Life After Life
Ursula was left to stare at the floral wallpaper. She had never noticed before that the flowers were wisteria, the same flower that grew on the arch over the back porch. This must be what in literature was referred to as “deflowering,” she thought. It had always sounded like a rather pretty word.
Kate Atkinson • Life After Life
The salience of coupling wisteria and deflowering is a nice embellishment.
Ursula watched as Mr. Winton waded back through the waves, carrying Roland’s limp little body in his arms. Pamela and Ursula had thought the tide was going out but it was coming in, already filling the moat and lapping at the mound of sand which would soon be gone forever. An ownerless hoop bowled past, driven by the breeze. Ursula stared out to se
... See moreKate Atkinson • Life After Life
This paragraph is lovely and encapsulates all the previous lives that Ursula has lived in this book. It is Roland, rather than her, that drowns, as she is building a sand castle rather than being pulled into a swim. The hoop rolling down the beach reappears in multiple versions of her past self. The counterpoint of the moat detail in contrast to the limp body of Roland is powerful. A small detail countered by a major one, and yet those are the things one remarks upon when events like this occur.
“There are other universities if you’re so set on being a bluestocking,” Sylvie said. Sylvie, although she never quite came out and said it, thought academia was pointless for girls. “After all, woman’s highest calling is to be a mother and a wife.”
Kate Atkinson • Life After Life
How clearly and decisively differences between major characters at play in the book are incised. This creates an atmosphere of tension in subsequent dealings and drives the off-page fireworks.
They heard Mrs. Shawcross screaming all through the first night. Afterward her face never looked right and Dr. Fellowes reported that she’d had a “small stroke.” “Poor, poor woman,” Hugh said. “She never knows where those girls are,” Sylvie said. “She just lets them run wild. Now she’s paying the price of her carelessness.” “Oh, Sylvie,” Hugh said
... See moreKate Atkinson • Life After Life
How quickly we rationalize the horrible things that happen to others. There's always an explanation until it happens to you - at which point it's "random."
it was one of those questions you couldn’t ask in case he were to tell the truth.
Kate Atkinson • Life After Life
Being a bride was nothing, being a wife was everything.
Kate Atkinson • Life After Life
“Steady on,” Fred Smith said, “you’ve gone a bit green round the gills, Miss Todd,” and Ursula had to blame it on the heat and insist on taking some fresh air on her own. She had in fact been feeling quite queasy lately. Sylvie put it down to a summer cold.
Kate Atkinson • Life After Life
...and just as you likely suspected, Ursula is pregnant, at the same age as Izzie's familial downfall and ostracism.
The college had been run by a man called Mr. Carver, a man who was a great disciple of both Pitman’s and Esperanto and who tried to make his “girls” wear blindfolds when they were practicing their touch-typing. Ursula, suspecting there was more to it than monitoring their skills, led a revolt of Mr. Carver’s “girls.” “You’re such a rebel,” one of t
... See moreKate Atkinson • Life After Life
Interesting that the voice echoes but is tinted with more awareness on each recurrence. We heard about Esperanto before, of course, but it is introduced without a hint that we would know. It's not conspiratorial but the way things are.
Miss Woolf said that she had had a “harrowing” late night “chat” with Herr Zimmerman about the situation in Germany. “Things are terrible over there, you know.” “I know,” Ursula said. “Do you?” Miss Woolf said, her interest piqued. “Do you have friends there?” “No,” Ursula said. “No one. Sometimes one just knows, doesn’t one?”
Kate Atkinson • Life After Life
Ugh.