Sometimes it's very sad sometimes it's poignant sometimes it's rather offhand, I think." But after we've set the pattern I think there's less of that. She has a whole cascade of horrible deaths in the blitz. She dies a lot in the first third of the book, but I would say in the second two-thirds of the book she actually does very little, until we get to the blitz. Yes, death, darkness.' And then after that, I think we settle down into much longer narratives. She dies many, many times of the Spanish flu and you can tell the tone of the novel is very much 'Oh god, here we go again. There are some lighter moments in it.įirst Reads Exclusive: Kate Atkinson's 'Life After Life'
We should, you know, we should point out that this isn't a novel entirely mired in gloom and doom. "For me, it actually simply compounded it so that it was layer upon layer of awfulness, really. On whether Ursula's story risks making death less resonant And to be so near death, as well, must have - you know, to be in touch with a constant fear of death or experience of death in others, I think that must have really changed people." But I, you know, if I could choose a period to go back to I think I would like to live through the blitz because you do read so many accounts of people who say they were living their lives at such an intense pitch that it was a completely different way of living. So you have to sort of see through that to how people were really feeling and behaving. You know, you have to peal away layers of propaganda because there was an immense amount of propaganda in Britain in the second world war which was deemed necessary to keep morale up. I think of all the words I would use for how people behaved it would be stoic. So I read a lot of firsthand accounts and was impressed really by the stoicism. And you do wonder what effect that has on character and on how people feel. And I think they do say it's the period of history you just miss that becomes the one that interests you most, isn't it? But I think with the blitz, I think it's such an intense period - I forget how many days, it's 57-58 days - of continuous bombing. "I was born in '51, so in a way I just missed it. And I wanted to show that really, in a way, it could have been us, we could have been the fascists." And something that struck me as well, reading a lot of the mass observation diaries of ordinary people, was that Germany was not felt to be the enemy - it was Hitler who was felt to be the enemy and the Nazis that people had holidayed in Germany, they had German pen friends, they admired German culture and they were very worried about the fact that Germany was the enemy. Germany was almost destroyed as a country and so many more people died. "I hadn't really intended her to be in Berlin during the bombing, but it seemed only right in a way because obviously the London blitz was a terrible thing, but you know, what happened in Germany was infinitely worse in that. On her decision to have Ursula experience the blitz in both London and Germany And I think that's just - life after life, literally, she learns so much about herself but she is always the same person." I think that she gets stronger and she gets more courageous. "She learns and she doesn't always correct - she certainly doesn't always correct in the right way - but she changes and she changes things. On how Ursula grows as a result of her many lives
Kate Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1995. She joins NPR's Scott Simon to discuss how Ursula grows through her many lives, her own fascination with the London Blitz and the process of writing Life After Life. The many lives and deaths of Ursula Todd are related, interlocked and grow in and out of each other in Kate Atkinson's new novel, Life After Life. Ursula's parents treat him to tea.Įnd of story? Not really. Then, on another version of that afternoon, the same wave crashes against her and this time an amateur painter set up nearby clambers into the water and plucks her and her sister both up. But on a beach outing with her family when she's 5 years old, she's slurped up by a wave while holding her sister's hand. The little girl becomes Ursula, known to her father as "Little Bear." She is joyful and happy. That same little girl is born on another version of that night in 1910, but this time the doctor makes it through the storm, delivers the baby and stays for breakfast. The doctor can't make it through the snow, and the little girl dies. The umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck she turns blue and gasps for life. One night in 1910, a little girl is born during a snowstorm in the English countryside. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Life After Life Author Kate Atkinson
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