I'm almost certain this is not the case, but there are moments when I feel like I have not read many of the books the rest of the world seems to have read and loved, but I'm hoping to get caught up with at least one very soon. So, have you read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life? I have long had it on my reading pile--probably since it came out in paper a year ago. From what I hear from other readers it is an absolutely amazing book, and the blurbs on the back cover make me feel as though I am in for a real treat. Words like--witty, joyful, mournful, profound, inventive, sweeping, virtuoso, hypnotic, audacious, ambitious--have been thrown around in reference to it.
You probably already know the premise--"what if you could live again and again, until you got it right?" I'm about to find out. At least through the eyes of a fictional character, Ursula Todd. I'm not very far in yet, but already Ursula has been born and died several times. First, however, the story opens in a café in Berlin where Ursula goes to kill Hitler and thus avoiding WWII. It reminds me of the bits I read in Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog, though the characters might move around in time--they cannot change the course of historical events. Imagine being able to change history.
Here's one of her shorter lives. Or rather, one of her deaths.
"Ursula felt herself being pulled under, deeper and deeper, as if she were miles out to sea, not within sight of the shore. Her little legs bicyled beneath her, trying to find purchase on the sand. If she could just stand up and fight the waves, but there was no longer any sand to stand on and she began to choke on water, thrashing around in panic. Someone would come, surely? Bridget or Sylvie, and save her? Or Pamela--where was she?"
"No one came. And there was only water. Water and more water. Her helpless little heart was beating wildly, a bird trapped in her chest. A thousand bees buzzed in the curled peark of her ear. No breath. A drowning child, a bird dropped from the sky."
"Darkness fell."
Looking at the table of contents it looks like the story will go at least up to 1967. And concentrates around the war years (both WWI and WWII). Ah, the anticipation of reading a good book. You just want to say hurry up, let's get going on this (and then dread having to go to work and break the magical spell a good story casts over you). My current predicament as I write this post.
The gentle nudge of reading this book has come from an upcoming book club hosted by one of the public library's smaller branches. I had hoped to join the group last fall but it didn't work out with my schedule. They meet on the last Tuesday of each month, so I have two weeks to read. It may be a hefty book but I have a feeling it is going to read very fast once I get going. The book club already has their schedule of books posted for the coming year. Next month (is it too soon to look ahead a little?) they'll be reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. If all goes well this time around I might have to attend regularly.
It's nice to have a little extracurricular bookishness to look forward to, don't you think?