Meet yourself in...is that hell?..

On one hand, Mitch Albom's the five people you meet in heaven is simply riveting. I am not really an emotional person, but Albom's command of simple prose feels like it's dragging you and saying: For God's sake, cry!, for which I vehemently refused, but not without a certain uneasiness. Plus, Filipino readers might be familiar with some parts of the novel. (I will not spoil it, I will not, I will..haha) The Philippines is mentioned in the book, including words like "inas" whom Albom translated as Mommies, "sundalong" as soldiers (I could have written Albom and said FYI, DROP THE ng..), and our National Costume also takes a scene. (umeeksena, Eddie: what are you wearing? Filipina girl: Oh, this? Ukay-ukay...)




Tuesdays with Morrie? Ugh. No effect. Dying is not a dilemma. It's what comes after dying that's haunting humans. If ever there is such a thing. In this novel, Albom says there is.

On the other hand, I badly wanna have a copy of this book. My friend Jessica once again displays her wit, and the extraordinary craft of the English language, with this piece. I've read a random sampling of the 500 in her column in the Philippine Star, (that's Emotional Weather Report), and I can't help but, yeah, agree. Some of them, the teacher who said you'll never reach anything, the bully, the professor who made math intolerable for you, the neighbor who never stopped yelling since they got their videoke machine, and many more. ALthough, probably in the course of reading it I might meet myself in hell.



500 vs 5. Apparently, hell's population is bigger.