Garnet and Raphaella – A Series by William Bell: How Bell is Able to Blend the Real and Spirit Worlds in this Novel
Blending Worlds
Mystery is usually caused by the combination of the real world and the spiritual world. Bell was somewhat effective when he mixed the real and spirit worlds together. He was successful with some of his feelings of reality in certain situations but not all of the reality he created was believable this is somewhat unclear and should be rephrased. The situations when Garnet spent the night in the log cabin and when Garnet and Raphella experienced the presence of Hanna support Bell’s effectiveness while the scene when the ghost men threw stones at Garnet and Raphella goes too much outside of reality to be believable.
On the night Garnet’s van broke down and he spent the night in the log cabin he had his first and most memorable interaction with the spiritual world. That night he heard and saw many things but the thing that caught his attention the most was a dark figure standing in the middle of the storm not moving at all. This was the first occurrence in the story where the real world meets the supernatural world. It was believable because strange and unusual things could happen to a person at night;, most of the time this could be a result of their imagination playing tricks on them. Second, while trying to fall asleep, Garnet heard what sounded like men yelling to each other saying “eighty wish, no, go back”, but he looked out the window and there was nothing there. The sound grew louder as it sounded like it was coming from the direction where he was looking, but nothing was there. That is when he was really affected by the disturbances that night to the point that it stays with him for many years after.
Bell uses other ways to bring the supernatural world to the real world in the story. While investigating what happened a few years ago when Garnet had to spend the night in the log cabin, Garnet and Raphella had gone near the spot where he thought the voices were coming from. It was then that Raphella sensed that someone or something was near. Suddenly, they saw a woman. They were really scared because they could see straight through her and she came out of thin air. At that moment they knew she was a ghost. While in mid stride she stopped and looked at them for a moment or two and then turned back and kept walking. While she looked at them Garnet and Raphella noticed that she was sad and would not stop crying, but they did not know why she was crying, so they followed her for a while, until she came to a complete stop and watched. Tired from being up so late Garnet and Raphella left her alone and went home to call it a night. This occurrence of the ghost woman was an inspiration to continue to find out the history of their town, what the ghost had to do with it and why she was there at that spot every single night.
Unlike these above two occurrences, when the ghost men threw the stones at Garnet and Raphella, Bell does not create an effective connection between the real and the supernatural. The part that did not pull me in was when the ghost pulled out a rock full a wall? and threw it. In other stories ghosts are not seen picking up objects and running with them. Usually a ghost would go into the object and control it. Also, for a ghost to pull the stone out of a stone wall made it even less believable;, the amount of force required to do that would cause the ghost to go through the wall. Also, if a ghost had an object and tried to throw it, it would just drop to the ground. But, instead, the ghost is visible, holding the object and then throwing it. To me, this does not make sense. How can something that can go through walls, throw a stone that came from a wall? It should go right through the ghost when he tries to take it out of a wall, throw it, and even run with it.
The first two situations explained above, namely, when Garnet spent the night in the log cabin and when Garnet and Raphella experienced the presence of Hanna, support Bell’s effectiveness. However, the scene when the ghost men threw the stones at Garnet and Raphella goes too much outside of reality to be believable. But, do not get me wrong, it still would have been the same story without that scene. Therefore, while Bell was effective at mixing the real and spirit worlds together as well as successful with some of his feelings of reality in certain situations, not all of the reality he created was believable. Combining the real and spiritual is very hard to do and to make it believable most of the time is a great task. Can such things happen? I do not know. But I am pretty sure it has happened to at least one person in every city. It could have happened to me and I just did not realize it. Or, maybe not. Who knows, it could have even happened to you.
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