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Lädt ... Life After Life: A Novel (Original 2013; 2014. Auflage)von Kate Atkinson
Werk-InformationenDie Unvollendete von Kate Atkinson (2013)
  
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 Wassilissa | Mar 4, 2014 | 
 I absolutley loved Life After Life. It's so brilliant and existential, and I really responded to all of the 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' that she plays with. Atkinson’s juggling a lot at once — and nimbly succeeds in keeping the novel from becoming confusing. For the other extraordinary thing is that, despite the horrors, this is a warm and humane book. This is partly because the felt sense of life is so powerful and immediate. Whatever the setting, it has been thoroughly imagined. Most of the characters are agreeable. They speak well and often wittily. When, like Ursula’s eldest brother, Maurice, they are not likeable, they are treated in the spirit of comedy. The humour is rich. Once you have adapted yourself to the novel’s daring structure and accepted its premise that life is full of unexplored possibilities, the individual passages offer a succession of delights. A family saga? Yes, but a wonderful and rewarding variation on a familiar form.  This is, without doubt, Atkinson’s best novel since her prizewinning debut, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and a serious step forwards to realising her ambition to write a contemporary version of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. A ferociously clever writer, she has recast her interest in mothers and daughters and the seemingly unimportant, quotidian details of life to produce a big, bold novel that is enthralling, entertaining and experimental. It is not perfect – the second half of the book, for example, could have done with one less dead end – but I would be astonished if it does not carry off at least one major prize. Aficionados of Kate Atkinson's novels – this is the eighth – will tell you that she writes two sorts: the "literary" kind, exemplified by her Whitbread Prize-winning debut Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and the Jackson Brodie crime thrillers. In reality, the distinction is superfluous. Atkinson is a literary writer who likes experimenting with different forms, and her books appeal to a huge audience, full stop. However, for those still keen on these discriminations, Life After Life is one of the "literary" ones. As with the Brodies, Atkinson steers with a light touch, despite the grimness of the subject matter...The novels of Kate Atkinson habitually shuffle past and present, but Life After Life takes the shuffling to such extremes that the reader has to hold on to his hat. It's more than a storytelling device. Ursula and her therapist discuss theories of time. He tells her that it is circular, but she claims that it's a palimpsest. The writer has a further purpose. Elsewhere, Atkinson is quoted as saying: "I'm very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing." It's impossible not to be sympathetic toward Ursula, who yearns to save the people she loves and has been blessed – or cursed – with the ability to do it. AuszeichnungenPrestigeträchtige AuswahlenBemerkenswerte Listen
"What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she? Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original -- this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best. "-- Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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 Google Books — Lädt ...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt: (3.96)
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"Life After Life": Is it worth a read?
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Es geht um die 1910 geborene Engländerin Ursula Todd. Im Buch stirbt sie immer wieder, das erste Mal bereits als Neugeborenes, und jedes Mal beginnt das Leben von vorn. Doch Ursula lernt dazu und vermeidet für sich und ihre Angehörigen immer mehr die Situationen, die tödlich werden können, die Welle, das Hausdach, die spanische Grippe, einmal sogar das dritte Reich. Das liest sich zunächst verwirrend und auch redundant, wird aber im Lauf des Buches immer interessanter.
Interessant ist natürlich die Handlungszeit des Buches. Ursula wird vor dem ersten Weltkrieg geboren und erlebt zumindest in einigen ihrer Leben den zweiten Weltkrieg. So sind ihre verschiedenen Leben Folien möglicher Lebensentwürfe englischer Frauen zu jener Zeit. Und es ist interessant, wie es oft kleine Dinge sind, Dinge, die innerhalb von Sekunden passieren, die den Verlauf des Lebens ändern können. Der "was wäre wenn"-Gedanke ist sicher das Interessanteste an dem Buch.
Aber der Kunstgriff der ständig neuen Leben ist auch das, was mich an diesem Buch am meisten stört: Manchmal erscheint es mir einfach eine Aufzählung der verschiedenen Todesarten und -möglichkeiten. Ursula wird nur einmal so alt, wie ich es jetzt bin. Da bleibt mir nur als Schluss, froh zu sein, dass ich nicht schon gestorben bin! Und wieso gerade Ursula immer wieder lebt und sich auch daran erinnert, ist natürlich von Grund auf seltsam. (