The more you live, and read - in some cases - the more you realize that you've been harder on yourself than anyone else in your life. It was you who kept the windows dirty and did not let the sun in, fearing whatever was unknown. It was you who believed for too long in something not worth believing. We delude ourselves with mere words when actions should speak for themselves. However, more often than not we should give up on people, not because we don't care, but because they don't care.
In "Life after Life" Kate Atkinson optimistically (or obsessively, it depends how you look at it) states: “What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” What if there were second chances? Or third chances? Would we still want to do things differently? Would we still want to try?
We are the stories we tell ourselves...and inbetween hypertext and metaphysics, "time is a construct, in reality everything flows, no past or present, only the now." The author retells the story of one's life in different times and from different perspectives and we find ourselves asking if novel and real life are alike, being able to do things once more, or life events are singular and final?
"Life after Life" has been praised by prestigious magazines and Kate Atkinson was shortlisted for The Women's prize for Fiction 2013.
4 comments:
First of all: I love the Venexian header of your blog :)
The first line of your post caught my attention: it's so true! And the rest of the first paragraph for that matter...
The theme of book sounds very interesting; it's something I have been wondering about more than often.
I will put the book on my TBR list!
Thanks for visiting, Cessie! The first paragraph is rather personal, but it is how I relate to the theme of the book...
I liked this book more in the first three quarters than the last. It became tedious for me, although the premise of doing things until you get them right interests me greatly.
Only, is that even possible? I suspect we may have thousands of chances, and thousands of different outcomes, and I hope that by the single chance I get I have learned something before the next time I mess up.
I never saw Kate's character learn anything. She just re-existed, in my opinion.
No worries, Bellezza, your comment appeared only once :) Or maybe you had the chance to do things over again, to improve :) Joke aside, I am sure that some of the (second) chances we get are there so we can have fun as well, besides learning something out of everything we do or happens to us...
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