“As you got older and time went on, you realized that the distinction between truth and fiction didn’t really matter because eventually everything disappeared into the soupy, amnesiac mess of history. Personal or political, it made no difference.”

Good morning. Federation Dock, Hobart. August 2021.

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

A "companion piece" rather than a sequel to one of my favourite books that I've read this year (Life After Life. Much like the first book, this one is also experimental in form. Timelines skip backwards and forwards but (largely) avoid the 'parallel realities' that marked the earlier work.

The experimentation did not disrupt the experience, and I found that it again afforded Atkinson the power to explore the concept of memory, fiction and imagination. If I didn't quite enjoy it as much as its predecessor, it was due to the presence of the distasteful Viola. Without a doubt, her character is an essential exploration of the intergenerational shift, but I did find her irritating to the point of distraction.

There is a fine art to the wilful disruption of chronology that goes some way to explaining Viola's attitude. The resolution of the piece - like Life After Life - is at once original and devastating. This is indeed a novel that reminds one of the exciting potentials of the form. It is both exhilarating and heartbreaking at once.

Atkinson's writing never feels fake or masturbatory. Indeed, she has presented here another deft and inspiring achievement by a novelist who seems fearless in her confidence in setting about to new and imposing challenges. I am always sceptical about the mythology of the literary canon, but my word, if there is such a thing, one should reserve a seat for Kate Atkinson.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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