Transcription, by Kate Atkinson

March 7th 2019. The Packhorse, Southstoke, Bath. 

Set during three time periods in the 1940s working for MI5 as a secretary, the 1950s working in the BBC and the 1980s looking back on life this story builds into a spy thriller set during a  time when allies, enemies and allegiances changed and it was difficult to know who to trust…
General consensus of an easy read by all with some finding  rather irritating and shallow and others enjoying the details of postwar England and the activities of M16.

Richard
Easy to read but irritating-too many problems. No character development in the main character with the denouement extremely irritating -absolutely no hint at all that Juliet had any political convictions at all never mind that she might be working for the communist party.
Juliet was a non person-the world passed her by -she was SO dumb.
There were good bits the author’s ability to deal with prejudice rang very true “it must be awfully handy to have a scapegoat for the worlds ills. (Women and the Jews tend to be first in line, unfortunately)“ some of the quotes ring very true for the current debate about Europe and foreigners.
A Very forgettable book.

Chris B
Easy to read but extremely light. The characters were mildly interesting but no real detailed explanations or sophistication in Juliet’s character. The book rather trivialised the war and the Cold War - a bit of a caricature. The British Secret Service for example- that there would be the inevitable closet gay.

Willm
Enjoyed good quality writing, light but unbelievable. Implausible that Juliet could be the sleuth whilst being a typist. Many too many chance coincidences. Meeting in the fog, being found on Paddington Station, everybody knew where she was all the time-totally unbelievable. The twist at the end was “cute“ but there was no substantiation for why this should happen at all leading up to her having Communist leanings.

Andrew 
A dull start with the description of her childhood but the writing crisp and entertaining with an easy “floaty“ style. The mundanities of life are well described in the book. The book lost it pace in the middle section with way too many coincidences. Farcical meetings. And then suddenly at the end Juliet becomes a Communist! Andrew enjoyed the story and the writing. But didn’t fully engage him. It was nice to read but “thin”.

Mark T
Mark read the book in India and enjoyed it as a light-hearted read but the fact that he can’t remember it now is a reflection of his thoughts of the book. He felt that there were many parts that were tedious. The description of Juliets mother dying was well described and he enjoyed the tension when Juliet is hiding in Mrs Skaifes’s house hanging off the creeper outside the window!

John
This was a book following in the great tradition of “derring do“spy stories about M15 typical of the spy thrillers written by CJ Samson. It was not pretending to be more. Captured the era well particularly the description of life at the BBC.
Prejudices at the time against women, Jews and race were done well by the author and the issue of trust-who do we trust was well questioned. It was an easy read a “warm bath“ and touched on some very relevant issues for example appeasement- the fact  that prior to the Second World War Lord Halifax and others nearly did a deal with the Nazis.………

Mark W
An easy read but not very much happened during the first hundred pages and the last 50 went mad! The central character isn’t the “shaper” of the story. This is a novel written by a female author about a female without that individual being the lead role. He found the plot “clunky“ and that it was full of irritating asides expressed by Juliet in parentheses.
At the end the author decided she needed to cram in some exciting stuff so the last 50 pages are inexplicably full of plot.

Steve
There are numerous irritating errors the first being the reference to North Utsire which only came into the shipping forecast in the 1980s! However, he felt that he was drawn into the story and enjoyed it.He felt that it was cunningly written and he liked the character of Juliet- an abandoned orphan.
He particularly liked Juliet’s asides and felt that this was a persuasive account of how things would have been in post war MI5. With the basic logistics of one room next to the next filled with a typist and technician.
He found the story where later Juliet went on to become a double agent as being plausible and thought-provoking.
Well researched and believable book.
Terrific.

Chris W
Enjoyed the atmospheric writing bringing to life 40s and 50s England and details about MI5 work with Nazi sympathisers during the war. The book was good in that it raised questions about truth, patriotism, identity and self. There were numerous good quotes.
However on the downside there were very predictable stereotypical characters-public schoolboy spies with the standard closet homosexual. The book had large sections that were slow moving with little action. Difficult to connect with Juliet‘s character particularly with her irritating asides in parentheses. Very little justification at the end to explain Juliet becoming a double agent.


Scores

Richard 3.5
Steve 8.5
Andrew 6.5
Mark T 6 .8
Mark W 6 .5
Willm 6.0
John 7.0
Chris B 5 .5
Chris W 6 .6

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

The Forester and Flower , 3rd December 2015

Chris B opened up proceedings by saying that he found there to be lots of good things about the book.  An interesting family, although it was a shame about the parents’ relationship, but the author conveyed the truth behind many relationships of the time no doubt. Chris really got into the book when it described the Blitz which he found well described and relevant to his own family background.  He found the overall concept interesting, but occasionally confusing.  Ursula didn’t seem to truly develop as a person and never fully engaged in relationships.  A mixed experience for Chris but overall positive.

Chris W was also absorbed by the Blitz descriptions and how vividly they portrayed the impact of a bomb blast for example, and enjoyed the way in which certain key eras of English history were brought to life.  He found himself a little nostalgic for some of the rather old-fashioned turns of phrase that were given a new lease of life here but that you don’t hear any more. However, at the same time he didn’t always get the point of the book and occasionally found himself waiting for some profound revelation that never came.  Was the book challenging the question of “what if’s” in peoples lives, or just a collection of short stories?

Steve was more effusive and found the book “mostly brilliant” in the hands of a very skilled writer. He too thought the Blitz descriptions were very strong and powerful, and the passage where an apparently intact body came apart like a cracker when they tried to move it stuck in his mind. He wasn’t exactly sure about the way the different lives were addressed, but he did feel it gave a really different perspective on those lives that made them somehow almost three-dimensional.  In his opinion it was a great social /historical commentary; descriptions of Clarence and his tin face for example reminded one of how commonplace such sights must have been. He wasn’t convinced by the Hitler segment and felt it unnecessary and indeed it showed signs of the author trying to be over-ambitious perhaps, but overall enjoyable.

Mark T on the other hand didn’t find this a very good book.  For him it was tedious re-reading the night of Ursula’s birth multiple times.  He did find the  horrendous male relationships fascinating in their awfulness and was intrigued by the rape carried out by the American, with it’s almost unbelievable speed and location.  He too felt the German part didn’t work and overall simply wasn’t gripped by the book.

Rob felt similarly to Mark here to the extent that he hasn’t finished the book and still has some way to go with it.  His fundamental problem was that he had loved The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and so LAL was not comparing well in his eyes. In fact probably the most interesting thing for him was that two authors should come up with the same general concept and write novels about it within such a relatively short period of time when, to his knowledge, there were no other well known novels on this theme at any time before (Neil notes that they were published within 6 months of each other, with LAL coming out first). So Rob discovered that reading this on his iPad, the Sports news was regularly proving more of an attractive read than the novel.   And he did ask for it to be noted that he had enjoyed the music…the live music playing in the other bar of the pub.

Neil was more enthusiastic about the book having found the atmosphere and the characters very lifelike and easy to be drawn in to.  He liked the way that Atkinson explored the sliding doors idea of how much your life could change if you handled small and short-term incidents differently and for him the most powerful example was how in one version of Ursula’s life she allows herself to be kissed by the American boy on her 16^th birthday and this ends up with her being battered to death by her monster of a husband while by merely kicking the yank in the shins when he advances on her it completely changes the course of her life.  A salutary lesson for those who chose to deny the terrible impact that rape can have on women’s lives, especially in society’s like Ursula’s where the shame was deemed to be so terrible.  There were times when he questioned whether a normal person would have had quite so many opportunities to die, even without the Blitz to contend with, and he too found the Hitler element unnecessary, but overall he found the writing style and descriptive ability to be very absorbing.

Richard shared his view via email and concluded that on reflection the book had been good, but certainly not amazing.  In contrast to Rob he found it much better than FFLOHA which he thought somewhat trite and dull.  By comparison LAL unfolded lots of different possible futures, the Blitz was well handled, he felt he got to know Ursula and the family and sibling dynamics were fascinating.  He also liked the idea that Ursula was bearing witness to the 20th Century.  On the downside Ursula seemed a rather vague and un-developed character at times and that the author hadn’t been completely sure of what she was going to do with the re-birthing idea until the end of the book.

Mark W added via email that he found the book rather hard going. There were parts that he enjoyed, particularly the extended descriptions of London in the war which she brought alive very well. However, the book as an entirety didn't convince him and he found himself getting irritated by the rebirths. Yes, the concept was interesting but ultimately pointless and he found himself thinking what a better book it would have been if she had just made it a straightforward narrative; not as clever but probably more enjoyable. She could have then ditched the Hitler bit which he found rather silly and unconvincing

We enjoyed meeting in the Forester and Flower and although the live music playing next door was sometimes a little intrusive, it was quite good on the whole and added to the evening’s entertainment!