What a book! What a style!
I got encouraged to read this book by recommendations on Amazon. And as it was on my local library's list of most-read books at the moment I added my name to the online queue of people awaiting the copy of it. I think I was 9th on the list, but it did not take long, only a few weeks, and I received an email from the library to pick it up. Well, that was encouraging, it meant people had read it quickly.
And yes, it is definitely a page-turner. Big time. I could not put it down, and even though the book is not short (477 pages) it took me about 4 days to read it (during breakfast before going to work, after work and a bit of weekend). It grasped me from the very beginning. The baby dies, the same baby gets born again, the same child dies, and is born again and again. I cannot count the amount of times I cried. Almost every time Ursula dies, every time something wrong happens to her.
"What if you had the chance to live your life again and again until you finally got it right?" is written at the back cover of the book. What if? Ursula did, and with a vague memory of consequences of certain decisions in her previous lives, her life took unexpected turns each time. She lost life as a child many a times, she lost life during London blitz a number of times, she was raped, she was murdered by her husband, she was entertained by Hitler before the war, she was childless, she had a child and committed suicide in Berlin at the end of war, she was single, she had husbands, she killed Hitler, she died of brain cancer (I think), she was bombed, every time 'Darkness fell'- she always died, her life never really fully satisfying. But is it ever? Is it ever satisfying? Every time 'darkness' will fall - we will always die in the end, won't we?
There is no pay-off in the book. She is just born again on 11 Feb 1910, yet again.
It is hardly a new idea. And I am thinking here about the 1998 film 'Sliding doors' (with Gwyneth Partlow) where she lives two parallel lives - in one she catches the train and discovers her boyfriend cheating on her, in the other the door slides before she can jump on board and does not find out about the cheating - her life led completely differently just because of that little detail. Another example, the 1993 'Groundhog day' (with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell) where a main character gets to repeat the same day over and over again until he gets it right - changes completely and gets the girl. Also, this reminds of the famous and popular scientific theory of parallel universes, which Micho Kaku explains so well in his book 'Parallel Universes'. According to one of the theories of the multiple universes, every time one takes a decision another parallel universe is created with the opposite or different decision being taken and therefore different life path and consequences. Mind blowing.
Anyway, going back to Kate Atkinson, the author of 'Life After Life', I am soooo going to read some more of her. I think she is a brilliant novelist with a wonderful capturing style.
Some quotes from the book:
" 'She doesn't believe in dogs,' Bridget said. ' Dogs are hardly an article of faith,' Sylvie said."
"Childbirth was a brutal affair. If she had been in charge of designing the human race she would have gone about things quite differently. (A golden shaft of light through the ear for conception perhaps and a well-fitting hatch somewhere modest for escape nice months later.)"(Sylvie's thoughts, after giving birth to Ursula)
"When she was sure Frieda was asleep she took the little glass capsule that the chemist had given her and placed it gently in Frieda's mouth and pressed her delicate jaws together. The capsule broke with a tiny crunching noise. A line from one of Donne's 'Holy Sonnets' came into mind as she bit down on her own little glass vial. 'I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday.' She held tightly on to Frieda and soon they were both wrapped in the velvet wings of the black bat and this life was already unreal and gone. She had never chosen death over life before and as she was leaving she knew something had cracked and broken and the order of things had changed. Then the dark obliterated all thoughts." (suicide in Berlin)
"Ursula sighed and stretched. 'You know I really, really have had enough of being bombed. 'The war's not going away any time soon, I'm afraid,' said Millie."
"What if we had a chance to do it again, and again,' Teddy said, 'until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?' ' I think it would be exhausting."
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