Life
After Life by Kate Atkinson is another book with the reincarnation
theme.
I first came across Kate
Atkinson when I read Behind the Scenes at
the Museum, a book which I enjoyed tremendously, for its matter-of-fact
descriptions of a dysfunctional British family, and the surprise revelation at
the end of the book, which I didn’t see coming.
Subsequently I read another
book by Kate Atkinson (either Human
Croquet or Emotionally Weird, I
can’t remember which) and that book left totally no impression, as well as put
me off Kate Atkinson for a long time. I discovered after reading the second
book and again upon reading Life After
Life that I only liked Kate Atkinson when I first came across her reading;
it was novel and interesting for the first time, but there is something
depressing about her writing, and that puts me off.
Hence it is after an interval
of more than five years that I finally picked up another book by her, and this
is because I read a review in Straits
Times which mentioned Life After Life
in comparison with the book it was reviewing. Like Cloud Atlas, Life After Life
has a reincarnation theme. But the structure of this book is decidedly more
conventional than Cloud Atlas, and it
is a much tamer ride, unlike Cloud Atlas
which was a bit of a emotional roller-coaster read.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
The structure of Life After Life is more conventional
than Cloud Atlas but it’s still
rather unusual, as far as novels go. The book follows the life of one Ursula
Todd who was born on a cold winter night in 1910, but she died immediately
after being expelled from her mother’s womb for she was strangled by her own
umbilical cord. She was reborn and then met with another untimely demise when
she drowned in the sea at the age of four. And she was reborn again… And so on.
The book follows the lives of
Ursula Todd each time she was born. Some lives were long, others not. And
through her various rebirths, we also get to know her family (parents, four
siblings, a ditzy yet savvy aunt), friends (neighbours), servants and love
interests. Her lives straddled both world wars (when she lived long enough,
that is) and thus we also get a snapshot of how the wars, especially World War
II, affected the British.
I find that the book ends with
a whimper rather than a bang. It is hinted that Ursula’s numerous rebirths are
because she has a destiny to fulfil — to avert World War II. She did this right
at the beginning of the book, and I thought it was the author playing around
with the timeline, putting the end of the story at the beginning of the book.
Then when she finally succeeded in assassinating Hitler towards the end of the
book and died in the process, she was reborn another two times, and I’m like
WTF?! Then what’s the point of her rebirths?
Perhaps, just perhaps, Atkinson
is using the story to illustrate the philosophy of time. The resident
psychiatrist-cum-philosopher in the book, Dr. Kellet, had mentioned that time
is circular, much like a snake consuming its own tail, and so we go
round-and-round with Ursula Todd each time she was born. Or it could be as
Ursula herself said, ‘It’s like a […] palimpsest.’, each life laid on top of
another, and leaking memories and emotions from one to the other.
Life
After Life is an okay read. If you’re wondering what to do with your
time, this book could help you pass two weeks or thereabouts. There are worse
books out there, but then again, there are also better books.
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