from the corner of his eye

Anyone who's read enough Dean Koontz books most likely knows that once you've read a few, you've pretty much read them all. He's a great writer and his books are all interesting and easy to follow, but they all follow pretty similar plotlines and his style really doesn't vary all that much from one story to the next. All that aside, From the Corner of His Eye is one of my all time favorite books.

I've read a handful of Koontz's books, none that I can remember all too clearly except for the first one I read, The Door to December, and, of course, From the Corner because I've read it so many times now. I just finished for at least the fourth time, possibly the fifth. It is still somewhat similar to his other books, especially considering the multiple story lines of different characters that all eventually become tied together in some way, showing the interconnectedness of all things, and especially considering the underlying theme of some supernatural powers at work in the universe, but there's something about this book that gets me so involved in the lives of every character each time I read it, and all the similarities between this and his other novels just fade away.

I think two signs of a really good book are 1) not wanting to put it down and 2) taking away some deeper meaning from the story even after you finished reading. The paranormal aspect of this book is really somewhat comforting in some ways, though it's a little bit eerie in some as well. There's a quote I want to type out that may help explain it a little better than I could in my own words.

"Your father is gone from here, gone forever, but he still lives in other worlds. This isn't a statement of faith alone. If Albert Einstein were still alive and standing here, he'd tell you that it's true. Your father is with you in many places, and so is Phimie. In many places, she didn't die in childbirth. In some worlds, she was never raped, her life never blighted. But there's an irony in that, isn't there? Because in those worlds, Angel doesn't exist- yet Angel is a miracle and a blessing. So when you're lying in bed tonight, kept awake by grief, don't think just about what you've lost with your father and Phimie. Think about what you have in this world that you've never known in some others-Angel. Whether God's a Catholic, a Baptist, a Jew, a Muslim, or a quantum mechanic, He gives us compensation for our pain, compensation right here in this world, not just in those parallel to it and not just in some afterlife. Always compensation for the pain... if we recognize it when we see it."

This idea of multiple worlds resulting from every decision we make comes up a lot earlier in the novel in the form of a young boy, Bartholomew Lampion. He turns out to be really smart at a very young age so he tries to explain this idea to his mother a few times throughout the book, but the most clear conversation comes when he's three and they find out his eyes must be removed because of a fast-spreading cancer.

"But what I've been wondering... when you talk about all the ways things are... is there someplace where you don't have this problem with your eyes?"
"Sure. That's how it works with everything. Everything that can happen does happen, and each different way of happening makes a whole new place."

I remember this idea being explored in an episode of an old Disney show, So Weird, once too. In the show, two worlds resulting from a simple decision basically collided and the effects were problematic for the main character because there were two of her running around trying to live the same life. It was essentially the same idea, though - every choice we make results in a separate world, and all these different realities exist together, in the same place and time. Every different possible life goes on at once, and in some of them we are far better or worse off than we are in the life we know now. In some, we are less fortunate and our lives are riddled with trials and tragedies and perhaps in others, we are blessed with every thing we could ever possibly need. In others still, our lives might not be all that different than the ones we know. It's a new and different way of looking at life and knowing that things are never what they seem.

The book in general is really quite compelling and uplifting in many ways. As most books do, it has a happy ending, despite all the death and loss that occurs throughout the story. The bad guy gets what he deserves and good ultimately prevails. Almost all the main characters come together in the end, despite their different lives, and become one big happy family. It's a really nice story, and definitely a book I would recommend to just about anyone.

The only other quote I wanted to bring up actually reminded me of a different post I wrote a few weeks back, after watching Into the Wild again. After his wife dies, another character, Paul Damascus, starts walking up the coast of California, just because. It's slightly reminiscent of Forrest Gump's run across the country, to be honest. Anyway, some of the description reminded me of Christopher McCandless' travels so I thought I'd throw that in, too.

"He traveled prairies and mountains and valleys, passed fields rich in every imaginable crop, crossed great forests and wide rivers. He walked in fierce storms when thunder crushed the sky and lightning tore it, walked in wind that skinned the bare earth and sheared green tresses from trees, and walked also in sun-scrubbed days as blue and clean as ever there had been in Eden."

I want to see the world so badly.