Kate Atkinson revisits the Todd family in A God In Ruins

It has been a while since I included a book review in this blog. Which is not to say that I haven't read anything worthwhile recently, merely that it is not the main focus of the blog (although, frankly, given that no-one but me reads it anyway, what does it really matter...?)

Anyway, for what it's worth, I have been reading Kate Atkinson's A God In Ruins recently. It is the follow-up, or what you might call companion book, to her excellent 2013 novel Life After Life, which follows the life of eccentric Englishwoman Ursula Todd through some of the more turbulent events of the 20th century. That book employed the unusual, and highly effective, conceit of a series of false starts, in which very slight variations in circumstances made often profound changes to one person's life (including versions in which Ursula died at birth, or died young, or died during the war, etc).

A God In Ruins employs the more standard construction of a mixed-up chronology to follow the life of Ursula's sensitive younger brother Teddy and several generations of his immediate family. It traces Teddy's trajectory from his bucolic and uncomplicated intra-War childhood, through his rather half-hearted mid-life attempts to find himself as a writer and the moral compromises of his very active participation in the Second World War, to a rather wistful and cynical old age in modern post-Thatcher (and even post-Blair) Britain.

Orderly, dependable, austere and thoughtful, and an early adopter of a green, ecological lifestyle, Teddy appears to be a quintessential "good man", and is perhaps not obvious material for a novel. Counterpointing Teddy' stolidity and calmness, though, we are also introduced to (among others):

• his adoring, conflicted and class-conscious mother, Sylvie ("The Great War had made Sylvie into a pacifist, albeit a rather belligerent one");
• his independent and daredevil Aunt Izzie, vaguely glamorous and at one time a popular author, but forever marked by her mysterious work in the first War, for which she was awarded a medal that she never showed anyone;
• his big sister Ursula, whom Teddy looks up to and respects for her calm, strong, common sense nature, her intellectual rigour, and her deep but usually controlled emotion ("Ursula was almost quivering with the power of emotion, like a coiled spring, a bird ready to rise from the ground at any moment");
• his childhood sweetheart, and (almost inevitably) his wife, Nancy, a gifted mathematician, calm, practical and stoic, who moved seamlessly from a high-profile job cracking Nazi codes at Bletchley Park to teaching underprivileged kids in suburban Leeds ("Nancy may have rejected Christianity a long time ago, but sometimes Teddy caught a glimpse of the sublime religieuse who dwelled within");
• his self-absorbed, embittered and angry daughter Viola, trapped in an unfulfilling relationship with a feckless, latter-day hippie ("If he hadn't been the father of her children, Viola might have admired Dominic for the way he was so easily able to absolve himself of all obligations simply by asserting his right to self fulfilment"; "they were both, essentially, very lazy people and it was easier to stay together than it was to pull themselves apart").
• his favourite grandchild Bertie (Roberta), an old-fashioned literary mind trapped in a bland job in advertising and a cool and sarcastic love-hate relationship with her mother, finding that no-one she met quite measured up to her grandfather Ted ("She wanted to be courted. Gallantry. What a lovely word.")

As always, Atkinson's prose is taut and elegant - no unnecessary flourishes and flounces needed - often the simplicity of the language adds to the poignancy of her observations ("Her children would probably be better off without her. She should have left them with the farmer's wife, she thought, skilfully converting selfishness into altruism"). The overwhelmingly wistful flavour of the book can be exemplified by passages like, "Happiness, like life itself, was as fragile as a bird's heartbeat, as fleeting as the bluebells in the wood, but while it lasted, Fox Corner was an Arcadian dream." and "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."

Despite the deliberately mixed-up chronology, major elements of the plot are often only revealed gradually, with early hints or prefigurations (early in the book, that is, but not necessarily chronologically) only yielding explanations much later (or earlier!), and often this is not the simple or expected explanation. Indeed, the chronology sometimes darts around, forwards and backwards, even within the explicitly dated sections. So, this not a chronological book chopped into random sections and then shuffled; there is some artistry here.

The book does become rather dark at times, particularly those that deal with the War years. For example, the difference between dropping bombs on civilians from 20,000 feet and helping a loved one commit suicide is explored in rather painful detail. But at its core, A God in Ruins is primarily about love - comradely love, unconditional love, parental love, lost love, repressed love.

As a novel, it does not quite match up to Life After Life, nor does it have the advantage of that book's unusual and arresting construction. It is, however, well written and definitely not a straightforward or easy read, and its ending is downright puzzling. Recommended.