Is heaven little more than a voyeuristic cinema starring the living? Are we condemned to purgatory until every earthbound human soul that recalls our names dies? Will the afterlife contain only those people that we had living interactions with? Perhaps the world is populated by both the living and the dead, with only the deceased aware of the distinction? My friends, David Eagleman provides the following answers: Yes, yes, yes and…yes.
In a brilliant demonstration of inventive perception, Eagleman’s Sum offers forty – Forty! – different hypotheses about what really happens after we slip from this mortal coil. Though they range from wildy inventive to relatively introspective, each description (they’re not really stories) is wholly engrossing and quite neatly bundles its unique explanation in a succinct burst of prose. There’s a theory that portrays the entire human race as nodes in a giant calculation machine while another posits that heavenly entry is divined by committee. None are exceptionally close to a ‘traditional’ view, but many pull from common themes like a divine creator or the sorting of souls between heaven and hell.
Others are a bit more on the edge. One passage mentions casually that God used to keep a home on Earth (a beach house on the Med, naturally) but eventually stopped visiting once he found his time was being unduly monopolized by his creations. Yet another holds that upon death the world appears much the same - minus the crowds -since your afterlife holds only souls that crossed paths with you during your time amongst the living.
Most notably, each of these pieces is short. Like, really short. Somehow, the author manages to create, explain and convince in only two or three pages. It’s a remarkable show of literary efficiency that is matched only by the book’s creativity. The forty different chapters are not separated by shades of difference or varied slants on a philosophy, they are each wholly different. With a depth of ideas that I can only compare to Kurt Vonnegut, the author will almost certainly leave you in a similar state at the end of each one. For me it was a muttered ‘hmmm’ accompanied by the hint of a smile and brief look around my own living (I assume!) world as I wondered about the possibility of this description being true.
And that’s the crux of the book. With all due respect to my readership’s personal beliefs, I have to assume the afterlife remains a mystery to us all. (If you have some inside info, PLEASE get back to me ASAP!) So, though some of the included sections may seem more ‘plausible’ than others, it’s quite interesting to realize that – empirically speaking – each has about the same likelihood of being possible. It’s a guarantee that at least a few of the stories contained within will give you pause and bring a smile to your face. Even more fun, the book is thinner than your worn out copy of Ramona Quimby and can be easily enjoyed in both small sips and big gulps.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I’m obviously I’m sidestepping the religious implications attached to any book about the afterlife…that’s because I want you to keep reading my reviews! This book is nothing more than a collection of words on a page meant provoke thought, which it does quite nicely. That – plus the fact that the paperback edition measures less than a half-inch thick – makes me certain that most or all of you can find a spot for it on your bookshelf.
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