BOOK REVIEW: LIFE AFTER LIFE

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is another book with the reincarnation theme.

I first came across Kate Atkinson when I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum, a book which I enjoyed tremendously, for its matter-of-fact descriptions of a dysfunctional British family, and the surprise revelation at the end of the book, which I didn’t see coming.

Subsequently I read another book by Kate Atkinson (either Human Croquet or Emotionally Weird, I can’t remember which) and that book left totally no impression, as well as put me off Kate Atkinson for a long time. I discovered after reading the second book and again upon reading Life After Life that I only liked Kate Atkinson when I first came across her reading; it was novel and interesting for the first time, but there is something depressing about her writing, and that puts me off.

Hence it is after an interval of more than five years that I finally picked up another book by her, and this is because I read a review in Straits Times which mentioned Life After Life in comparison with the book it was reviewing. Like Cloud Atlas, Life After Life has a reincarnation theme. But the structure of this book is decidedly more conventional than Cloud Atlas, and it is a much tamer ride, unlike Cloud Atlas which was a bit of a emotional roller-coaster read.

 **SPOILERS AHEAD**

The structure of Life After Life is more conventional than Cloud Atlas but it’s still rather unusual, as far as novels go. The book follows the life of one Ursula Todd who was born on a cold winter night in 1910, but she died immediately after being expelled from her mother’s womb for she was strangled by her own umbilical cord. She was reborn and then met with another untimely demise when she drowned in the sea at the age of four. And she was reborn again… And so on.

The book follows the lives of Ursula Todd each time she was born. Some lives were long, others not. And through her various rebirths, we also get to know her family (parents, four siblings, a ditzy yet savvy aunt), friends (neighbours), servants and love interests. Her lives straddled both world wars (when she lived long enough, that is) and thus we also get a snapshot of how the wars, especially World War II, affected the British.

I find that the book ends with a whimper rather than a bang. It is hinted that Ursula’s numerous rebirths are because she has a destiny to fulfil — to avert World War II. She did this right at the beginning of the book, and I thought it was the author playing around with the timeline, putting the end of the story at the beginning of the book. Then when she finally succeeded in assassinating Hitler towards the end of the book and died in the process, she was reborn another two times, and I’m like ?! Then what’s the point of her rebirths?

Perhaps, just perhaps, Atkinson is using the story to illustrate the philosophy of time. The resident psychiatrist-cum-philosopher in the book, Dr. Kellet, had mentioned that time is circular, much like a snake consuming its own tail, and so we go round-and-round with Ursula Todd each time she was born. Or it could be as Ursula herself said, ‘It’s like a […] palimpsest.’, each life laid on top of another, and leaking memories and emotions from one to the other.

Life After Life is an okay read. If you’re wondering what to do with your time, this book could help you pass two weeks or thereabouts. There are worse books out there, but then again, there are also better books.