The Lovely Bones - Language and Grammar

We don’t believe The Lovely Bones is on a certain language- or grammar-level. It actually varies quite a lot throughout the book.

Depending on where you are in the book, who speaks and what is currently happening, the text difficulty might change a lot. As diffrent people, with diffrent personalitys and ways of speaking are involved, the language varies.

But as the mayor part of the book consists of Susie’s descriptions of events, we might need to say something about the narrator’s language.

Well, some of us believe the language is too advanced to be used by a 14 year old girl. But then, Susie is a good girl…

Anyway, the language is not too difficult. It is written in American English, it has got some strange words, and mostly easy sentences. In most sentences it is possible to understand the meaning of them, although one does not fully understand all of the words.  For example:

“A Xeroxed copy of one of Ruth’s drawings had been passed around in the library” (…)

In other sentences, the words are easy to understand by themselves, but together they make up something more complex. For example:

"You have to be able to look past the dead.”

Well, that’s it…

Björn

The lovely bones, chapter 10-16

We don't think the informative texts have given us anything of value they where irrelevant to the story and they did not stuck on our mind. We think the things in the story could happen in any little american town fourty years ago. But we don't think the society in the text reminds of the society Susie tells us about in the book because Norristown is growing and developing all the time.
Here is some quotes that proves that the book takes place about fourty years ago :

"It was still back when people believed things like that didn't happen."

"The teenager who delivered the paper would pause on his bike, hoping that she would be near the door when she heard the thump of the Philadelphia Inquirer hit the porch."

Kapitel 5-9

In these chapters, she talks about the weeks before hr death. She tells us more about a couple of characters. She starts with her dad, who was getting more and more sure of that Harvey knew something about Susie's death.  Then she tells us more about her secret love Ray Singh and continues with telling us about her classmate Ruth. They start  meet up and sit and talk together, every day when they wait for the bus. Before the memorial service, Susie's grandma arrives. She is like she always is, joyful and full of ideas. She affects the other family members by making them a bit happier. That's very clear in this quote;

"Okey children, clear the table and get your mother over here. I'm doing a makeover"

Susie is still the same up in heaven. She doesn't change much, but seems to accept the fact that she is dead. Susie has brown hair and blue eyes. She likes wearing colourful clothes like her cap with pompoms and jingle bells. Her sister and she looked very much the same. When people look at Lindsey, they see her dead sister.

       Every day she watches her family, and you really get the feeling that she cares about them. The problem is that she can't help them in any way, just see them, and all their problems.

The lovely bones, chapter 1-4

When we started reading The Lovely Bones we knew it would be a pretty sad book. Susie was a normal fourteen year old girl who lived in the united states during the 1970's. She went to school like everybody else. However she would never live to see her fiftenth birthday.
The author starts by throwing us into the story right away. You immediatly get the impression that the book soon will turn and the outcome of the events will be horrible. The genre of the book is drama and reflects how the loss of a child will change a family. Susie, the main character, tells us the story from her own perspective when she is alive but when she dies she is able to see the world from a whole new perspective. From her heaven she can connect and know everything about the people back on earth. That means that Susie is able to see and understand but, sadly, can't connect and help her family while they are struggeling to find her killer. 

We think Susie seems to be a good, joyfull and sweet girl who does not deserve this fate. She is the kind of girl who ought to grow up and have a happy and long life. We feel very sorry for almost everyone, ecpecially her family, in the book who are being touched by her death. Exept for Mr Havery of course.

First post

Yo people,

this is our first post on our blog, we're going to summirize our discussions here, to let you take part in them to.

Peace!