How heavy is your soul? - On The Other Side thoughts

Okay so this blog post moves away from politics and social justice, and more towards literature and philosophy. I hope that's okay. If it's not, then come back next time for more political shenanigans. 

I've decided to write a blog post about a book I recently read. The book in question is called "On The Other Side" by Carrie Hope Fletcher. Carrie is a Youtuber who I've watched for a few years now, and like me, is particularly partial to a good book and a cup of tea. So when I found out she was writing her own fiction novel, I decided to pre-order it. The first half of this post will be musings about the book and the second half will be a kind of review.

Musings

I was captured the most by the premise of this book. The protagonist Evie Snow, who died at the ripe old age of 82, finds herself in Heaven's 'waiting room'. Evie finds that she can't enter Heaven because her soul is too heavy. The idea is that throughout ones life, secrets and unfinished business burden your soul, to the point that your soul becomes too heavy to enter heaven. In heaven's waiting room, one is given the opportunity to resolve the issues of the past life through visiting friends and relatives in their dreams. In order to transport herself back to the appropriate points in her life, Evie has to conjure up an item which explicitly links to the specific piece of unfinished business.

And it got me thinking.

If the premise of this book were the reality of what happens when we die. Would your soul be heavy? What objects would you need to conjure up? Which points in your life would you have to return to in order to relieve the burdens? And what would you say to your friends and relatives whilst they slept in order to resolve the unfinished business?

Maybe you'd never fully told that friend how much they meant to you. Or never told that person that they'd hurt you. Or perhaps, you spent your time pretending to be something that you're not. 

It's an interesting idea to suggest that these things make our souls heavy. The soul is one of those weird enigmas. Everyone talks of it. It has no physical manifestation. Yet it is undoubtedly there. I refuse to believe that we are just a bunch of cells made by happy coincidence. There is something 'other' to our existence. The soul encapsulates the very essence of what it means to be human. It makes sense therefore, to postulate that bottling up feelings, or hiding your true self from other people, burdens our souls. 

By definition then, transparency, and honesty, and letting people know you love them must help to keep our souls light. And that seems like a pretty good way to live to me. 

Review

For someone I've never met in my life, I am oddly proud of Carrie for this book. There is a palpable amount of her own persona, character and life experience in the pages of the novel. From the appearances of Evie Snow and the other characters, to the subtle nod to her Youtube community called the "hopefuls", this book literally screams Carrie Hope Fletcher. And for that reason I really liked it. 

I occasionally found the narrative voice to be confusing, and sometimes the elements of magical realism that feature throughout the book did not seem as integrated into the otherwise seamless storyline, but for its whimsical charm and saccharine aura, I forgave it entirely. 

I feel as though Carrie's imagination literally painted itself over the pages of this book - from birds that act as inked love notes, to drawings that turn into shattered glass, Carrie manages to sew together a handful of intriguing and magnificent (albeit zany) concepts into a story that is both classically romantic and oddly profound, light and fluffy yet thought provoking.

Amongst dynamic dialogue and almost poetic scene descriptions, are sentences that act like little quotes of wisdom from Carrie herself. And like I mentioned in the first half of this blog post, Carrie's concept of the heavy soul is surely a lesson we can all learn from. 

I'm excited for subsequent novels that Carrie will write. I know her writers voice will develop with each book, and that each story will bring something new and unique to readers. But I know for sure, that if On The Other Side was my first novel, I'd be pretty damn proud of it.