Life After Life

Life After Life comes with an intriguing premise. A baby is born in a snowy February in 1910. She dies at birth. In the next chapter, she is given another chance and survives; the reader then follows the child, Ursula, as she grows up before, between and during the World Wars, with a unique gift. She can go back and correct her mistakes, dying then starting again.

I've read several reviews of this now, mulling over how my thoughts compare. I was encouraged to pick this up after seeing adverts and reviews for it everywhere. Now having read it, I think my conclusion is that I liked it, but only loved it in parts.

The story is complex and Kate Atkinson's writing is clever and flowing. Metaphors of darkness and light pervade and a real sense of foreboding exists. Some sections are brilliant, such as when Ursula is battling to prevent the death of her, her brother and her maid from Spanish Flu. The repeating and thwarting of her efforts add an almost comic twist. However, some sections I found slightly laboured, such as Ursula's time with Eva Braun and Hitler as the continent inches towards war.

Overall, I think this was a great mind-twisting journey. Throughout the story you question what is real, and even when the worst happens you have hope that Ursula can reset and have a happier life. Characters die and are then brought to life. I also loved the sense of familial love at the heart of the novel, and it helped add grounding and a sense of reality. The character of Ursula changed and adapted as she subconsciously learnt from her errors in her parallel lives. The result is a character you wish the best for, but also she is not the same person from one segment to another. The constant characters of her siblings and parents help anchor the story and attach Ursula to each of her lives.

I do think this is a book worth reading; I suspect it's not worth reading in the way that I did. As the title of this blog suggests, I do most of my reading on my commute. I don't think this is a book designed for this purpose. I often found myself a bit confused when opening at the beginning of my journey and having to flick back a few pages to remind myself. The sense of deja vu which facilitates the central premise just makes the tale a bit confusing when you are reading at the extremities of your day. Perhaps if I'd read it over a weekend it would've been different. Instead, I often found myself a bit disorientated, and at the end I felt I'd been reading Ursula's saga for a very long time.

This is definitely a clever, interesting read; just perhaps not one for the rush hour.

(Available in hardback or Kindle format from Amazon)

The Dinner

I shall have to tread carefully with this one, as one false word and I'll spoil everything...

Two brothers and their wives meet for dinner in a fancy restaurant in Amsterdam. The air is thick with history and old resentments as they greet and exchange pleasantries, putting off the real reason why they are there; they need to discuss their troubled children.

I love an unreliable narrator, and Paul is as unreliable as they come. What seems to be simple fraternal irritation at his brother Serge's mannerisms and the persona he's adopted to enhance his political career soon become something deeper, darker. At first you chuckle along as he grows irritated with the niggly details of fine dining and the related pretensions. However, as the story progresses, there is clearly more to Paul's pedantry than meets the eye.

Paul's descriptions of his oafish brother and his faux sophistication, his weariness with pretentious waiters and  his sharp observations as his thoughts meander made this book almost comedic in its first half. Indeed, for me it had Dutch echoes of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's tour of Northern eateries in The Trip. Then, slowly and subtly, the observations and Paul's recounted reactions adopt a darker turn, less everyday, and you start to question just how much you do relate to Paul after all...

I found this a brilliantly dark read and a real journey; from one page to the next I had no idea where I would end up. Herman Koch creates a false sense of security throughout, then throws in twist after twist, each one still catching you out every time. This book had me truly gripped and the ending left me genuinely surprised. The one thing you couldn't criticise The Dinner for is being predictable.

There are quite a few loose ends in this story; a lot of the tales told are quite fragmented, as Paul dictates exactly what you as a reader need to know. I'm not sure how I felt about this as a narrative style and it's something I know I'll dwell on later. I would love to have known better the character of Claire, Paul's wife, but she was something of an enigma and my main criticism would be that I never really knew what made her tick. In some ways this is a tale of strong males where females blend into the background. I'm not sure if this is particularly a criticism, however, as this was perhaps more a reflection of the strong narrator and his equally strong resentment for his brother.

So, all in all, I would highly recommend The Dinner as a rush hour read for its subtle twists and subplots, somehow managing to be a slowburner and a rollercoaster all in one. Definitely a fine foray into the world of Dutch literature!

(Available in hardback, paperback, Kindle and audio through Amazon. For more information on this and other great reads, please visit the Atlantic Books website)

The Lighthouse

This is a brilliantly strange little book. What starts off as a seemingly ordinary story of a recently-separated, middle aged man going on a walking holiday gradually becomes an unsettling, ominous tale which slowly and subtly grips you.

The pace is initially ambling, as one could expect of a walking holiday. However, you soon begin to realise that all is not as it seems. Our main character Futh's first encounter on his holiday is Carl, a fellow traveller; Futh offers him a lift to his mother's house. "Do you ever get a bad feeling about something? A bad feeling about something that's going to happen?", Carl asks, sowing the seeds of discomfort in the reader's mind. This sense of unease pervades in both Futh and Ester's (a hotel landlady and fellow main character) segments, and increases to a gripping level in the final, dark chapters. Ester's dangerous dalliances with her husband in close quarters feel even more dicey as you learn their history and the kind of man Bernard is. As her story unfurls, Ester emerges as a troubled risk-seeker, craving love and attention. Similarly, as we get to know Futh, an individual deeply damaged by his mother leaving him emerges.

Although not much actually happens, I loved how this book played out. The main characters are lonely, lost souls and I empathised as they looked back on their lives. Futh's reoccurring reflection on the moment of his parents' marital collapse brilliantly captured how this has haunted him throughout his life. His relationship with his wife, meanwhile, was both sinister (she shares a name with Futh's mother, and frequently needs to remind him, "I'm not your mother") and sad. Alison Moore fleshed out his character through using details which made sense while we are in Futh's head, but make him look odd to anyone on the outside (spilling food and blood on himself, retiring to bed early on in his wedding reception, hitchhiking rather than learning to drive...). This was subtle, and I loved it.

Overall, I warmed more to Futh's character than Ester; Futh is portrayed as pathetic, ill-adjusted and forgettable among those who meet him (including Ester, as their paths only briefly cross). However, he's fundamentally well-meaning, simply weighed down by the baggage of his childhood. I wanted things to work out for him. Ester's story circles around revenge, which sets the reader's mind racing at the unresolved ending to this tale.

Alison Moore's novel is one of the most perfectly planned I've had the pleasure of reading. Every motif has its place and serves to link the disparate elements of the book together. I've seen The Lighthouse described as a story of smells. Futh works as a creator of synthetic scents, whilst Ester dreamt of being a perfumier; the eponymous lighthouse (or, at least, one of them) is an empty perfume bottle. Odours of violets, oranges, coffee and camphor reoccur regularly, linking Futh and Ester's memories together and into the present. As our senses play a powerful part in memory, I thought the frequent fragrance references fitted nicely.

As you can tell from the length of this review, there's a lot packed into The Lighthouse's limited pages. I was captivated, but I'm definitely going to have to reread as I'm certain I missed parts. Although you do need to concentrate to not miss subtle moments, Moore's words drew me into the mind of her characters; I was alongside the Rhine with Futh, right down to feeling the blistered feet and burning skin. So, for the reason that it lifted me away from the humdrum and into a different place, I'd definitely recommend this as a rush hour read.

(Image taken from http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=9781907773174. Available in paperback. Kindle edition - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lighthouse-ebook/dp/B008PD6K8K/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1359068001&sr=8-1)