[S4X]⇒ Libro Gratis A God in Ruins Kate Atkinson 9780385618717 Books

A God in Ruins Kate Atkinson 9780385618717 Books

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A God in Ruins Kate Atkinson 9780385618717 Books

I’m not entirely sure of Kate Atkinson’s intentions but I applaud her as a fictional nonconformist. This novel is so different than anything else I have read, including Life After Life, I’m in awe of her brilliance and credibility.

The protagonist, Teddy (Edward) Todd, is a stoic bomber for the RAF. I learned more than I ever knew about the RAF, the mechanics of the bombers, especially the Halifax (Teddy’s plane), his different crews when he’s the Skipper, the strategy of the British and untold suffering. The average age of an RAF was 22, and only half of them survived. And shocking to me is that Churchill did not credit them after the war. A different perspective, for sure, of what the British, at least Atkinson, may think of Churchill. When Teddy is challenged about dropping bombs on innocents, Atkinson surely emphasizes her theme of savagery in the final analysis.

This epic novel stretches on to a century of Teddy’s life as Atkinson circles back in time to grab different points of view. The suppressed inner-workings of this British family are exposed. His mother Sylvie is a passionate woman who favors Teddy of all her children, her “best boy.” I believe I could almost touch his family. His wife, Nancy, is independent and enigmatic; her cordiality is a mystery at times. They have one child, Viola, who is gifted with the best dialogue. She wins the most selfish daughter and mother award, if there were such an award. Her responses are demeaning and nasty to her father and children, particularly her son, Sunny. Both of her children are born on a commune, sired by Viola’s husband, Dominic, possibly a bi-polar, child-like jerk. Viola’s daughter, Moon, serves as the philosopher symbolizing the inability of the family to communicate with each other.

Teddy, despite his love for family, cannot express his thoughts. He actually feels more comfortable as a bomber pilot than returning to the safety of family. His childhood love of nature evolves into a small journalistic job after the War. Atkinson emphasizes the goodness of Teddy and I wonder if he genetically passed on his inability to show emotion. The British stiff upper-lip and all that may not be elusive. Ursula emerges (sister to Teddy and star of Life After Life) when Atkinson wants to provide the reader with some humor and reality.

This novel is incredible, and I have only presented a cursory sample of this sprawling work. Reading Atkinson’s Afterword is somewhat illuminating but left me more in amazement of her intellect. Every scene and piece of dialogue is preparing the reader for the end of the book.


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A God in Ruins Kate Atkinson 9780385618717 Books Reviews

I've had mixed feelings about Kate Atkinson. One the one hand, I'm dazzled by the sharpness of her wit, her pinpoint perceptions, a derring-do that inspires her to indulge in literary hijinks without losing the story's suspenseful thrust. On the other hand, I've sometimes felt put off by her sheer presence on the page, the almost ruthless delight she takes in authorial manipulation. "A God in Ruins," the second "companion" book in her saga of the Todd family, a well-to-do English clan whose fortunes and misfortunes span the 20th century and beyond, puts Atkinson's considerable strengths, as well as her shortcomings, on full display. Whereas its predecessor, the more consistently engaging "Life After Life," focused on the Cassandra-like Ursula Todd, this one's chief concern is with her admirable brother, Teddy, a flying ace during World War II, cast into passive Yorkshire obscurity for his remaining seven decades. As with Ursula's story, Atkinson is addressing the nature of a kind of heroism, which in her terms seems to come down to modesty of worldly ambition, a devotion to things like poetry and nature, dedication to the obligatory tasks at hand, and above all, unfailing kindness to others, especially to the least kind members of one's family. In godlike Teddy's case, the family member more challenging than any Nazi fighter he encountered in his many bombing raids over Hitler's Germany is an utterly loathsome daughter, Viola, the only offspring of his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Nancy, which was truncated by death from brain cancer. The novel oscillates between Teddy's extended confrontations with his two demons the wartime German enemy and the peacetime Viola. This is a tremendously promising set-up, and Atkinson, in many respects, is formidably up to making the most of it. The scenes with terrible Viola, are cruelly scathing in their depiction of filial callousness and maternal neglect. The wartime bombing missions are strobe-lit snapshots of men bonding, dying, surviving and, above all, killing in blind obedience to the call of country. But as a whole, the novel never quite takes flight. Having deeply researched what it was like to serve in the RAF, Atkinson gets bogged down in minutiae that becomes increasingly numbing every time Teddy embarks on another raid that is likely to be his last. Atkinson lays into Viola's behavior toward her father and children with such fury that you begin to feel nostalgic for Lear's daughters. Awesome as Atkinson is yet again, I felt more than ever that she would benefit from an equally strong editor - one who could tell her when enough becomes enough.
It makes me sad to give a Kate Atkinson book a poor review, but here we are. Life after Life was possibly one of the best books I've ever read, and I've always whipped through any novel by her because they are excellent. Unfortunately a god in ruins was not a pleasurable reading experience for me. Dreary and depressing, I found this book sort of ruined Teddy for me. I was thrilled to find there was an entire book about Teddy (my favorite character from Life after life), but the book presented him in a way that was not the Teddy I imagined or remembered.
Now don't get me wrong- this book is beautifully written and there were moments I enjoyed during the reading experience. However, overall it was a slog. I cried a lot. This is a book that tugs unabashedly at the heartstrings, while offering little that is pleasant to offset the despair. It is very grim. I almost stopped half way through because it was making me so depressed, but I persevered and the ending did not make me feel any better at all. Overall, I can't say I enjoyed this book though it is an excellent literary work. I think my biggest annoyance is that now, when I go to re-read Life after life, Teddy will be tainted by my memory of this book. I'll still read anything Kate Atkinson writes in the future, as she remains one of my favorite authors.
I’m not entirely sure of Kate Atkinson’s intentions but I applaud her as a fictional nonconformist. This novel is so different than anything else I have read, including Life After Life, I’m in awe of her brilliance and credibility.

The protagonist, Teddy (Edward) Todd, is a stoic bomber for the RAF. I learned more than I ever knew about the RAF, the mechanics of the bombers, especially the Halifax (Teddy’s plane), his different crews when he’s the Skipper, the strategy of the British and untold suffering. The average age of an RAF was 22, and only half of them survived. And shocking to me is that Churchill did not credit them after the war. A different perspective, for sure, of what the British, at least Atkinson, may think of Churchill. When Teddy is challenged about dropping bombs on innocents, Atkinson surely emphasizes her theme of savagery in the final analysis.

This epic novel stretches on to a century of Teddy’s life as Atkinson circles back in time to grab different points of view. The suppressed inner-workings of this British family are exposed. His mother Sylvie is a passionate woman who favors Teddy of all her children, her “best boy.” I believe I could almost touch his family. His wife, Nancy, is independent and enigmatic; her cordiality is a mystery at times. They have one child, Viola, who is gifted with the best dialogue. She wins the most selfish daughter and mother award, if there were such an award. Her responses are demeaning and nasty to her father and children, particularly her son, Sunny. Both of her children are born on a commune, sired by Viola’s husband, Dominic, possibly a bi-polar, child-like jerk. Viola’s daughter, Moon, serves as the philosopher symbolizing the inability of the family to communicate with each other.

Teddy, despite his love for family, cannot express his thoughts. He actually feels more comfortable as a bomber pilot than returning to the safety of family. His childhood love of nature evolves into a small journalistic job after the War. Atkinson emphasizes the goodness of Teddy and I wonder if he genetically passed on his inability to show emotion. The British stiff upper-lip and all that may not be elusive. Ursula emerges (sister to Teddy and star of Life After Life) when Atkinson wants to provide the reader with some humor and reality.

This novel is incredible, and I have only presented a cursory sample of this sprawling work. Reading Atkinson’s Afterword is somewhat illuminating but left me more in amazement of her intellect. Every scene and piece of dialogue is preparing the reader for the end of the book.