Life After Life After Life

So much for the "Summer Reading Series". Apparently my summer got busier than I thought it would be, and the only book I had left unread lying around the house was Kate Atkinson's generally acclaimed new novel, Life After Life. The premise intrigued me, so I decided to pick it up some months back when it was actually new. While it's certainly a riveting story, there isn't a complete and satisfactory follow-through in the concept, and the story was almost too easy to read, lacking enough immersive prose replaced with exposition. (Atkinson is no Murakami, but come on)

This surprisingly breezy novel (considering it's over 500 pages) begins with the death of Ursula Todd, our protagonist. She dies almost half a dozen times in the first 100 pages of the novel, all before reaching the age of ten (except for the intriguing and gut-wrenching first chapter, strategically placed to pull you into the story). Her first few lives start out normal, but end tragically, and the next few, as she makes some unconsious changes in choice and circumstance, she slowly begins to improve her lot--and potentially those of the people she is close to.

But this isn't your usual reincarnation story: Ursula is born on the same date under (almost) the same circumstances in February of 1910, to the same family, living through both wars in most of her lives. She experiences a few horrors in some lives that she manages to avoid in others--but how she does avoid them is neither entirely clear nor consistent. Initially it is this intense, visceral fear that prevents her from making ultimately fatal decisions, and other times it's an unconscious enthusiasm to actively make a different choice than she had before--as if she wants to try something new.

The story is quite interesting and for the most part I was compelled to read further, if only to get to the point where she (spoiler alert) attempts to kill Hitler. The complex characterizations, and the funny way the other characters tend to stay the same no matter how radically their choices differ--and even Ursula, at her core, remains the same--are major virtues in this work. And while I'm no expert, and surely there are anachronisms, Atkinson portrays the particular era that Ursula lives--from the prewar 1910s to the London Blitz--with intricate realism that allows me to be there, not seeing it through a distorted black and white lens.

However, the development and execution of the concept fell short of expectations--of course, it's not that we need answers to everything. There are hints peppered throughout the novel that others experience this sort of recurring lives as well, and we don't need to know if there's a "set" number of lives or if it goes on forever... It was more in the lack of consistency in Ursula's apparent awareness of the phenomenon. At first it seems like she is becoming more aware of her deja vu, but then the oddly standout section "End of the Beginning," where past, present, and future blend together, she seems more confused in general than anything. Not to mention that killing Hitler, even if the fact that it may not alter history all that much, is kind of a cliche at this point--mind you, Atkinson handles this bit quite well. And there didn't seem to be enough moments where she was "aware;" I wanted this to be weirder than it turned out to be.

In the end, Life After Life is a story about a particular woman living in a particular era, and her active explorations in this cross-section of time and space as she tries to "get it right." It's as decent a read as they come...but perhaps not for the summer. Save it for when the weather is colder--this does take place in England, after all. 3.5 stars out of five.