A review by richardrbecker
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Life After Life left me with decidedly mixed feelings. The premise was so seductive; some scenes are remarkably vivid and unforgettable; and yet the execution of it all left me wanting something more.
Life After Life is the story of Ursula Todd. She is a woman who is given a glimmer of all the lives — parallel paths through the universe — she will ever live, with the bulk of her experiences played out between 1910 and 1970 or so. She lives. She dies. She lives again. Sometimes her experiences last only a moment — dying at birth. Other times, she lives a long life to its fullest. Sometimes she is under the radar. And sometimes, she stands in the face of a world-altering moment.
It's the kind of premise that many writers have experimented with, myself included, with varied degrees of success. And in Life After Life, so much of the work feels the same way. It hits with varied degrees of success, largely because Atkinson is such a splendid writer.
It's easy to get lost in the English countryside. It's gut-wrenching to follow her into bomb shelters (on both sides of the North Sea). It's compelling to find her in the same room with Eva Braun and Hitler. There is so much to love about the book, that it's difficult to give it only three stars.
The challenge resides in what it is about. Even Atkinson herself didn't know until settling that it's about an English character or being English. I can live with that because it definitely conveys it. For many readers (but not all, certainly), a quality standing in for a plot might be a hard thing to bear as Life After Life often feels rudderless and unstructured. Even when you enjoy it, it's easy to get lost.
And getting lost, which occasionally happens, sometimes makes it more difficult to pick it up again. Sure, you know it will be good, but so what? Where is it going and can you remember what happened before? And even if you do, will Atkinson pull the rug out from under you and start over? She absolutely will, and sometimes what is inserted in between her best work are members that feel overtly inconsequential.
Maybe I'll feel differently when I get around to watching the series. Maybe I won't. But even so, I'm glad I read the book that I sometimes loved and sometimes loathed, if for no other reason than to take in such a fine writer's prose. I learned a little something from it, even if I didn't set out to.
Life After Life is the story of Ursula Todd. She is a woman who is given a glimmer of all the lives — parallel paths through the universe — she will ever live, with the bulk of her experiences played out between 1910 and 1970 or so. She lives. She dies. She lives again. Sometimes her experiences last only a moment — dying at birth. Other times, she lives a long life to its fullest. Sometimes she is under the radar. And sometimes, she stands in the face of a world-altering moment.
It's the kind of premise that many writers have experimented with, myself included, with varied degrees of success. And in Life After Life, so much of the work feels the same way. It hits with varied degrees of success, largely because Atkinson is such a splendid writer.
It's easy to get lost in the English countryside. It's gut-wrenching to follow her into bomb shelters (on both sides of the North Sea). It's compelling to find her in the same room with Eva Braun and Hitler. There is so much to love about the book, that it's difficult to give it only three stars.
The challenge resides in what it is about. Even Atkinson herself didn't know until settling that it's about an English character or being English. I can live with that because it definitely conveys it. For many readers (but not all, certainly), a quality standing in for a plot might be a hard thing to bear as Life After Life often feels rudderless and unstructured. Even when you enjoy it, it's easy to get lost.
And getting lost, which occasionally happens, sometimes makes it more difficult to pick it up again. Sure, you know it will be good, but so what? Where is it going and can you remember what happened before? And even if you do, will Atkinson pull the rug out from under you and start over? She absolutely will, and sometimes what is inserted in between her best work are members that feel overtly inconsequential.
Maybe I'll feel differently when I get around to watching the series. Maybe I won't. But even so, I'm glad I read the book that I sometimes loved and sometimes loathed, if for no other reason than to take in such a fine writer's prose. I learned a little something from it, even if I didn't set out to.