Aquest passat
divendres es varen trovar alguns dels membres del club de lectura d’anglès.
Varen comentar "Life After Life" de Kate Atkinson's.
Una de les
persones participants al club ens ha fet arribar el següent comentari:
“So it came to pass that after eight months and
five books our team of readers will no longer be able to look forward to
our bimonthly visits to Sant Gregori library - but alas! not all is
lost, you can rest assured that in just three months' time we'll all be back
both praising and criticising those lucky authors whose books have been chosen
for the 2026-27 reading season.
But please excuse me for getting ahead of myself since we
still have to talk about the fifth book of 2025-26, namely Kate Atkinson's
"Life After Life". The book, written in 2013, follows the life of
Ursula Todd, from her birth in 1910 to the swinging sixties of London. However,
Ursula is not a "normal" child since she frequently passes away only
to come back to life to continue living her new/different realities. For many
members of our group, including myself, this continual dying and coming back to
life caused a certain amount of confusion and it was necessary to reread parts
of the novel to enable us to follow Ursula's numerous adventures. This
difficulty to follow the plot of the novel may be the consequence of
Atkinson's interest in literary postmodernism - a movement which we might
like to delve into more deeply next year.
Despite the novel being peppered with ironic and humorous
moments the underlying impression is one of sadness and suffering - many of the
vivid descriptions of the bombing of both London and Berlin in World War 2 are
often horrific, but never gratuitous. We all agreed how life was certainly
horribly grim for the huge majority of people who lived during those
times.
We also spent time discussing how life has changed
throughout the twentieth century (especially gender roles and expectations).
This aspect of the novel seemed to be one of the most thought-provoking and, at
times, nostalgic features of the novel.
Well, I would certainly not say that this book would be to
everyone's taste, though I do believe that there are certain parts of the book
which would appeal to, or more likely shock, almost everyone: the
depiction of the social history of the times, how wars destroy absolutely
everything, the delightful setting of Fox Corner, the relationships
between members of the Todd household and, finally, how misogyny, a leitmotif
of the novel, is still with us today in 2026. Plus ça change!”
Aquesta ha estat
la darrera sessió de la temporada. Al 18 de setembre es tornaran a trobar per
comentar més lectures. Si us interesses participar-hi no dubteu en contactar amb la Biblioteca!!!
