Sum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman

Sum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman
Buy Sum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Literary Fiction
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: A humble affair packing a great punch, this little guide to potential hereafters will have you pondering for days.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 128	Date: April 2010
Publisher: Canongate
ISBN: 978-1847674289
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For some reason I find myself unable to start this review. So I'll mention this book starts with the end, and see where we go from there. Of course, that's the key – this book does just that – starts with the end of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen to be reading this) and posits forty possibilities of what happens thereafter, in the hereafter. It's not so much Five People You Meet in Heaven as Forty Heavens you Might Meet People In.

Some might not be said to be heavens, as such, but they are as plausible as any other theory. One suggests we're in a certain afterlife, while we're being thought about by those still living – and comes up with a way in which this might be considered a rum deal. Another has us plagued by scientists from elsewhere, asking us the truths behind all those mysterious relationships we have during our lives.

It's obvious from the start this book concerns our living realities much more than it does what comes next. Morals come across strongly, just from two pages of 'what-if?'. Don't limit yourself to just a few friends. Be thankful for a life of helter-skelter randomness. Don't hold any store by the battle of sexes. Don't wish to become a horse too much.

It's not a particularly religious book – there are countless Gods evoked, and while some are absent and others don't come across particularly well, I can't read any offensiveness here – but at the same time this atheist reader baulked at nothing. One of the short stories at least tells us not to wonder what the grand scheme of things is too much.

But are they really short stories? They're given a dressing-free, nearly academic styling, and look just like short essays. There are some beginning/middle/end patterns followed, but commonly there's little that's so linear. It's covering the unknown in such an intriguing way we can only classify it as both fiction and as a spiritual book.

Rarely do you get a collection of writings (I know – cop out) that serves as such a concise, taut look at something so large. It's as if the spirit of Italo Calvino has left his afterlife for one more publication.

And with the grand theme there's so much more in these pages than one might suppose. Just take that tiny title – how unasSUMing is that? It's a huge volume packed in a hundred pages – you cannot skim Prism and not have to pause for thought afterwards.

This is one of those rare books that punch well above their weight, making it a delightful, provoking gift book, or just a source for hours of one's own philosophising about the great unknowables. All the cover quotes from distinguished authors, journalists and cerebral people are spot on. It's one of the most intriguing books I can think of. I doubt you could read it in the afterlife – so I strongly suggest you read it beforehand.

I must thank the kind Canongate people for sending me a review copy.

A more honest look at one religion can be found in The God I Don't Understand by Christopher J H Wright. We're recommending The Theory of Light and Matter by Andrew Porter to our short story-reading friends.

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