One more circle

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown and Company, 2013)

This is one of those books that you want to tell people about, but you can't quite find a concise way to do so. If you are like me, your pitch goes a little like this:

So there's this girl, and she keeps living her life over and over again. Like, she's born, but she dies in childbirth, and then she's born again... [interjection: reincarnated?] no, the exact same life, but this time the doctor arrives in time to save her, but then she drowns, and then she's born again but hesitates in the water and so is saved but then... and then there's the flu epidemic after World War I and...

This is the point where my FH admitted, "I lost you awhile ago and haven't really been paying attention." My mom tried, but was also stuck on the reincarnation point. Or then parallel universes, except they are not parallel since Ursula seems to maintain ghostly remembrances and premonitions relating to past lives, often in ways that help her save herself or a loved one. (And since it's nearly impossible to discuss this novel without reference to Groundhog Day, RIP Harold Ramis.)

But the reincarnation thing is a really awesome point, since a character even explicitly mentions the Buddhist notion that we keep living over and over again until we get it right. And while I've always understood that as living other lives throughout one chronological experience of time, there's no reason it couldn't be living the "same" life again and again.

But if that's the case, what is "getting it right" and is that something that's even possible? Atkinson dances up to this question, but I'd say she engages with it more implicitly than explicitly. She raises far more questions that she answers.

It's funny, reading how Ursula dies again and again mitigates the pain and sorrow of those deaths, but only to a point. You still grieve when awful things happen to her (and they do) and when a life that seems to be going well comes to an end before its time. And you grieve even more for the loved ones who are lost along the way, particularly when they appear to be collateral damage in Ursula's half-conscious attempts to alter her fate. Oh, while some sections (and lives) are short, other scenes are much longer and a huge chunk of the book is comprised of Ursula's varying experiences during World War II. And it should come as no surprise that there are an awful lot of (terrible) ways to die in that war.

So the book is really something. For the beautiful writing and the way that the premise never feels gimmicky first and foremost, but also for the metaphysical questions that it raises. I'll be thinking a lot about what the implications would be if we did indeed live our lives time after time.

Oh Valentine

The Trouble with Valentine's Day - Rachel Gibson (Avon Books, 2005)

How to Marry a Marquis - Julia Quinn (Avon Books, 1999)

It's February, so how could I not pick up the first book? And it's another one of those books where the protagonist is a former hockey player. Teemu Selanne even makes a brief appearance, on the television, where Katie astutely points out how hot he is. (This is during his Avalanche days though, so ugh.) But there really isn't much hockey. Katie has retreated to her grandfather's home, to help the widower run his store and get away from stresses back home in Las Vegas. Rob has retreated to the town where his mother now lives, following a shocking incident that ended his hockey career. And I feel like that's all I need to say.

Oh, except the Valentine's connection: the book starts on Valentine's Day, when Katie hits on a hot stranger in a bar on the way to town, is rebuffed, and later humiliated when the hot guy turns out to be her neighbor. Or, and he didn't turn her down for the reasons she expected.

Going back in time was a bit more fun. Elizabeth needs to marry money in order to care for her orphaned siblings, and when she comes across the embarrassingly titled "How to Marry a Marquis," she can't help but look through it. Funny thing is, there actually is a marquis around, except he's masquerading as an estate manager for spy-ish reasons. (As one does.) When they meet and sparks fly, she's sad that she's falling for a guy who can't solve her money woes, and he's not sure whether he ought to reveal his true identity. And when she finds out, the ensuing bedlam seems like something out of a Moss Hart/George Kaufman play. Delightful. Hard to believe, but delightful.

(Don't expect my romance reading pace to fall off anytime soon.)

The Butterfly Net

Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited - Vladimir Nabokov (Wideview/Perigree, 1966)

I have really mixed feelings about Nabokov. I am pretty sure I like his fiction, although I find it challenging. I definitely don't like his opinion that it makes no sense to try to translate Eugene Onegin in verge (why is Pushkin so popular on this blog lately?). And I am not a fan of his decisions on how to transliterate. Ys in confusing places, and the rendering of the Cyrillic "Х" (normally "kh" as in "Khrushchev") as "H," the decision to just use the masculine form of the last name for women (Anna Karenin, instead of Karenina).

Oh wait, I'm digressing. In his autobiography, he also just doesn't seem like the most pleasant guy to be around. Arrogant, homophobic and with a clearly complicated relationship with his gay brother (11 months his junior), and certainly convinced he was the smartest guy in the room (which, unfortunately, he usually was). Plus early in this autobiography (composed of a series of essays and revised over time) he discloses that he read and wrote in English before he did in Russian. So English was virtually a native tongue to him, and my awe of his prowess has to be played down just the teeniest bit.

All that said, this is a masterful work. I've seen it said (and of course I can't provide citations, bad librarian) that this is the best autobiography of the twentieth century. I'm willing to believe it. What he does with language... I'm not sure anyone can beat him. In whatever tongue. But while I admire him all the more for having read this memoir, I'm not sure I like him.

(Not mentioned above but also worth noting: a glorious look at late imperial aristocracy/intelligentsia, and a vivid portrayal of how those folk fled for their lives as the Bolsheviks took control)

Fake engagements!

Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right - Kieran Kramer (St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2010)

Crush on You - Christie Ridgway (Berkley Sensation, 2010)

Sorry folks, this is how it's going to be for awhile. In spite of all my past, present, and future mockery, few things are as stress-relieving for me as light-hearted romance novels.

And this time, instead of fake marriages, there are fake engagements! (Well, sort of.) Huzzah! First up is Poppy, who has gotten out of a slew of proposals by talking up her imaginary beau, the Duke of Drummond. This gets awkward when he shows up and pretty much backs her into a corner for his own purposes. Hence they are engaged, which infuriates Poppy, until it doesn't. Oh, and some Russian twins have their amorous eyes on the two of them as well. Good times.

Next is Alessandra, who deals more in almost-weddings. Tragedy marred what was supposed to be her wedding day, so it seems a little weird that she's refitting her family winery into a hot new wedding locale. But that's what you have to do to save the family business, sometimes. And then there's Penn, whose backstory is absurd, but he's the handsome host of one of those heartwarming home remodeling shows, and has reasons to help out with the winery. But they are not the most interesting couple in the book. The B plot here is superb. Clare's upcoming nuptials are the winery's path to salvation, but she's starting to look at her long-time BFF in a new way. So yeah, the fake engagement isn't particularly obvious from this synopsis, but it's sort of there, I promise.

And I'm going back to the library tomorrow :) On the other hand, I'm also reading Nabokov's memoir, so I think they even each other out.