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faysieh 's review for:
Platform Seven
by Louise Doughty
This is one of the best books I have read in some while.
An emotionally intelligent tale, Louis Doughty has crafted the most beautiful, heart-breaking, original and poignant way to portray emotional abuse, love in all its forms and how we learn to let go.
The story is narrated by a ghost, Lisa, who is trapped on Platform Seven of Peterborough train station, where her life ended. The story starts with a man who commits suicide by jumping in front of a freight train in spite of Lisa recognising what is about to happen and trying to stop him. She cannot leave the station but by following various people, listening in and analysing her thought processes she is eventually able to move beyond the confines of the station and in doing so we learn a lot more about Lisa when she was alive and the events that led to her death.
The prose is poetic, the pace slow, but in being so tension is created and the beauty in love, emotional pain and death laid bare.
The book makes for an excellent read because you become so invested in the characters' lives that you are desperate to know how things have ended up where they are, and how some situations might be resolved. The reader will also end up desperate for justice on Lisa's behalf. Dr Matthew Goodison or 'Matty,' Lisa's boyfriend, is a complex character who will make you angry, upset and ultimately baying for his blood.
Whilst the book is able to 'entertain' us as we follow the quest for truth and justice, it is mostly a novel that makes you think about some very serious issues; abusive relationships, sexual abuse, suicide, being a refugee, happiness, freedom and society's response (or lack thereof) to the needs of vulnerable people.
There is Dalmar a Somalian refugee, who was an engineer in his own country but now works on the railway and lives in the poorest part of town, Andrew and his sister who have suffered unspeakably as children but need to find their own way of saying goodbye to the past, and then there is Lisa's best friend, her parents and the neighbour who lives in the downstairs flat. Each one of these people has experienced traumatic events in their lives but what they all share is the ability to find ways to carry on living again, even though their lives are very different from 'before.' And by doing this, people who are dead but were loved can carry on living.
I am not the same person I was when I started reading this book. That is how powerful this novel is. It spoke to me on so many different levels and made me question my own beliefs and more generally how society is caught up in consumerism and the pursuit of perpetual happiness, which is of course a ludicrous goal because it just doesn't exist.
Dalmar cannot forgive himself for one act upon fleeing his country and therefore cannot allow himself to get close to another human being, young PC Lockhart is questioning whether he has really done enough and if not, is he actually cut out for a career with the British Transport Police. He understands the pain of loving another from afar, and the novel asks us to explore what true love is, making the distinction between love and possession.
This book made me weep, for the damage we cause one another, for the decisions we make and the torment we can go through. There is tragedy but there is also redemption. And as Lisa's ghostly wanderings help her to recover her memory of when she was alive, the truths are revealed in all their painful finality. Instead of the book being depressing though it is not, we rejoice in the fact that at long last Lisa can finally say goodbye and be free to choose where to spend the rest of her days.
I found it very hard to let this book go when I finished reading.
If I could award this book 10 stars I would! For me an absolute MUST read!
An emotionally intelligent tale, Louis Doughty has crafted the most beautiful, heart-breaking, original and poignant way to portray emotional abuse, love in all its forms and how we learn to let go.
The story is narrated by a ghost, Lisa, who is trapped on Platform Seven of Peterborough train station, where her life ended. The story starts with a man who commits suicide by jumping in front of a freight train in spite of Lisa recognising what is about to happen and trying to stop him. She cannot leave the station but by following various people, listening in and analysing her thought processes she is eventually able to move beyond the confines of the station and in doing so we learn a lot more about Lisa when she was alive and the events that led to her death.
The prose is poetic, the pace slow, but in being so tension is created and the beauty in love, emotional pain and death laid bare.
The book makes for an excellent read because you become so invested in the characters' lives that you are desperate to know how things have ended up where they are, and how some situations might be resolved. The reader will also end up desperate for justice on Lisa's behalf. Dr Matthew Goodison or 'Matty,' Lisa's boyfriend, is a complex character who will make you angry, upset and ultimately baying for his blood.
Whilst the book is able to 'entertain' us as we follow the quest for truth and justice, it is mostly a novel that makes you think about some very serious issues; abusive relationships, sexual abuse, suicide, being a refugee, happiness, freedom and society's response (or lack thereof) to the needs of vulnerable people.
There is Dalmar a Somalian refugee, who was an engineer in his own country but now works on the railway and lives in the poorest part of town, Andrew and his sister who have suffered unspeakably as children but need to find their own way of saying goodbye to the past, and then there is Lisa's best friend, her parents and the neighbour who lives in the downstairs flat. Each one of these people has experienced traumatic events in their lives but what they all share is the ability to find ways to carry on living again, even though their lives are very different from 'before.' And by doing this, people who are dead but were loved can carry on living.
I am not the same person I was when I started reading this book. That is how powerful this novel is. It spoke to me on so many different levels and made me question my own beliefs and more generally how society is caught up in consumerism and the pursuit of perpetual happiness, which is of course a ludicrous goal because it just doesn't exist.
Dalmar cannot forgive himself for one act upon fleeing his country and therefore cannot allow himself to get close to another human being, young PC Lockhart is questioning whether he has really done enough and if not, is he actually cut out for a career with the British Transport Police. He understands the pain of loving another from afar, and the novel asks us to explore what true love is, making the distinction between love and possession.
This book made me weep, for the damage we cause one another, for the decisions we make and the torment we can go through. There is tragedy but there is also redemption. And as Lisa's ghostly wanderings help her to recover her memory of when she was alive, the truths are revealed in all their painful finality. Instead of the book being depressing though it is not, we rejoice in the fact that at long last Lisa can finally say goodbye and be free to choose where to spend the rest of her days.
I found it very hard to let this book go when I finished reading.
If I could award this book 10 stars I would! For me an absolute MUST read!