Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Little Miss Déjà Vu

In Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, Ursula Todd dies as she is born, her birth cord wrapped around her neck.  Then her life starts again, and this time there is a doctor ready to cut the cord and save her.  Ursula lives a number of lives, each one leaving her with a strange déjà vu that informs her choices, for better or worse.

Content Warning: Rape, domestic abuse, infant death and still birth, suicide, graphic descriptions of civilian bombing.

Story  ★★★★★

I had put off reading Life After Life for some time because I so enjoyed Claire North's The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, and the premise sounded very similar.  And so it is, but the books are so very different.  Whereas North focused on the potential disasters of living life with a full knowledge of the future and all of your pasts, Atkinson is a lot more subtle.  Ursula has only vague recollections, through most of the book, of her past lives, echoes of memories, searing dreads when she knows that something bad is going to happen.

This is really a story of middle class life between 1910 and the Second World War, in all its glory and variety.  In this respect it's a very lovely book, that tends to take a dark turn as the breadth of the content warning suggests.  Ursula's lives start in an idyllic English countryside, and invariably twist and turn into murkier spaces, as one would expect of a life reaching adulthood in the 1930s.

For all this might be a very gloomy book that wallows in the pain and futility of war and the commodified status of women, Life After Life is really very heart-warming.  It's not every author that has the talent to give the reader warm, fuzzy feelings when someone gets shot in the heart!

Style  ★★★★★

Reading Life After Life was a delicious experience.  It was like slipping into a warm bath.  The style is very readable, while still conveying an excellent sense of character.  Not just Ursula, whose perspective is followed through the whole book, but the entire ensemble cast.  Frequent asides and comments are made by other characters, as though Ursula has written letters or discussed the events she describes with them, and reports their words on the topic.  Where this might have been jarring if handled by a less talented author, Atkinson manages it perfectly.

The content warning might put some people off Life After Life, and I won't deny there were sections that made me very uncomfortable.  But again, I think the style rescues it.  This could be a very dark and gloomy novel, whereas in actual fact it has light and shade.  When things get grim, it's never long before death comes and Ursula is re-born within the cosy homestead of Fox corner.

Substance  ☆★★★★

The way that Atkinson manages to have Ursula live such very different lives, often caused by the smallest changes in circumstance or choice, gives this book a fantastic breadth.  Ursula finds herself on both sides of the WWII conflict, in a claustrophobic bomb shelter, volunteering as an air raid warden, and so on.  This in itself is fascinating, seeing how easily one could be in a totally different position, and the way it's written is entirely plausible.

While there is a story arc -- Ursula's lives appear to occur consecutively, rather than being various descriptions of parallel universes -- and an ending, there are so many minor points left un-tidied.  Did that person really have an affair?  What happened to that adopted baby?  Was Ursula really nearly recruited to Bletchley Park?  And the final episode itself suggests that the end is not a final ending, not a last destiny fulfilled, but just one of a number of lives that ended in a satisfying way.

This might prove frustrating for some, but for me it let my mind continue to wander after the book ended.  I sit and imagine the possibilities that Ursula might yet take up in her future lives, the mysteries and details still to be uncovered, and it makes me smile to think that even after 600 pages I am still not bored of Ursula's life.

The Verdict  ★★★★★

Despite conjuring some very dark and unpleasant corners of existence, Life After Life still manages to be a warm and life-affirming novel.  The cast of characters are fascinating, and each is complete, with their own lives, their own thoughts and feelings.  Ursula -- herself an interesting, witty, sometimes tragic hero -- is a wonderful guide, who tugs at the heart strings and brings a smile, often on the same page.  Beautifully written and thoughtfully imagined, it ends leaving you satisfied but wanting just a little more.