2 out of 5 stars
I found A God in Ruins to be a slow burner, but with just enough substance to keep me reading. I was rewarded. After about half way I began to love it, maybe not as much as Life After Life (to which A God in Ruins is a companion piece), but enough to devour most of the second half in one sitting.
A God in Ruins focuses on the life of Teddy Todd as he navigates the horrors of the Second World War and then, the future he thought he would never have, "the afterward, Teddy thought. The great lie" (p.256). And this is where my problem with A God in Ruins lies.
Spoiler ahead! It turns out that a great majority of this book is a "great lie", that it doesn't exist, or maybe only exists in Teddy's head, or in some alternate dimension where Teddy lives instead of dying, trapped in his war plane. After finishing the book, and investing time and emotion in the great writing (and there is no denying Kate Atkinson can write) and characters (even though some are completely vile) I find that I've been lied to. I know fiction isn't real, but this book made me feel cheated. It was as bad as reading that it was all a dream!
In the Author's Notes Kate Atkinson writes that "there is a great conceit hidden at the heart of the book", "which is revealed only at the end" and this is Teddy's fall from Grace in our minds as we realize we've been led up the garden path, and that a lot of what happened didn't really happen. However, for me, it detracted from the important points, that war is savage and "Man's greatest fall from grace." Personally, I think the impact of the novel would have been greater without this twist.
I found A God in Ruins to be a slow burner, but with just enough substance to keep me reading. I was rewarded. After about half way I began to love it, maybe not as much as Life After Life (to which A God in Ruins is a companion piece), but enough to devour most of the second half in one sitting.
A God in Ruins focuses on the life of Teddy Todd as he navigates the horrors of the Second World War and then, the future he thought he would never have, "the afterward, Teddy thought. The great lie" (p.256). And this is where my problem with A God in Ruins lies.
Spoiler ahead! It turns out that a great majority of this book is a "great lie", that it doesn't exist, or maybe only exists in Teddy's head, or in some alternate dimension where Teddy lives instead of dying, trapped in his war plane. After finishing the book, and investing time and emotion in the great writing (and there is no denying Kate Atkinson can write) and characters (even though some are completely vile) I find that I've been lied to. I know fiction isn't real, but this book made me feel cheated. It was as bad as reading that it was all a dream!
In the Author's Notes Kate Atkinson writes that "there is a great conceit hidden at the heart of the book", "which is revealed only at the end" and this is Teddy's fall from Grace in our minds as we realize we've been led up the garden path, and that a lot of what happened didn't really happen. However, for me, it detracted from the important points, that war is savage and "Man's greatest fall from grace." Personally, I think the impact of the novel would have been greater without this twist.