Life After Life

I liked this book very, very, very much. But I did not love this book. And I am left wondering why. It has so many of the elements I like in a book: great writing, intriguing structure, philosophical questionings… I completely understand the hype around it, as it is a great accomplishment by the author that the characters remain true to themselves in such a myriad of scenarios, and the scenarios themselves are creditable. But it lacked some element that I am having trouble verbalizing.

I took a few minutes to think about it, and a comparison between “Life after Life” and “Cloud Atlas” came to my mind. Both writers used a literary gimmick, breaking with the more common writing structures. But, where in “Cloud Atlas” the gimmick added to the overall book, I feel that in “Life after Life” the gimmick became the book. As much as I cared for the characters, as much the portrait of family life in early 20th century England felt true (it brought some reminiscences of S.A. Byatt's The Children's Book to my mind too), and as much as it managed to convey the suffering of the First and Second World Wars, it failed to convey a deeper meaning to it all.

When I searched “Cloud Atlas” here in GoodReads I found this quote in the book blurb: a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us. When I read the blurb for “Life after Life” I find adjectives like: Wildly inventive, darkly comic, startlingly poignant and breathtaking . I just realized that “a meditation in humanity” – any aspect of humanity – is essential to my loving of a book. The conditio sine qua non that elevates a book from good or very good to exceptional.

But I have not given up on Kate Atkinson. I will be paying better attention to her now because I think she is almost there.
( )

I had a hard time deciding whether to give this book 2 or three stars. I gave 3 because it was readable and I was curious to know where it was going.

It seemed way to similar to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series from my childhood, or some sort o writers workshop assignment. (How many endings can you write to this scenario in 45 min?)

Didn't seem like a particularly fresh idea, and I am surprised it is so highly rated. All and all I'd give this book a big solid - Meh. ( )

Synopsis (from author's website):

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.



‘Don’t you wonder sometimes,’ Ursula said. ‘If just one small thing had been changed, in the past, I mean. If Hitler had died at birth, or if someone had kidnapped him as a baby and brought him up in – I don’t know, say, a Quaker household – surely things would be different.’
‘But nobody knows what’s going to happen. And anyway he might have turned out just the same, Quakers or no Quakers. You might have to kill him instead of kidnapping him. Could you do that? Could you kill a baby? With a gun? Or what if you had no gun, how about with your bare hands? In cold blood.’

If I thought it would save Teddy, Ursula thought.
Not just Teddy, of course, the rest of the world, too.

I really wish I could love this ‘Groundhog Day’ reflections of a life. Alas, it took me close to 300 pages to care about Ursula in any deep way, possibly because this is the page mark where the reader has the privilege of the longest (so far in the book at this point) chapter of her life without a restart. This happened at least three times — moments where I became engrossed only to get jerked away. Admittedly, there are joys and delight amongst the pages, and I cannot fault the writing or research, although the style is rather distinct in a way that doesn’t particularly appeal to me. Neither do I fault the author’s reasons for writing this novel, as detailed in the author’s footnotes at the end of the book. This may be for anyone who wants to ‘experience’ a historical reflection of English country life and wartime, of which this gives a real flavour. But sadly for me I felt this was time lost, reading a story that seems rather pointless other than several ‘what if’ snippets of life with no conclusions. Odd, how a book can be both excellent yet unsatisfactory, but that’s the only way I can refer to this. I have another book by this author featuring a character from this book, but though I’ve tried, I’m not sure I will read it. ( )

I liked the overall premise of this book. Quickly paced and easy reading - it read much quicker than a 500 have page book. Very imaginitive and unique, loved the idea, but overly repetitive at times. ( )