Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

I gave Kate Atkinson's Life After Life a star straight away when I noted it down in my book list last night. Meaning, that I was (and am) already sure that at the year's end, this will turn out to have been one of the books to have made a lasting impact on me.

It's been hanging around on my 'to read' shelf for a while; I admit that I only picked it up now for the quirk, of reading it (and therefore listing it) immediately after Life ie. the Keith Richards book. With which it shares almost nothing, and on the other hand, everything. Especially a feeling for that elusive sense of what we are, adrift in the stream, as life flows on. But expressed very differently :)

Before you even read the back cover blurb, you're assaulted by profuse encomiums (apologies - that's my sole lifetime use of that word) from reviewers and famous literary names, a few of which you can see on the cover. There are many more inside, before you get anywhere near the book itself. I wish they hadn't done so much of this. For many, it will be a very personal book, and it's unsettling to be forced to react to it in the public context of the commercial space. I've come across - before I managed to stop myself doing this - some reviewers' comments demonstrating a very different take to mine. Oh, that's okay, but it's unhelpful. 

The one I'm thinking of, just a quote so probably unrepresentative - suggested that it's a book asking what if Hitler had been killed before his rise to power? There's a connected question: is this a fantasy, or even science fiction? The 'Life After Life' of the title is literally that. After a mysterious prologue in which someone (identity not mysterious at all) is shot, the story begins with Ursula's birth in 1910, and death, then birth, then death again, and on and on repeatedly, the circumstances varying sometimes greatly, sometimes only slightly. Are these multiple timelines? Is this something to do with the 'many worlds' hypothesis? Are these lives experienced according to Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation?

The book is long as it is, and all the potential outcomes of Ursula's life aren't explored right the way through. There are certain periods which are crucial in her life, such as Spanish Flu just after the First World War, and the London Blitz in the Second. But the consequences of changed decisions, or different luck, are looked at all along. One striking example (of, if one was considering it all in the context of the fantasy genre, a 'side quest') is the timeline resulting from a bad marriage. A choice made by Ursula for flimsy reasons, made as life seems to her to be offering nothing better; also, a sad choice the lot of so many women. By the way, Life After Life does in my view demonstrate the most powerful kind of feminism, showing (truth) not telling.

Kate Atkinson writes an afterword, in which she talks about the history she explored while writing the book, and also shrugs at any inquiry as to 'what it's about'. I'm glad to hear that, I like artists who acknowledge  that they can't just say 'it's about such-and-such', because if they've created anything truthful then it's bound to provoke new responses in a viewer/reader. Having said that (!), I suspect it will mean a bit more if you're English (or British) and (although by now, you probably weren't living during the War), the people around you were affected by the War. I certainly fall into that category. My upbringing was English middle class, and my father was in the Army, and both parents were in uniform during the War. And said almost nothing about it. Some particular things they didn't say about it are still alternately sad and troubling for me and, I'm sure, my brother. Kate Atkinson says in her afterword that she thinks we were at our best during the War, which I'd agree with, but she does also render the way War affects us, how much we lose, for all that there is heroism to inspire us. And people in those times aren't all wonderful.

So, I respond to the depictions of what you could call the (illusory) lost Arcadia of the England that was, to the glimpses of a history which has indirectly affected me, and to all the 'what-if' conjecture.

I think one can get too diverted by the device of birth, death and rebirth: the conceit of Ursula gradually realising that she has consciousness of alternative existences, and deciding to exploit her 'foreknowledge' in the most dramatic and significant way possible. Note, that there's no attempt to explore what would have happened if Ursula had done the deed, though there seems to be an implication that it changes an outcome in a different 'timeline', involving their favourite brother Teddy. 

I think the real power of the book is in showing us that we do experience life like this, ie. not in an uninterrupted linear flow from A to B, but in fits and starts, always aware of what we could have done, and then later, sometimes actually think we did. We do change how we look at our lives. Kate Atkinson's characters do exactly that, as the book goes on. All the triumphs and failures (both potential and actual) take a toll on us. And how we look at the people around us - especially our own family. It's our sister Debbie's birthday today (yes, this very day I'm posting this). She died a long time ago, aged 28, but sometimes it feels like yesterday. Quite close to me in age. I think about her often, about the life she might have had. Just think about that eternal mystery, how all your siblings despite similar upbringings can turn out so different. I identify with Ursula quite a bit, but only up to a point, and if I'm honest (is this a mistake?) I can think of one or two Maurice-like behaviours at moments in my childhood. Yes, now I'm cringing.

I love Kate Atkinson's characters by the way. They may not be equivalents of people in my life, but they live and breathe convincingly, even the dogs, and a certain vixen; I can imagine them, and imagine Fox Corner, the home of the Todd ('sigh' - yes, I did spot that this is virtually the German for 'death') family, through the various seasons. None of it would work so well without the brilliant writing. In the end, life is made up of all its little moments, its experiences big and small. If any of them are warm and reassuring, happy and loving, then be glad for that. And there are so many things, some momentuous, some the tiniest but very niggling, which never get explained at all. (If you've read the book, do you remember this one, from the briefest of sightings by Ursula, on a bus - was Sophie having an affair?) So much of this, in a book rich with textures of life.

So much to talk about with Life After Life. I've had to make myself stop. (Sorry if you've got to the end here and wondered why you persevered!) Heh yes there are a lot of brackets in this piece. But you could say it's about a book which is itself about how life is full of stuff in brackets.