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Sto caricando le informazioni... A God in Ruins: A Novel (Todd Family) (originale 2015; edizione 2015)di Kate Atkinson (Autore)
Informazioni sull'operaUn dio in rovina di Kate Atkinson (2015)
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. I liked Life After Life a lot so was eager to read this companion novel featuring Ursula's brother Teddy. As I read the story, I was often a little bored and it was only "knowing" the characters from the previous book that kept me reading. And I hated the ending! It was confusing. There's a line about the story existing only in Teddy's imagination. What? Even worse, the book goes on to conclude with an excerpt from one of the Augustus stories. Who cares about Augustus? Not me. As always with Kate Atkinson, the writing is beautiful. There were several times the events in the book really touched me. Most reviewers loved the book. It just didn't work for me. As I neared the end of this book I felt only sadness, because it was going to end as every book and every life ends. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when it didn't... But I'm not going to spoil anything. This is a terrific follow-up to Life After Life, a sequel in the style of Robertson Davies, expanding and examining the life of a secondary character. Except that Teddy is really quite a central character in Life After Life, having a great influence on the "main" characters of that novel (who become secondary here but are fondly familiar) and the narrative action. There are so many things I could say about this excellent book, but the most striking thing is the characters. They are vivid and fully fleshed, unique, individual and real as I haven't read in a good long while. The characters are so distinct and the story so exceptional (though simply -- beautifully -- about people being people) that the non-linear narrative, a device that so often fails, seems perfectly suited. I want to run out and read more Kate Atkinson now, but it will have to wait until the next pile from the library is plowed through. In the meantime I will savour this one and look forward to sharing it.
Kate Atkinson writes a brilliant follow-up to her brilliant novel, focusing on Teddy, the RAF pilot and brother of the previous book’s heroine....But if A God in Ruins suffers from a touch too much tidiness, if it overcalculates the glories of a sensitive “artistic soul,” those flaws pale next to Atkinson’s wit, humanity, and wisdom. In her afterword, she alludes to the “great conceit hidden at the heart of the book to do with fiction and the imagination, which is revealed only at the end.” It is a great conceit. But it’s also a testament to the novel’s craft and power that the conceit isn’t what you’ll remember when it’s over. A God in Ruins doesn’t have a plot so much as a question, namely: How does such a lovely, perfect guy produce such a horrible, ungrateful daughter? Atkinson’s characteristic intelligence and wit are often on prominent display in the novel, yet it isn’t quite idiosyncratic enough to avoid the pitfalls of plotlessness. The chapters describing Teddy’s wartime exploits, in particular, feel over-long and over-detailed. One gets the sense that Atkinson has done a lot of painstaking research and doesn’t want to waste the fruits of her labour. ...Unlike Life After Life, which began flamboyantly and had a large cast of nuanced characters, this novel’s rewards come late in its pages. Until they do, we’re left in the company of two people who are ultimately rather dull: one because he’s “deplorably honest,” the other because she’s exasperatingly self-serving. Narrative psychology tells us there’s bound to be an explanation for this, and there is; the question is whether readers will have the patience to stick around and find out what it is. But then you read a novel like Kate Atkinson’s “A God in Ruins,” a sprawling, unapologetically ambitious saga that tells the story of postwar Britain through the microcosm of a single family, and you remember what a big, old-school novel can do. Atkinson’s book covers almost a century, tracks four generations, and is almost inexhaustibly rich in scenes and characters and incidents. It deploys the whole realist bag of tricks, and none of it feels fake or embarrassing. In fact, it’s a masterly and frequently exhilarating performance by a novelist who seems utterly undaunted by the imposing challenges she’s set for herself....Taken together, “Life After Life” and “A God in Ruins” present the starkest possible contrast. In the first book, there’s youth and a multitude of possible futures. In the second, there’s only age and decay, and a single immutable past. This applies not only to the characters, but to England itself, which is portrayed over and over as a drab and diminished place. The culprit is obvious — it’s the war itself, “the great fall from grace.” A God in Ruins is the story of Teddy’s war and its legacy, “a ‘companion’ piece rather than a sequel”, according to the author. At first glance it appears to be a more straightforward novel than Life After Life, though it shares the same composition, flitting back and forth in time so that a chapter from Teddy’s childhood in 1925 sits alongside a fragment of his grandchildren’s childhood in the 1980s, before jumping back to 1947, when Teddy and his wife Nancy, newly married, are trying to come to terms with the aftermath of the devastation: ...A God in Ruins, together with its predecessor, is Atkinson’s finest work, and confirmation that her genre-defying writing continues to surprise and dazzle. Appartiene alle SerieTodd Family (2) Premi e riconoscimentiMenzioniElenchi di rilievo
Durante la Guerra, era venuto a patti con l’idea della morte, ma poi all’improvviso la guerra era finita ed era iniziato un nuovo giorno. E un altro. E un altro ancora. Una parte di lui non si abituò mai alla consapevolezza di avere un futuro. Nato in un’agiata famiglia inglese alla vigilia della prima guerra mondiale, Teddy Todd è un ragazzo sensibile, amante della poesia, affezionato ai genitori e all’adorata sorella Ursula. Ed è proprio per proteggere loro che, allo scoppio della seconda guerra mondiale, decide di arruolarsi in aeronautica. Ma un giorno la guerra finisce, ed è come se il destino gli avesse giocato un brutto scherzo, perché contro ogni aspettativa la sua vita è ancora lì, tutta da vivere… Un dio in rovina è il racconto della lunga esistenza di Teddy – figlio, fratello, pilota di caccia, marito, padre, nonno – e, attraverso la storia di Teddy, è anche il racconto di un secolo, il Novecento, che ha visto il mondo cambiare a una velocità vorticosa. Mattone dopo mattone, Kate Atkinson costruisce un affascinante e sorprendente edificio narrativo, invitandoci con voce suadente ad esplorarne le stanze, a percorrerne i corridoi, a scoprirne anche gli angoli più nascosti. E così prende forma davanti ai nostri occhi l’intima epopea di un uomo ordinario che si trova ad affrontare eventi straordinari. E che proprio negli ultimi istanti coglierà il senso della sua unica, irripetibile vita. Con questo splendido romanzo – vincitore del prestigioso Costa Novel Award –, Kate Atkinson si conferma una delle autrici di maggior talento degli ultimi anni e non solo, capace di conquistare sia la critica sia il grande pubblico: definito «un capolavoro» da alcune tra le più prestigiose testate giornalistiche, Un dio in rovina è da mesi ai vertici delle classifiche inglesi e americane ed è in corso di traduzione in tutta Europa. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Engaging and deeply moving, a meditation on the art of fiction. Beautifully written, like all of Atkinson’s work.
The fact that Atkinson is English and almost exactly my own age means that there are many experiences and references in the book which resonate deeply with me; perhaps less so for other readers. ( )