The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

THE DEATH AND LIFE OF CHARLIE ST.CLOUD

By BEN SHERWOOD

RATINGS: 2.5

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One of the few books of my life I regretted reading. I am Sorry, Sherwood, but I do. It was a great content for movie and of course it needed Zac Efron to pull it through.

 

Let me begin here, characters are a total put off, despite unusual circumstances they are in they fail to make a lasting impression. No unique voice, nothing original in habits traits you know like you remember: Darcy's posture, Heathcliff’s devil eyes, Jane Eyre's cold calm, or Godfather or even Marty from Madagascar...

 

Then the plot, starts from an accident that sends lives of characters in a spin including a bit of romance until eventually there’s a happy ending. Love united, people moving on, system reassured just like that.

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Too weak for magic realism, too naive for symbolism. The narrative is empty. Language is lay person. No twist as turns of any philosophical cue or question hint or suggestion. The narrator, a third person, fireman is the one who starts taking us through the journey of Charlie’s life but obviously too hard for author with limited skill to handle he disappears and an omniscient narrative voice starts describing Charlie’s experiences and feelings. At the end, to leave us with a didactic message the fireman literally spell out the idea of afterlife being cool. Not too shabby and how people should not hang out with the dead. Suddenly the promise motif disappears, the beauty of it transforming into usable happiness funda. Be happy is probably the most annoying ending to anything unless supported by a steamy kiss on screen!

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BaSila Hasnain

26-10-2020