Once Upon a Time Challenge: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Reincarnation. It’s been around since the Iron Age. The Celts, Norse, Greeks, Indians all entertained beliefs in life after life.

I wasn’t going to read this book. In fact, I probably would not have read it except that my book group chose it. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adore Kate Atkinson’s writing. If you’ve never read her, I wholly recommend When Will There Be Good News? as your first foray into her world of words. How could you go wrong with a writer who combines mystery with deep characterization, intricate plotting, and lyrical phrasing?

But I just wasn’t drawn to the subject matter, so I needed my book group’s nudge. I’ve written about feeling like an outsider in my book group, but I was happily surprised at our meeting to find we were all on the same page. Sorry.

But to the book. Here is the blurb from the official Kate Atkinson website:

“During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to? Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again.”

Many have visited the idea of returning to life (and in fact, Groundhog Day remains one of my favorite films), but I didn’t see this as the proper canvas for Atkinson.

I was wrong.

Atkinson imbues Life After Life with her magnificent voice, part of which involves the irony of self-examination. You will never know a character better than you know Ursula Todd, the resilient bear, as she journeys from a pastoral England of dogs and family picnics through a turbulent World War II with Nazi youth marches and bombing raids. With each incarnation, the reader learns more about who Ursula and her capricious Aunt Izzie are. Ursula knows herself better, too, and benefits from little tickles of memory that tip her in the direction of growth.

Ah, Reader, if only I could do that. So many little things I would change. Speak a word here, leave a word unspoken there. That time in 5th grade I sat in reading group and my stiff petticoat ended up on the other side of my chair back so that my white underwear was on display for the edification of the entire class? Yeah, I’d change that. But not the big things, or not many of them anyhow. But Ursula does. She faces indecency and inhumanity and war and develops the strength to do it better.

As you have no doubt guessed, I highly recommend Life After Life. Atkinson’s particular strength in this and in all her books is her sweeping style–in the sense of sweeping the reader into the maelstrom between the covers where desire and conflict collide.

A word about the end of the book. My book group disagrees with me, but I think there’s a little wiggle room in the interpretation of the ending. Check it out. Here’s a clue. Two words: Thank you. And just past the ending be sure to check out Atkinson’s discussion of her book. If you’ve ever wanted to climb in and muck around in the mind of a writer, then Atkinson’s notes are a must see.

For the Once Upon a Time challenge, I’m doing Quest the Third. Because of the novel’s reincarnation aspect, I’m putting Life After Life into the mythology category, in this case mythology defined as “a set of…beliefs” (Webster’s College Dictionary).