i had never heard of kate atkinson before but both amazon and barnes and nobles sent out emails promoting her new book "life after life" the week it came out. since the premise sounded interesting, a woman, ursula todd dies numerous times but is always reborn, i decided to check it out.
i wasn't sure what to expect but i really enjoyed "life after life" like five stars on goodreads.com enjoy. as the cover informed me, author gillian flynn called it "one of the best novels [she's] read this century", which initially sounded impressive but after realizing that we are only 13 years into this century, i can agree with her.
"life after life" was enthralling, i had to find out how urusla's lives would turn out and what she would alter or how fate would alter it for her. though i will admit there was a period when i did get a bit bored with her life (after she purposely killed herself for the first time) but it was
mostly because she lost her psyhic-esque powers. also i couldn't put it down because i had to find out how it ended! the book opens with an event that takes place in germany in 1930 and given the time and the place it is foreshadowed that hitler was assassinated! this kept me reading and searching because i had to find out how would ursula's lives got to that point?
the novel is filled with great characters. ursula is a wonderful protagonist that the reader becomes invested in. one of her lives was extremely dark and was difficult to read. as i read, all i could think about was how i hope she died soon so that she would be taken out of her misery. also i adored her family, her mother sylvie and all of her literary allusions, her sister pamela and their correspondence and of course her brother teddy since everyone adored him. i also loved her aunt izzie. she was a wild one but i loved izzie's crazy lifestyle and all of the colorful things she said plus she was alway there when her niece needed help.
atkinson's writing was beautiful. her characters were poetic and as a result so is her novel. it is filled with beautiful descriptions. and as i mentioned before her characters are very literary and the novel is filled with allusions to keats, dante, the brönte sisters, austen and even dickens. i loved her description of an elderly izzie as "a dipsomaniac miss havisham" (which could be an apt description for me when i get old.)
(spoiler alert: wait to read this section until you read it!)
i do feel there were one gap i found in the novel. for example, when ursula did kill herself, she didn't have any recollection of her previous lives yet she still went to the psychologist. this did not make sense because the reason ursula went to the psychologist was because of peculiar déjà vu bouts as a kid but if she had no recollection why did she go to the psychologist? though the novel
did show some things were bound to happen regardless of ursula intervening. (spoiler alert!!) i was also surprised as to how ursula never went back to the life in which she became a mother. i guess she was never really one for motherhood and i am just projecting my personal choice on to her but i would have had the kid but gotten out of germany. another challenging part was because of the rebirths, characters were introduced before their importance was none so it was difficult to keep track of everyone.
(spoiler alert!)
i appreciated how in the end ursula could not completely alter history. some things were meant to be a certain way regardless of ursula's interventions. and alas that is life. people will always wish that events in history, like the rise of hitler and the holocaust never occurred but unfortunately there is no way to change things. and instead of dwelling on "what if's", people should learn from it and prevent history from repeating itself. ursula and pamela's son had a similar discussion to this effect. the world (or if you believe in him god) works in mysterious ways and instead of dwelling on the negative you have to continue on living.
i find it interesting that i read "life after life" just after having read "the great gatsby" because both novel feature individuals trapped by their past. gatsby wants to go back and relive his life the way it should
have been while ursula is thrown back to relive hers. it seems like ursula has the upper hand because she can do something gatsby can not. however, even though ursula has the ability to go back into the past and change things, she still does not have complete control over the course of life. life did not follow one path for ursula. it is not like the "choose your own adventure" books of my youth in which it follows the same path and all that alters is your choice. instead different occurrences caused things to change and some to remain the same so you never know what will occur, you can only make a choice that you think is the best and hope that it is. this is demonstrated in the novel as ursula is often faced multiple times with the same events. and again this is life, you have to hope your actions are for the best.
as i have gotten older, i have been dwelling on the past and what i would change if i could go back in time. yes, i am content with my life so far, i have a wonderful set of friends, a supportive family and random adventures (i recently wrote these things down for a simmons class as to what i was grateful for.) but there are things i would change if i could be reborn as myself: i wouldn't have wasted time on certain guys, i would have study aboard, i would have taken spanish class more seriously in high school, lost my virginity at an earlier age, been a better sister/daughter/friend at times, never quit dance when i was young, did more interning, and became an art history major. but i have no serious regrets. and there are definitely some mistakes in my life that i would do over again because it has made the person i am today. there are also mistakes i made that were worth it do there is that too.
for those you that know me i am
not one for religion and do not believe in an afterlife because living for etenity sounds tedious and draining. however, i have always found the idea of reincarnation intriguing but not coming back as different things but as the same person. it's odd because i have thought of this before reading this book. i could believe in a universe in which existence is a series of cycles, we get one life and we come back and relive it for all of etenity. and sometimes we make the right decisions and sometimes we make
the wrong ones but life just goes
on and on in a continual circle or a cyhper that keeps moving like a rolling stone (erykah badu reference). so if there is a faith that believes in that sign me
up! i like the idea of life after life, just like i liked the book.
(sorry that was so cheesy but wanted to end this post but was unsure how! lol)
