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shadowkatMy mother keeps discussing Kate Atkinson's novel Life After Life with me over the phone. All I can say is the reviews online have been misleading. I thought it was a novel about a woman who keeps dying and gets born again, or something similar to Jonathan Carroll's Marriage of Sticks. But apparently not. It appears to be more in the what-if this happened instead of that vienne. At any rate, it sounds like a very confusing book.
Me: So it's like Ground-hog day?
Mother: No. It's more...a what-if scenario. See she dies of the influenza. Then in the next chapter, she doesn't die, because someone prevented her from going to London. And then in the next chapter, she drowns. Then the next chapter, she doesn't drown - because someone saved her.
Mother: And the novel starts off with her shooting someone.
Me: So, it's showing how our lives have a pattern and if changed the pattern is disrupted?
Mother: Not quite. And now, she's having issues of deja-vue. OR preminitions that cause her to avoid certain things. Her mother's sent her to a psychologist, because she's afraid of things...and the therapist thinks maybe she's been born again, but she says no it's not like that...it's more well, for instance, she avoids going to London, because she got the influenza there, or someone tripped her down the stairs to prevent her, or...
Me: So, we've gone back to the influenza bit again?
Mother: No, we're ahead of that now, but it does go back to that, and shows the different ways she could avoid it.
Me: I'm confused.
Mother: So am I. I'm trying to figure it out.
I don't know. This does not sound like the sort of book that you can read in snatches on and off subways and commuter trains, or just for an hour or two before bed. I think I'd get lost.
Margaret Atwood is getting preachy in The Blind Assassin. The men in this book are well..not likable. Which is actually my problem with Atwood. She's a bit negative on the male gender, which at times comes across as a sort of reverse sexism. Don't know why - she appears to be happily married. Maybe not?
In the latest chapter, Iris, who is now an old woman, well into her 80s, describing her weddng and wedding night to her husband, Richard Griffin, who died at 47, years ago.
She was basically sold into marriage, at the age of 18, by her father to a business associate for money in the 1930s. From her father's point of view - this guaranteed that both Iris and her sister Laura would be taken care of, and their family home not lost.
Richard, her husband, is in his 30s, and basically views her as a jewel to show off.
He's pleased that she doesn't enjoy sex, and finds it unpleasant and painful, making no effort to alter that because he was of the attitude that this prevented women from seeking sexual pleasure with other partners or straying. ie. If they are bound to think if sex is bad and unpleasant with this guy, it is with all guys.
Depressing book. Beautifully written and compelling. But also a wee bit on the preachy, strident side of the fence. An issue I have always had with a lot of the more militant feminists, such as Atwood - ladies, trust me on this point, not all men are sexist jerks. I happen to know several who aren't. Just as I know quite a few women, that ahem, are sexist jerks. Sexism like racism tends to be fairly human, not just relegated to one side or the other, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise.
Me: So it's like Ground-hog day?
Mother: No. It's more...a what-if scenario. See she dies of the influenza. Then in the next chapter, she doesn't die, because someone prevented her from going to London. And then in the next chapter, she drowns. Then the next chapter, she doesn't drown - because someone saved her.
Mother: And the novel starts off with her shooting someone.
Me: So, it's showing how our lives have a pattern and if changed the pattern is disrupted?
Mother: Not quite. And now, she's having issues of deja-vue. OR preminitions that cause her to avoid certain things. Her mother's sent her to a psychologist, because she's afraid of things...and the therapist thinks maybe she's been born again, but she says no it's not like that...it's more well, for instance, she avoids going to London, because she got the influenza there, or someone tripped her down the stairs to prevent her, or...
Me: So, we've gone back to the influenza bit again?
Mother: No, we're ahead of that now, but it does go back to that, and shows the different ways she could avoid it.
Me: I'm confused.
Mother: So am I. I'm trying to figure it out.
I don't know. This does not sound like the sort of book that you can read in snatches on and off subways and commuter trains, or just for an hour or two before bed. I think I'd get lost.
Margaret Atwood is getting preachy in The Blind Assassin. The men in this book are well..not likable. Which is actually my problem with Atwood. She's a bit negative on the male gender, which at times comes across as a sort of reverse sexism. Don't know why - she appears to be happily married. Maybe not?
In the latest chapter, Iris, who is now an old woman, well into her 80s, describing her weddng and wedding night to her husband, Richard Griffin, who died at 47, years ago.
She was basically sold into marriage, at the age of 18, by her father to a business associate for money in the 1930s. From her father's point of view - this guaranteed that both Iris and her sister Laura would be taken care of, and their family home not lost.
Richard, her husband, is in his 30s, and basically views her as a jewel to show off.
He's pleased that she doesn't enjoy sex, and finds it unpleasant and painful, making no effort to alter that because he was of the attitude that this prevented women from seeking sexual pleasure with other partners or straying. ie. If they are bound to think if sex is bad and unpleasant with this guy, it is with all guys.
Depressing book. Beautifully written and compelling. But also a wee bit on the preachy, strident side of the fence. An issue I have always had with a lot of the more militant feminists, such as Atwood - ladies, trust me on this point, not all men are sexist jerks. I happen to know several who aren't. Just as I know quite a few women, that ahem, are sexist jerks. Sexism like racism tends to be fairly human, not just relegated to one side or the other, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise.
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Date: 2014-02-19 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-19 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-19 10:55 pm (UTC)Apparently - Atkinson is employing a rather interesting narrative device which either works for you or really, really doesn't. If it doesn't - you hate the book. If it does? You adore it.
Because everyone agrees that she's a great writer - what they disagree on is the effectiveness of the narrative device.
Also, from the reviews, she's apparently more interested in the details of the time period, theme, and the narrative device than she's interested in character development. A lot of the reviewers complained that the secondary characters felt one-dimensional. They also stated that it was hard to care about any of the characters in the novel, in part due to the repetitive narrative structure.
So...it sounds like a book you have to be a)in the right mood for, and b) intrigued by interesting narrative devices.
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Date: 2014-02-19 11:01 pm (UTC)My stumbling point on reading the book is that all of the reviews I've read state that her characters are underdeveloped or difficult to care about. That the novel doesn't work as well on an emotional level as it does on an intellectual one. And that the writer, again according to these reviews is more interested in the exercise or narrative structure and the details of her time period than in character development or story.