Mark Marquez Marquez itibaren 3150 Furadouro, Portekiz itibaren 3150 Furadouro, Portekiz

This is the first book in the Homecoming series. The background: 40 million years ago, the earth environment was destroyed and the planet became unfit to inhabit. So earth people hopped on a spaceship called the Oversoul in search of a new home, and finally settled on the Planet Harmony, with the Oversoul regulating their lives by controlling their minds, so that people would not destroy each other again. The story begins when the main characters begins to remember about earth again, as the Oversoul begins to break down. It is time to come home--to earth. I think one of the most interesting part is the relationship between the characters and the spaceship. In the course of time, people have come to worship the Oversoul as a god and a religion have developed around this concept. In a sense, the Oversoul does seem like a god. It knows everything that happens to the people on the planet and can to some extent control their minds and subsequently control what happens to their lives. The book also discusses about faith and miracles in this context. Quite interesting.

The story of this National Book Award winner is legend already: Didion's grown daughter was admitted to the hospital, entered into a septic coma, and four days later (Dec 30, 2003) her husband of forty years, the writer John Gregory Dunne, suddenly collpased at dinner and died of a massive coronary. The book details the year that follows: grieving, watching her daughter convalesce and then fall ill once again, and the process of starting over when your best friend and lover is abruptly taken from you. The style is incredibly honest and raw—one has the impression of reading a journal reorganized along a thematic chronology, if not always a true one—repeating key sentences throughout as mantras. This is not a Chicken Soup book, with easy outs and uplifting messages in the end, rather a brutal look at what most of us never want to look at: what do you do with your minutes, your hours after a loved one dies? When do you throw out their shoes? When do you clean out their desk? Didion provides plenty of ancillary work from psychologists, writers, poets, even Emily Post regarding death and grieving, which props up her own grief, helps to shape its borders into something quasi-manageable. As someone who also puts implicit trust in the words of others, I can't help but wonder if I'll reach for literature in similiar circumstances. With this book, I know now at least I'll have a primer, a fellow voice in what she calls the "vortex."