基本信息
書名：The Five People You Meet in Heaven譯名：你在天堂遇到的五個人/天堂中碰見的五個人
作者：Mitch Albom --米奇·阿爾博姆(also the author of Tuesdays with Morrie）
主要內容
Book DescriptionEddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret. Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever. One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure? The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you've ever thought about the afterlife - and the meaning of our lives here on earth. With a timeless tale, appealing to all, this is a book that readers of fine fiction, and those who loved Tuesdays with Morrie, will treasure.--摘自Internet
艾迪是個再平凡不過的遊樂場維修員，老年生活對他而言似乎過於單調乏味。他有一個過於苛刻的父親，過著不受重視的童年；他參加過越戰，並為此付出了慘重的代價--他不得不瘸著腿度過下半生；他深愛著他的妻子，而她卻在47歲時便因一場車禍離他而去；他沒有子女，卻被遊樂園裡的孩子深深喜愛著。艾迪就像我們每個人的縮影一樣，平凡卻又渴望脫離平凡。故事開始在艾迪死去的那天，這天也正好是他的生日，他為了救一個小女孩而被出了故障的遊樂設施砸死。然後他來到了天堂，在那裡，他先後遇見了五個人，他們告訴他他為什麼而活，為什麼而死，誰因他而死，他的至親是如何去世的，他們等待著告訴他生活的全部，那些就在他身邊的秘密。這就像是天堂來的禮物，告訴我們每個關於我們生活的真相。
艾迪遇到的第一位朋友是一名小丑，他曾間接地因艾迪而死。他給艾迪上了第一課：關於生與死的平等。小丑說在這個世界上每天都會有人間接或直接地因他人而死，但我們不能把這種情況歸為不公平。有生就必定要有犧牲和死亡，就像我們賦予新生命的同時也會去葬禮上緬懷逝去的人。
艾迪遇到的第二位是他曾經的指揮官。艾迪和他以及其他兩個隊友曾在越戰中被四名敵人俘虜，但在他們將要成功逃脫的時候，艾迪在起火的房子裡聽到了一個小女孩的求救聲，艾迪衝進去就人，也延誤了最佳逃脫時間，就在這時他的腿中彈，人也陷入了昏迷。從此，艾迪必須忍受著瘸腿的煎熬。而令人驚訝的事發生了，原來是指揮官開了槍強行帶走了艾迪。但結果卻沒那么美好，艾迪在昏迷中成功逃脫，而指揮官卻為了救他犧牲了。至此艾迪懊悔萬分。指揮官給艾迪上了第二課--關於犧牲。在指揮官看來，每個人或大或小的犧牲都不是無用功，人們不必去後悔做了這些或那些的犧牲，因為到最後他們總是得到了一些東西，就好像母親努力工作來付兒子的學費；女兒搬回了家裡來照顧生病的父親；戰士為了他們的國家及信仰戰死沙場。我們不應該後悔，而是應崇敬這些犧牲。即使犧牲的是最為寶貴的生命，我們也應該領悟到，我們並沒有失去生命，我們只不過把它延續了下去，在另一個人的身上。
艾迪遇到的第三位是是一位叫紅寶石（Ruby）的女人。艾迪起初並不認識她，直到她說出她的名字。她其實就是艾迪所工作的遊樂場最初擁有人的妻子。遊樂場因她而命名。她告訴了艾迪關於艾迪父親的種種。讓艾迪改變了對父親的不理解及恨意。Ruby給艾迪上了第四課--恨就像一種毒藥慢慢滲透我們，直到把我們吞噬。當我們恨一個人的時候，我們總是把它當成一種工具--一種傷人的工具，但我們卻不知道，我們也同時傷害著自己。擯除恨，我們才能自在地過。
艾迪遇到的第四位是他摯愛的妻子Marguerite。在天堂里，艾迪和他的妻子重溫了過往的生活，平淡卻真摯。在婚姻的最初，愛如同雨水一樣從天而降滋潤著他們的二人世界。而當他們的婚姻遭受種種挫折時，愛並沒有消失， 只不過變成了土壤下的細流，緩慢而又綿長，即使看不見，卻不能否認它的存在。Maguerite給艾迪上了第四課。艾迪一直對Maguerite的英年早逝而鬱鬱寡歡，而M則告訴他，即使遠在天堂她仍感覺得到艾迪對她的愛以及對他們婚姻的忠誠。她說：“愛仍舊存在於我們中間，只不過換了種形式而已。愛不同於有限的生命，真正的愛並沒有盡頭。”
艾迪遇到的最後一位是那個他在戰爭中未救的女孩。艾迪為自己感到懊悔。她給艾迪上了最後一課--我們所做的任何事都是有意義的。艾迪一直對遊樂園的維護工作感到厭倦，他覺得自己一事無成，從沒有出過鎮子，從沒有乾出過一番名堂。而小女孩卻告訴她，艾迪為什麼工作--為了那些在遊樂場玩樂歡笑的孩子們的安全。他並不是一事無成。
各方評論
" A book with the genuine power to stir and comfort its readers."--New York Times "Simply told, sentimental, and profoundly true, this is a contemporary American fable that will be cherished by a vast readership."--Publishers Weekly(starred review)"Transcendent...Albom has aimed high here, and there's a whiff of paradise as a result"--Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Albom has the ability to make you cry in spite of yourself."--Boston Globe
（以上評論均摘自書後）
Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.
Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life.
--Patrick O'Kelley
From Publishers Weekly
This life-affirming fable ironically opens at the end of the life of a seemingly ordinary man. Known as "Eddie Maintenance" to those he works with at Ruby Pier, Eddie led what he saw as a disappointing life working as head of maintenance at a seaside amusement park. Upon his death, he learns that heaven is a place to make sense of his time on earth and that he will meet five people from his life who will help him understand its greatest lessons. Accompanied at times by music that sounds psychedelic rather than heavenly, reader Singer conveys this uplifting story in an earnest manner. However, the soft-spoken intonations he employs for women and the gruff but bashful voices he uses for men add an extra dose of sweetener to this already sentimental tale, as does Singer's plaintive rendition of Eddie and his wife Marguerite's song, "You made me love you." Still, those who turn to this audio book for Albom's (Tuesdays with Morrie) musings on the meaning of life will not be disappointed by his message-each of our lives are inextricably connected to those around us-or his compelling vision of how we might view life after death.
From Booklist
Albom, newspaper columnist and radio broadcaster, is, of course, best known as the author of the astonishingly successful Tuesdays with Morrie (1997). This is his first novel. With an appropriately fable-like tone, Albom tells the story of Eddie, "an old man with a barrel chest." But for us, Eddie's story "begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun"--at Ruby Pier, an amusement park by the sea, where he spent most days, for despite his advanced years, he worked as a maintenance man on the rides. He dies on his eighty-third birthday trying to save a little girl from an accident. Eddie wakes up in heaven, where he is informed that "there are five people you meet in heaven. Each . . . was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth." And, not surprisingly, this is what the novel is about: Eddie coming to appreciate his 83 years of mortal life; the novel's "point" is that apparently insignificant lives do indeed have their own special kind of significance. A sweet book that makes you smile but is not gooey with overwrought sentiment.
Brad Hooper
（From Internet）
經典摘要
All endings are also beginnings.We just don't know it at the time... Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you are not really losing it. You are just passing it on to someone else.Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade.And the harm we do, wo do to ourselves.
Love, like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its toots, keeping itself alive.
Life has to end. Love doesn't.
