Tony Grist (poliphilo) wrote,
Tony Grist
poliphilo

Life After Life: Kate Atkinson

I think of Atkinson as a young writer (not sure why- maybe because she's so playful) but actually she's only a few months younger than I am- and that's an age at which if a person is planning to produce a masterpiece they'd better get on with it. I've liked her earlier books but this, I think, is the one.

It's a disconcerting novel.  Our heroine keeps dying- and every time she does she comes back to experience the bloody history of the bloody 20th century from a slightly different angle.  In several lives she's blitzed in London; in one she's blitzed in Berlin. In the very first chapter she shoots Hitler in a Munich coffee house.  Want to find out why? Well, on 11 February 1910....

Atkinson describes the construction of the book as "slightly fractal".

Go on, read it.
Subscribe

Recent Posts from This Journal

  • Unbelievable

    This is a strange time. I've lived through any number of international crises and this one feels different. Somehow less involving.... Less…

  • Bleak House

    I put Proust to one side. He was going on and on- at inordinate length- about the Duchess of Guermantes (not to be confused with the Princess of…

  • Dietary

    Ailz says I should have put sugar on the list, along with alcohol, caffeine and salt. I don't remember the doctor mentioning it, but perhaps she…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
  • 0 comments