

S'està carregant… Life After Life (2013)de Kate Atkinson
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Scottish-Literature Mooi geschreven, het gaat over verschillende mogelijkheden van leven als R zo nu en dan net iets anders gebeurt dan er gebeurde. Zo volgen we de familie Todd en met name het leven van Ursula, in alle mogelijke verschillen, vaak veroorzaakt door een klein toevalligheidje. Ze is met een Duitser getrouwd, ze heeft minnaars, ze is met en geweldai man getrouwd. Heel indringend is de steeds terugkerende oorlog, de bombardementen op London, waar ze blokhoofd is en er dus midden in zit. Heel heftig vanwege de bombardementen in Oekraïne nu. Het gegeven intrigerend en heel origineel. This book was so delightful. I wanted to just keep reading it...I was a little concerned about the device at first (since I have trouble reading things where children are in danger, because I turned into a big softie when I became a parent.) I also love the little loose ends that accumulated. I would have liked this better if I could have turned my brain off. Everyone else must be having multiple alternative lives and many people must be trying to change the course of history, even before Ursula is born, right? Or is Ursula just - ugh - special? It would be nice if we were moving toward a perfect history, though.
I absolutley loved Life After Life. It's so brilliant and existential, and I really responded to all of the 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' that she plays with. Atkinson’s juggling a lot at once — and nimbly succeeds in keeping the novel from becoming confusing. For the other extraordinary thing is that, despite the horrors, this is a warm and humane book. This is partly because the felt sense of life is so powerful and immediate. Whatever the setting, it has been thoroughly imagined. Most of the characters are agreeable. They speak well and often wittily. When, like Ursula’s eldest brother, Maurice, they are not likeable, they are treated in the spirit of comedy. The humour is rich. Once you have adapted yourself to the novel’s daring structure and accepted its premise that life is full of unexplored possibilities, the individual passages offer a succession of delights. A family saga? Yes, but a wonderful and rewarding variation on a familiar form. This is, without doubt, Atkinson’s best novel since her prizewinning debut, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and a serious step forwards to realising her ambition to write a contemporary version of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. A ferociously clever writer, she has recast her interest in mothers and daughters and the seemingly unimportant, quotidian details of life to produce a big, bold novel that is enthralling, entertaining and experimental. It is not perfect – the second half of the book, for example, could have done with one less dead end – but I would be astonished if it does not carry off at least one major prize. Aficionados of Kate Atkinson's novels – this is the eighth – will tell you that she writes two sorts: the "literary" kind, exemplified by her Whitbread Prize-winning debut Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and the Jackson Brodie crime thrillers. In reality, the distinction is superfluous. Atkinson is a literary writer who likes experimenting with different forms, and her books appeal to a huge audience, full stop. However, for those still keen on these discriminations, Life After Life is one of the "literary" ones. As with the Brodies, Atkinson steers with a light touch, despite the grimness of the subject matter...The novels of Kate Atkinson habitually shuffle past and present, but Life After Life takes the shuffling to such extremes that the reader has to hold on to his hat. It's more than a storytelling device. Ursula and her therapist discuss theories of time. He tells her that it is circular, but she claims that it's a palimpsest. The writer has a further purpose. Elsewhere, Atkinson is quoted as saying: "I'm very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing." It's impossible not to be sympathetic toward Ursula, who yearns to save the people she loves and has been blessed – or cursed – with the ability to do it.
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, and lets out a lusty wail. As she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Cobertes populars
![]() GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)823.914 — Literature English {except North American} English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:![]()
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Another one of my recent list of library recommendations, and again, I'm pleased with this one. It had been on my radar for a while, and I had expected to like it, so I'm not surprised that it did. I like repeating-life tropes, and so I had fairly high expectations for it. There were some really sad parts (sad in ways that I hadn't expected--I knew this was a book about war). The reflections on mortality were touching, and I found it really interesting to see the repercussions of Ursula's actions at different times. I found the book really captivating, though there were a couple timelines that I think could have been shortened a little. (