderful. Don't miss out. Don't, as I nearly did, miss the beauty of the sun and lake and mountains over a single rock blocking the view. Move to a better seat. See another perspective. You'll see the scenery isn't all so different from this angle.
About my dog, Rascal, a.k.a. Wascally Wabbit
When he leaves/ this place/ let him run free/ on grass/ in endless fields/ and a sun/ of gentle warmth/ under rainbow skies./ Be free/ little Baby/ With all your/ new friends/ forever./ My last breath will come/ and I'll stand/ in that field/ and you'll see me/ and I'll see you/ We will play/ We will run/ We will laugh/ again -/ forever:/ I'll never leave again-/ and you'll lie/ on soft grass/ under a pale white/ moon of perfection/ and your peace/ lasts forever./ Let us run-/ let the fields fly by-/ Let us laugh and/ open our hearts-/ and learn to fly/ and explore all/ the worlds/ and infinite space/ and infinite time/ time/ less. Never separated/ again-/ by loneliness/ and hurt/ rejection,/ pain/ will be lost/ forever/ under the deluge/ of eternal bliss. And it's me/ and you/ and all we love.
I loved, absolutely loved this beautiful story. I don't agree with the theology. I'm a Christian. Nuf said bout that. The story reads like a myth or legend, and symbolism abounds for the lives we live. THE POWER OF LOVE. That phrase describes the theme. A man dies and goes to a heaven-like place. He wants his wife to come, but learns she has condemned herself to the lower regions through suicide. He risks his soul by descending to save her.
The movie stars Robin Williams, ironic. I threw some thoughts about him in a notebook, and they cover the ideas in the book, death and afterlife. If you feel compelled: Robin Williams/ I miss you/ Man of the World/ comedian/ and hero-/ your laughter died/ with you-/ But I remember Dr. Seuss-/ a beautiful man/ like you/ who told us/ to be happy/ because you came/ and don't cry/ because you left. Your light/ your smile/ your gift/ YOUR GIFT-/ We forgive you/ for hurting us/ But/ only God/ can judge you. He knows/ your heart/ and if you believed. I hope to meet you/ in heaven-/ I want to hug you-/ and say/ We love you/ You made happy faces/ and bright eyes/ You live on/ immortal in the memories/ of recordings/ Your gift never dies -- We still love you.
I loved the depth and power of the story, found it purely captivating and laced with profound truth. My heart wrenched in agony and the pain of empathy, of love for another soul so close. I still hurt, probably will for a while, a good hurt, a love hurt. Matheson writes a reflection of a beautiful soul with an enormous heart, and a genius.
Chris, the main character meets his dog in heaven. Circumstances have separated me for some time from my family and dog. You see, my dog is super emotional and attaches and gets depressed if I'm not around. He's a needy baby, and it hurts knowing he hurts. Sounds strange if you've never had a dog. I pray he'll be with us forever in heaven, like Chris's dog in the story. I wrote another poem about Rascal but maybe another time? I imagine him running in endless fields and seeing me for the first time up there. He freaks out if you leave for ten minutes. I can't imagine what that will be like after waiting years.
Matheson emphasizes the power of thoughts. They can make life heaven or hell. I wonder if sometimes people struggle mentally when they don't realize they don't have to, that they can choose to think differently and step out of their personal hell. When we try to help nobody can reach them. Only self-sacrificial love can heal them, as the book shows.
He also goes over sowing and reaping, a powerful concept, and a true. People say, Karma's a B****" I think s more accurate way to say it may be, "Karma's a B**** to the B****, and s Pal to the Pal.
The climax brings Chris to a decision. Against all odds he strives to convince his wife she can step out of her personal hell. The way he does it sets an example to those, perhaps, who may try to save a marriage dying. GRATITUDE. Made me grateful for my Angel and made me see I need to tell her. Love, true love suffers for the other, is willing to do anything, die on a cross, face derision and hatred, open up to blasts from bullets, whatever. Many leaders of religions have set an example. The story sets pace for the love story of life, and those privileged to experience it while the embers burn for a time.
This story, one of the best, most beloved, wonderful. Don't miss out. Don't, as I nearly did, miss the beauty of the sun and lake and mountains over a single rock blocking the view. Move to a better seat. See another perspective. You'll see the scenery isn't all so different from this angle.
About my dog, Rascal, a.k.a. Wascally Wabbit
When he leaves/ this place/ let him run free/ on grass/ in endless fields/ and a sun/ of gentle warmth/ under rainbow skies./ Be free/ little Baby/ With all your/ new friends/ forever./ My last breath will come/ and I'll stand/ in that field/ and you'll see me/ and I'll see you/ We will play/ We will run/ We will laugh/ again -/ forever:/ I'll never leave again-/ and you'll lie/ on soft grass/ under a pale white/ moon of perfection/ and your peace/ lasts forever./ Let us run-/ let the fields fly by-/ Let us laugh and/ open our hearts-/ and learn to fly/ and explore all/ the worlds/ and infinite space/ and infinite time/ time/ less. Never separated/ again-/ by loneliness/ and hurt/ rejection,/ pain/ will be lost/ forever/ under the deluge/ of eternal bliss. And it's me/ and you/ and all we love.
May 10, 2016
I was probably not in the right mood for this book, it tired me, it was a bit verbose, a bit too dark, a bit repetitive... Still, the last few sentences made it worth reading the whole thing.
January 8, 2008
This book begins with an immediate fallacy: the author gives an introduction claiming that all events that occur in the book are true-to-life (though shown through fictional characters). This reminded me of Dan Brown's similar claims in "The Da Vinci Code." The problem here is that theological supernature is impossible to prove simply through research. Given that science and other such worldly ventures are based in what limited PHYSICAL proof we have, I don't believe for a second that someone can read a series of scholarly books and claim that his research is completely true. I would have had an easier time accepting his claims of veridity if Matheson had claimed he'd seen it all in a vision, as facts of this nature can really only be learned by divine enlightenment.
What ensues is a weak plot/love story that serves only for Matheson to show how much he thinks he knows on the subject of death and the afterlife. I am not so much concerned about the use of plot as a vehicle for informing, but when the author uses almost 100 pages of almost nonstop TALKING in order to spell out everything he's researched about Heaven, it makes me bored and uninterested. I was better able to feel involved in his writings when the character began moving through the layers of Hell, because in this part of the story things were actually happening WHILE giving the author a chance to explain. Lesson learned: action is a better means of communication to the reader than straight dialogue.
I don't have a problem reading a book like this and suspending my own beliefs and knowledge in order to enjoy a fictional story based on the author's thoughts and insights, but I do have a problem when the author is pompous enough to think his limited methods of research have made him some sort of enlightened priest, and isn't creative enough to drive a story along during almost half of the book. What's worse is that, at the very end of the book, the film producer responsible for adapting this book for the big screen has inserted a letter that praises Matheson as some sort of prophet (for lack of a better word). Please.
The meat of the love story itself didn't really do anything for me, but this could be personal preference. At one point near the end there are literally pages and pages of lovey-dovey flashbacks that I ended up skipping to get back to the pending events of the story during its climax.
I don't regret having read it, as there were other parts that were interesting to read ("purgatory" and, as mentioned above, Chris's journey through Hell), but I would tell anyone who was curious to take it with a large grain of salt. The ending is a cop-out, and as I closed the cover for the last time I couldn't help but say to myself, "Really? That's it?"
What ensues is a weak plot/love story that serves only for Matheson to show how much he thinks he knows on the subject of death and the afterlife. I am not so much concerned about the use of plot as a vehicle for informing, but when the author uses almost 100 pages of almost nonstop TALKING in order to spell out everything he's researched about Heaven, it makes me bored and uninterested. I was better able to feel involved in his writings when the character began moving through the layers of Hell, because in this part of the story things were actually happening WHILE giving the author a chance to explain. Lesson learned: action is a better means of communication to the reader than straight dialogue.
I don't have a problem reading a book like this and suspending my own beliefs and knowledge in order to enjoy a fictional story based on the author's thoughts and insights, but I do have a problem when the author is pompous enough to think his limited methods of research have made him some sort of enlightened priest, and isn't creative enough to drive a story along during almost half of the book. What's worse is that, at the very end of the book, the film producer responsible for adapting this book for the big screen has inserted a letter that praises Matheson as some sort of prophet (for lack of a better word). Please.
The meat of the love story itself didn't really do anything for me, but this could be personal preference. At one point near the end there are literally pages and pages of lovey-dovey flashbacks that I ended up skipping to get back to the pending events of the story during its climax.
I don't regret having read it, as there were other parts that were interesting to read ("purgatory" and, as mentioned above, Chris's journey through Hell), but I would tell anyone who was curious to take it with a large grain of salt. The ending is a cop-out, and as I closed the cover for the last time I couldn't help but say to myself, "Really? That's it?"
November 21, 2021
Creo que me hubiese gustado bastante más si no hubiera visto la película.
Me ha gustado más el trasfondo, la ídea que tenía Matheson del más allá, que la historia central. Aunque tengo que reconocer que los últimos capítulos fueron muy intensos.
Me ha gustado más el trasfondo, la ídea que tenía Matheson del más allá, que la historia central. Aunque tengo que reconocer que los últimos capítulos fueron muy intensos.
May 5, 2020
Admittedly, I committed a cardinal literary sin by watching the movie before reading this book. In fact, I saw “What Dreams May Come” in the theater years ago and didn’t even know it was an adaptation (egad!) at the time. Nevertheless, I loved this book even though it differed significantly from the movie. Mr. Matheson’s research was quite impressive as he included a lengthy bibliography at the end of the novel. As someone who believes in an afterlife, I went into this journey suitably biased. However, I think the writing, imagination, and thematic love story would be entertaining even if one has no post-earthly beliefs. I loved the references to various philosophies and the personified extreme power of conscious thought. And lastly, the animals in Heaven are just as awesome as they are on Earth. That part I know is true. 😇😇
April 20, 2016
First things first. In spite of being brought up in a Christian Orthodox environment, I don't consider myself a Christian. I guess you can call me an open-minded atheist. As for the afterlife, I think that all existing scenarios were created by the various religions either to concrete their earthly establishments, or to ease people's fear of dying, with the former being the most probable hypothesis. Personally, while recognizing that one can only speculate about this matter, I'm of the opinion that death is the end. I doubt the existence of what religious people call a soul. However, like I said, I keep an open mind with this sort of things and acknowledge that noone can be sure about them.
Now, in the introduction of What Dreams May Come, Matheson states that the only fictional elements about it are the characters. When I read this statement, I already knew that this book is about a man who dies and tries to reunite with his wife, as well as that it provides a detailed depiction of afterlife. So, it's easy to imagine that my rationalistic defenses were immediately activated. Matheson then clarifies that his sources were tons of books concerning near-death experiences and theories about the afterlife, so I naturally made the rationalization that these are such subjective factors, they can hardly be called non-fiction. That allowed me to enjoy this brilliant book as it is. A magnificent love story.
After having read four of his books (including this one), I have come to love Matheson's way of telling his stories. There's something unique and addictive about it. In What Dreams May Come, he weaves a tale which includes everlasting love along with psychological terrors including life and death. As for the latter, he paints a picture where afterlife is what we make it. The Ultimate Judgement is performed by the person alone and whether they end up in Heaven or Hell and what kind it will be, is decided by themselves after they have seen their lives pass before their eyes and made an account of what kind of life they led. So those who feel guilty about what they've done in life, they end up experiencing their personal Hell which is in fact a projection of their inner psyche. The rest enter Summerland, which is a non-Christian version of Heaven.
****MINOR SPOILER**** I was particularly amazed by the part where the protagonist meets his wife in her personal Hell after having committed suicide and finds her stuck in a twisted version of their home, tormented by her guilts and refusing to believe that he is her husband and that she doesn't have to stay there if only she wills it enough.****END OF SPOILER****
I don't know about afterlife, but this is certainly something very true in real life. I mean, for people to punish themselves making their close environment a projection of their dark psychology, keeping themselves stuck in all that's bad and wrong in order to avoid the truth which is that they can change everything. And of course this has serious repercussions to everyone who cares for them and love them. So powerful this part!
All that aside, the bottom line is that this is a love story about a man who will do everything in order to be with his wife. In life as well as in death. I read in another review about the final "thank-you" speech being sexist and offensive and I can't help but feel sorry about everyone who read it and felt this way. Most probably, these people never felt real love, shut inside their pittiful, insecure, rotting shells they call their bodies. Blind to everything but a few words, it's no wonder they can only feel offended instead of having the self-respect to be touched by such powerful notions. Sorry about that, I just had to get it out of my system.
I've said before that it takes some balls to write good romance. The kind of balls that is not an exclusive priviledge of men. Great book, recommended to anyone willing to know/remember what romance really is.
Now, in the introduction of What Dreams May Come, Matheson states that the only fictional elements about it are the characters. When I read this statement, I already knew that this book is about a man who dies and tries to reunite with his wife, as well as that it provides a detailed depiction of afterlife. So, it's easy to imagine that my rationalistic defenses were immediately activated. Matheson then clarifies that his sources were tons of books concerning near-death experiences and theories about the afterlife, so I naturally made the rationalization that these are such subjective factors, they can hardly be called non-fiction. That allowed me to enjoy this brilliant book as it is. A magnificent love story.
After having read four of his books (including this one), I have come to love Matheson's way of telling his stories. There's something unique and addictive about it. In What Dreams May Come, he weaves a tale which includes everlasting love along with psychological terrors including life and death. As for the latter, he paints a picture where afterlife is what we make it. The Ultimate Judgement is performed by the person alone and whether they end up in Heaven or Hell and what kind it will be, is decided by themselves after they have seen their lives pass before their eyes and made an account of what kind of life they led. So those who feel guilty about what they've done in life, they end up experiencing their personal Hell which is in fact a projection of their inner psyche. The rest enter Summerland, which is a non-Christian version of Heaven.
****MINOR SPOILER**** I was particularly amazed by the part where the protagonist meets his wife in her personal Hell after having committed suicide and finds her stuck in a twisted version of their home, tormented by her guilts and refusing to believe that he is her husband and that she doesn't have to stay there if only she wills it enough.****END OF SPOILER****
I don't know about afterlife, but this is certainly something very true in real life. I mean, for people to punish themselves making their close environment a projection of their dark psychology, keeping themselves stuck in all that's bad and wrong in order to avoid the truth which is that they can change everything. And of course this has serious repercussions to everyone who cares for them and love them. So powerful this part!
All that aside, the bottom line is that this is a love story about a man who will do everything in order to be with his wife. In life as well as in death. I read in another review about the final "thank-you" speech being sexist and offensive and I can't help but feel sorry about everyone who read it and felt this way. Most probably, these people never felt real love, shut inside their pittiful, insecure, rotting shells they call their bodies. Blind to everything but a few words, it's no wonder they can only feel offended instead of having the self-respect to be touched by such powerful notions. Sorry about that, I just had to get it out of my system.
I've said before that it takes some balls to write good romance. The kind of balls that is not an exclusive priviledge of men. Great book, recommended to anyone willing to know/remember what romance really is.
February 4, 2008
I picked this one up after I finished Barbara Gowdy's stories mainly because it was short and I wanted something quick to read and Hannibal wasn't being released for another couple of days. What a find.
This is the novel that the movie of the same name is based upon, starring Robin Williams. In the introduction, Matheson explains that the only fiction in this story are the characters and their relationships. The rest came from intensive research on the subject. The end product
makes so much sense and seems entirely believable.
The story is about a man's journey beyond death to rejoin his wife. It's the ultimate love story, but beyond that the meaning of life, yes, The Meaning of Life is revealed here. Now, I'm hesitant to admit that this novel has changed my life, or absolutely convinced me of
life after death, but it has inspired much hope. It really makes sense, and I challenge anyone to read it and not be affected by it.
This is the novel that the movie of the same name is based upon, starring Robin Williams. In the introduction, Matheson explains that the only fiction in this story are the characters and their relationships. The rest came from intensive research on the subject. The end product
makes so much sense and seems entirely believable.
The story is about a man's journey beyond death to rejoin his wife. It's the ultimate love story, but beyond that the meaning of life, yes, The Meaning of Life is revealed here. Now, I'm hesitant to admit that this novel has changed my life, or absolutely convinced me of
life after death, but it has inspired much hope. It really makes sense, and I challenge anyone to read it and not be affected by it.
January 9, 2011
I did not like this book. The most upsetting (and I suppose liberating to some) idea presented is that we, as human beings, are destined to create our own heavens and hells simply by our mental patterns. It struck me, as a trained social worker, that it is distinctly unfair that the mentally ill who suffer throughout an entire life time with depression/self-doubt/schizophrenia/etc. are limited by their very diseases to an eternity of post-mortem agony. Upsetting to say the least... If half the women in the US are struggling with some sort of disordered eating or distorted body image, will they create their "prisons" of extra weight and self-loathing following their deaths? I think I need a book club to discuss this one.
I can say that I loved the movie based on this book, and am grateful (grudgingly) to the author for taking on a fascinating topic. It gives others a place from which to start discussions, internal searches, and perhaps further study into the various themes presented. Honestly though - those could come from simply watching the movie, which I think is the better use of time.
I can say that I loved the movie based on this book, and am grateful (grudgingly) to the author for taking on a fascinating topic. It gives others a place from which to start discussions, internal searches, and perhaps further study into the various themes presented. Honestly though - those could come from simply watching the movie, which I think is the better use of time.
June 18, 2024
5/5 ⭐️
Книга дуже глибока, яка наштовхувала мене на багато роздумів.
Дуже цікаво було читати про життя після смерті, рай та пекло, адже книга побудована на дослідженнях (надається список додаткової літератури, якщо тема вас зацікавить).
Версія потойбіччя після смерті описана автором мені сподобалась. Описи раю та пекла дарували такі самі емоція та відчуття як я про них думаю (ніколи не думала, що в пеклі спекотно та все у вогні, завжди уявляла темінь, холод та вологість).
Хоча тут історія про кохання, яка дуже зворушлива та красива (сам монолог головного героя чого вартує), але вона зовсім не банальна і щільно переплетена з роздумами про життя та смерть.
"- То вищого суду не існує?
- Який вирок може бути суворішим за той, що виносиш собі сам, коли не можеш прикидатися?"
"Терези справедливості: темряву зіставлено зі світлом, жорстокість — зі співчуттям, хтивість - із любовʼю. І завжди, невпинно постає питання: що ти зробив зі своїм життям?"
Хоча книга і про смерть та життя після нього, історія світла та сповнена надії. Мені дуже сподобалась.
Книга дуже глибока, яка наштовхувала мене на багато роздумів.
Дуже цікаво було читати про життя після смерті, рай та пекло, адже книга побудована на дослідженнях (надається список додаткової літератури, якщо тема вас зацікавить).
Версія потойбіччя після смерті описана автором мені сподобалась. Описи раю та пекла дарували такі самі емоція та відчуття як я про них думаю (ніколи не думала, що в пеклі спекотно та все у вогні, завжди уявляла темінь, холод та вологість).
Хоча тут історія про кохання, яка дуже зворушлива та красива (сам монолог головного героя чого вартує), але вона зовсім не банальна і щільно переплетена з роздумами про життя та смерть.
"- То вищого суду не існує?
- Який вирок може бути суворішим за той, що виносиш собі сам, коли не можеш прикидатися?"
"Терези справедливості: темряву зіставлено зі світлом, жорстокість — зі співчуттям, хтивість - із любовʼю. І завжди, невпинно постає питання: що ти зробив зі своїм життям?"
Хоча книга і про смерть та життя після нього, історія світла та сповнена надії. Мені дуже сподобалась.
May 16, 2018
4.5 stars
I feel as if Richard Matheson is a brilliant writer that not enough people give credit to. He wrote I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man (often known as The Incredible Shrinking Man), Nightmare at 20,000 Feet for The Twilight Zone, Button, Button (which was adapted into the film The Box), and there was also this particular novel that touches upon death. While this book was published and released in 1978, many know about the film adaptation from 20 years later starring Robin Williams as Chris Nielsen. This book certainly holds with it a great deal of merit and serves as a testament to what life is like after death. The bibliography demonstrates the great deal of research that Matheson put into this topic before writing this book and I give him all of the credit in the world for putting something so amazing together with that research.
This novel begins with Chris Nielsen's death in the world that we are familiar. He is killed in a car crash and dies shortly thereafter. Chris leaves behind his wife, Ann, his four children, Louise, Richard, Marie, and Ian, and a German Shepherd named Ginger. He also leaves behind his brother, Robert, to whom he is telling this story. Sharing specifics regarding what happens in the afterlife would give plenty of details away to his journey, but what I can say is that Chris' greatest desire is to be with his wife, Ann. He loves Ann so much that even a place like Heaven cannot be enjoyed if he is not with her and he would be willing to do anything and go anywhere just to be with her. What I can also say is that every religion is viewed upon on equal grounds and I think that the way the afterlife is represented is brilliant and thought-provoking in how I can certainly guarantee that one will be thinking about this novel beyond the text and how it can ignite really deep discussions.
This book did an excellent job stirring up the discussion of death and what happens beyond it and while one may be looking for answers within this text, what this book does is present some really interesting thoughts, but yet you are left thinking even more beyond the text. I think that after reading this, I can certainly say that I have walked away with greater ideas in what it means to live a good and decent life. The way that they address some instances, such as the workaholic looking for monetary gain and the holy roller that wants attention for their connection with God, is quite clever. Why it is 4.5 stars instead of a solid 5 stars, though, is in these slight inconsistencies where there is no need for some things, but for others, which in a way does get resolved. I also thought that while the final part of the book was understandable, it felt like a bit of a letdown that also took a different path from the way things went. Then again, we have no idea what is bound to happen in the afterlife. All we know in our familiar world is that death is inevitable. People are born and people die everyday in greater numbers than we can imagine. The same can be said about any and every living being (human, dog, fish, plant, etc.).
I would say that this novel has elements of all forms of speculative fiction, but the speculative fiction label seems most accurate. What Dreams May Come has elements that some may argue as being fantastical, while others may see elements of horror or science fiction. I think that this is an impactful text that does everything that it needs to do, including how it makes its way deep under your skin. Matheson's works are known to do this and he is a master, if not THE master, at doing so.
You can find the Literary Gladiators discussion for this book (containing spoilers) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsXN7...
I feel as if Richard Matheson is a brilliant writer that not enough people give credit to. He wrote I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man (often known as The Incredible Shrinking Man), Nightmare at 20,000 Feet for The Twilight Zone, Button, Button (which was adapted into the film The Box), and there was also this particular novel that touches upon death. While this book was published and released in 1978, many know about the film adaptation from 20 years later starring Robin Williams as Chris Nielsen. This book certainly holds with it a great deal of merit and serves as a testament to what life is like after death. The bibliography demonstrates the great deal of research that Matheson put into this topic before writing this book and I give him all of the credit in the world for putting something so amazing together with that research.
This novel begins with Chris Nielsen's death in the world that we are familiar. He is killed in a car crash and dies shortly thereafter. Chris leaves behind his wife, Ann, his four children, Louise, Richard, Marie, and Ian, and a German Shepherd named Ginger. He also leaves behind his brother, Robert, to whom he is telling this story. Sharing specifics regarding what happens in the afterlife would give plenty of details away to his journey, but what I can say is that Chris' greatest desire is to be with his wife, Ann. He loves Ann so much that even a place like Heaven cannot be enjoyed if he is not with her and he would be willing to do anything and go anywhere just to be with her. What I can also say is that every religion is viewed upon on equal grounds and I think that the way the afterlife is represented is brilliant and thought-provoking in how I can certainly guarantee that one will be thinking about this novel beyond the text and how it can ignite really deep discussions.
This book did an excellent job stirring up the discussion of death and what happens beyond it and while one may be looking for answers within this text, what this book does is present some really interesting thoughts, but yet you are left thinking even more beyond the text. I think that after reading this, I can certainly say that I have walked away with greater ideas in what it means to live a good and decent life. The way that they address some instances, such as the workaholic looking for monetary gain and the holy roller that wants attention for their connection with God, is quite clever. Why it is 4.5 stars instead of a solid 5 stars, though, is in these slight inconsistencies where there is no need for some things, but for others, which in a way does get resolved. I also thought that while the final part of the book was understandable, it felt like a bit of a letdown that also took a different path from the way things went. Then again, we have no idea what is bound to happen in the afterlife. All we know in our familiar world is that death is inevitable. People are born and people die everyday in greater numbers than we can imagine. The same can be said about any and every living being (human, dog, fish, plant, etc.).
I would say that this novel has elements of all forms of speculative fiction, but the speculative fiction label seems most accurate. What Dreams May Come has elements that some may argue as being fantastical, while others may see elements of horror or science fiction. I think that this is an impactful text that does everything that it needs to do, including how it makes its way deep under your skin. Matheson's works are known to do this and he is a master, if not THE master, at doing so.
You can find the Literary Gladiators discussion for this book (containing spoilers) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsXN7...
May 19, 2017
Wonderful.......
I was entrance by this book.
A great book.....
Matheson at is best!!!!
Powerful written, with insight and guts.....
I recommend it to everyone who feels eternity in his heart!!!!
Dean:)
I was entrance by this book.
A great book.....
Matheson at is best!!!!
Powerful written, with insight and guts.....
I recommend it to everyone who feels eternity in his heart!!!!
Dean:)
May 4, 2023
Well, I finished this book. Killed in an accident, Chris gets to go to heaven, then descends to hell to rescue his wife. What a load of pompous rubbish! Chris was so perfect he gets to go straight to heaven?, Ann his wife, who sounds like she had an awful childhood and whose only fault as an adult appears to be mental illness gets sent to hell. I kept waiting for something deeper but it never came. I just wanted to punch Albert. I must learn to stay away from books about the afterlife, I hated The Lovely Bones too.
September 14, 2021
Ωραίο βιβλίο, καλογραμμένο. Ο συγγραφέας παραθέτει μια τεράστια βιβλιογραφία την οποία χρησιμοποίησε για να το γράψει και πραγματικά με έβαλε σε πολλές σκέψεις για το τι συμβαίνει μετά τον θάνατο του υλικού μας σώματος. Υπάρχει και μια ιστορία αγάπης μέσα στην πλοκή, προσωπικά δεν είμαι και πολύ φαν, δεν πιστεύω ότι υπάρχει τόσο απόλυτη αγάπη σαν αυτή που περιγράφεται, αλλά εντάξει, ήταν ένας ωραίος τρόπος για να δέσουν όλα τα δεδομένα που ήθελε να γράψει ο συγγραφέας.
April 22, 2019
Preferring the book over the movie is kind of my thing and I am willing to say it even if it is one of the most cliché statements ever. It is rare for me to happen upon a movie that equals the book and to prefer the movie over the book, are you freaking kidding me?!?! In fact, I am trying to think of a time besides this one (because it is super obvious that is where I am headed) that this has happened. This might be the first, which kind of does amaze me. I will have to check in with the fam because putting up with my book/movie comparison critiques has been their burden for a long time.
I will talk about the movie first because I liked it more and because it had more of a profound effect on me. This does go against one of my Goodreads rules, don’t bring movie opinions to a book party. I have decided it has to be done though because the movie is where my heart is and talking about it shows how much the book disappointed me.
MOVIE
The movie goes down in my memory books as one of my top fav movie experiences. The first time I saw it was right at the beginning of a new relationship with a guy who (for the first time in a long time) genuinely liked and respected me. He had seen the movie before and thought it would be something I would enjoy. I don’t think he was prepared for the snot and tear covered blubbering mess I ended up being for most of the movie. It told a story of a man who went to hell and back for the woman he loved, and the bitter and jaded part of me couldn’t handle the idea that there could be a love as strong as the one portrayed in the movie. I will never in my life forget the visual beauty of the paintings come to life and just how amazing Robin Williams was as the lead.
BOOK
I expect there to be quite a few differences when a book goes from the page to the screen. The characters we have bonded with aren’t always as we picture them in our heads and the story must be condensed to fit into the usual movie time constraints. The differences between the two in this case were so drastic that it felt like a completely different story throughout the first part of the book. I had to write down the character names and take notes to help keep things straight which is something I hate doing. After I got over the initial shock of how different things were I did start to get more into the book, but it was nothing like how I felt with the movie. I did not cry even once while reading it which is unbelievable to me considering how much I sobbed during the movie.
I go back and forth on the rating for this one. The movie is above and beyond five stars but the book hits around the three-star mark. I think it would have been a four had I not seen the movie first so ranking it in the nothing in between (how I like to think of the three-star rating) really isn’t fair to it. So...compromise.
Four stars to a book that led to one of the most amazing movies ever.
I will talk about the movie first because I liked it more and because it had more of a profound effect on me. This does go against one of my Goodreads rules, don’t bring movie opinions to a book party. I have decided it has to be done though because the movie is where my heart is and talking about it shows how much the book disappointed me.
MOVIE
The movie goes down in my memory books as one of my top fav movie experiences. The first time I saw it was right at the beginning of a new relationship with a guy who (for the first time in a long time) genuinely liked and respected me. He had seen the movie before and thought it would be something I would enjoy. I don’t think he was prepared for the snot and tear covered blubbering mess I ended up being for most of the movie. It told a story of a man who went to hell and back for the woman he loved, and the bitter and jaded part of me couldn’t handle the idea that there could be a love as strong as the one portrayed in the movie. I will never in my life forget the visual beauty of the paintings come to life and just how amazing Robin Williams was as the lead.
BOOK
I expect there to be quite a few differences when a book goes from the page to the screen. The characters we have bonded with aren’t always as we picture them in our heads and the story must be condensed to fit into the usual movie time constraints. The differences between the two in this case were so drastic that it felt like a completely different story throughout the first part of the book. I had to write down the character names and take notes to help keep things straight which is something I hate doing. After I got over the initial shock of how different things were I did start to get more into the book, but it was nothing like how I felt with the movie. I did not cry even once while reading it which is unbelievable to me considering how much I sobbed during the movie.
I go back and forth on the rating for this one. The movie is above and beyond five stars but the book hits around the three-star mark. I think it would have been a four had I not seen the movie first so ranking it in the nothing in between (how I like to think of the three-star rating) really isn’t fair to it. So...compromise.
Four stars to a book that led to one of the most amazing movies ever.
June 19, 2014
I really wanted to stay on board with this character, Chris, and his adventures in the lands beyond death. The story is exciting, especially in the beginning, and has some gorgeous imagery (I love the "delicate purl of surf" Chris notices on the shore of the lake in Summerland). The story grows more tedious as it progresses and is so didactic that it gets boring and seems to go on for....well...yep, an eternity. Ann's helplessness and goodness is annoying, too, frankly. I was completely disgusted when I finally got to the climax, his 3-page speech to Ann, full of sexist crap like this: "Thank you for keeping my clothes clean, our homes clean, yourself clean." Ugh. Really?!? Wash your own clothes, you lazy bastard!
July 16, 2017
The version of heaven in the book is very discriminatory and homogenous, and the discrimination really rather broke my heart. The book's heaven, Summerland, is "a place of perfection." At one point Chris sees a man without an arm. This armless is a depicted as an aberration, a problem upsetting the perfection of heaven. His singularity, his individuality and identity as a man who is missing an arm is depicted as a failing. He's lesser than everyone else because he is not enlightened enough to know that he "can be whole." Yikes. That depiction of the armless man as lesser seemed so cruel, unfeeling, and prejudiced to me.
The heaven in this book made my skin crawl, it felt almost like a dream of eugenics: a world where only perfect and enlightened people live, while people with mental illnesses (like Annie's depression) are thrown out into hell and people with physical deformities are seen as unenlightened. And Matheson claims that his depiction of heaven is the correct, that his depiction of the afterlife is "true." I've really liked some of Matheson's other books, but this one to me is very problematic.
The heaven in this book made my skin crawl, it felt almost like a dream of eugenics: a world where only perfect and enlightened people live, while people with mental illnesses (like Annie's depression) are thrown out into hell and people with physical deformities are seen as unenlightened. And Matheson claims that his depiction of heaven is the correct, that his depiction of the afterlife is "true." I've really liked some of Matheson's other books, but this one to me is very problematic.
November 14, 2016
I first read this book in my early twenties, and it was very influential at that stage of my life. It dramatically shaped my concept of the afterlife and made me reconsider some doctrines that had been ingrained in me.
I revisited it now (almost 20 years later) in audiobook form. It didn't have quite the same effect, perhaps because I already "bought in" to the concept. However, this will always be a 5-star book for me given its impact on my young, impressionable self.
I revisited it now (almost 20 years later) in audiobook form. It didn't have quite the same effect, perhaps because I already "bought in" to the concept. However, this will always be a 5-star book for me given its impact on my young, impressionable self.
Want to read
January 28, 2023omg, I didn't realize one of my favorite Robin Williams movies was a book!
December 1, 2013
Amazing,Inspiring,Life changing.
Whether you choose to view this remarkable manuscript as a work of non-fiction or the latter, two things can be said. Richard Matheson is either a literary GENIOUS or this is the book EVERYONE has been waiting to read,yet may not know it.
A remarkable book which was meant for me to read. It has reinstated my faith in the afterlife, helped in understanding of certain elements of what I believe to be involved with the process of the afterlife, as well as incorporated so many religious philosophies such as christianity,buddism,reincarnation and karma- all into the one beautiful manifestation of entering into life after death.
It also has inspired me to research this book more so and look into certain faith based reading.
Amazing.
A billion Stars :)
Whether you choose to view this remarkable manuscript as a work of non-fiction or the latter, two things can be said. Richard Matheson is either a literary GENIOUS or this is the book EVERYONE has been waiting to read,yet may not know it.
A remarkable book which was meant for me to read. It has reinstated my faith in the afterlife, helped in understanding of certain elements of what I believe to be involved with the process of the afterlife, as well as incorporated so many religious philosophies such as christianity,buddism,reincarnation and karma- all into the one beautiful manifestation of entering into life after death.
It also has inspired me to research this book more so and look into certain faith based reading.
Amazing.
A billion Stars :)
February 16, 2025
4.5
Such a beautifully written story, could have been twice as long to really dive in to some of the amazingly interesting theories explored here
Such a beautifully written story, could have been twice as long to really dive in to some of the amazingly interesting theories explored here
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