Next meeting:
Thursday 14 July 2016 at 8pm
Venue:
Earlsdon Library
Book for discussion:
Alice and the Fly — James Rice
An Unfinished History
Our June Book
Life After Life — Kate Atkinson
Life after Life by Kate Atkinson is an unusual
book and, perhaps fittingly, the meeting began
in a way that seems to have become a little
unusual in recent months – the atmosphere
was buzzing with positivity!
The book itself centres on the story of Ursula
Todd, a child born in England in affluent and
comparatively happy circumstances on 11
February 1910. However, every time the
reader becomes engrossed in the story it
simply stops. Then the narrative starts again –
and again, and again – but from different
starting points. Each time the story takes a
different course, its details altered –
sometimes radically, sometimes marginally –
its outcome unpredictable.
From the moment of her birth onwards,
Ursula’s childhood is punctuated by alarming
near misses. Each disaster is confirmed by
variations on the phrase ‘darkness fell’, and
each new beginning heralded by the clean
slate that snow brings. Ursula carries within
her a vague sense of experiencing something
‘other’, which is expressed through apparently
impetuous actions – such as when she pushes
a housemaid down the stairs to save her from
a more terrible ending.
Although the book is not by any means all
bleak and unhappy, Atkinson’s descriptions of
the traumatic shifts in British society during
Ursula’s lifetime are convincing – the story
moves directly from one war to the next, only
later filling in, partially, the inter-war years.
The vividly detailed passages of domestic and
personal minutiae bring home some of the
horrors and perils of wartime.
Atkinson is a leading modern author who has
been described as an exceptional writer – and
Life after Life is said to be her most ambitious
and most gripping work. This may be why most
members of the group who had read the whole
book, said they enjoyed it and used words such
as ‘clever’ and ‘brilliant’ (even, ‘Well done on
book choice’!!). Those who had not finished
the book gave reasons such as leaving their
copy behind on holiday, or being too busy,
rather than not enjoying reading it, and most
hoped to finish it in due course.
Earlsdon Literary Magazine 188
The newsletter of the AVID Readers Group, based at Earlsdon Library
Our next book is
Alice and the Fly—James Rice
and we will discuss it on 14 July 2016
