Be Specific About Books Supposing Not the End of the World
| Original Title: | Not the End of the World |
| ISBN: | 0316159379 (ISBN13: 9780316159371) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Kate Atkinson
Paperback | Pages: 288 pages Rating: 3.75 | 4384 Users | 435 Reviews
Details Of Books Not the End of the World
| Title | : | Not the End of the World |
| Author | : | Kate Atkinson |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 288 pages |
| Published | : | October 27th 2004 by Back Bay Books (first published November 4th 2002) |
| Categories | : | Short Stories. Fiction. Contemporary. Fantasy. European Literature. British Literature. Literary Fiction. Mystery |
Description During Books Not the End of the World
4★A favourite author, a favourite genre (short stories), and a theme I enjoy – recurring characters. I liked it but expected to like it more. I always enjoy her ingenuity and ideas and writing style. I think these could be fables for our time.
I particularly liked the first and last stories, where two ingenuous girls wander through shops, dreaming aloud in detail about their perfect weddings one day while “the end of the world” is actually taking place around them. At first, it seems weird when they marvel at fabrics and such while noting that there is an alert for fire in the haberdashery department.
Trudi begins to panic, as she smells smoke, but Charlene carries on imagining their future life:
“ ‘Or we could lead an even simpler life,’ Charlene said hurriedly, ‘a life where there are no machines and where we would live on a green hillside and sleep under the stars and gather kindling in the woods. And we would keep animals-'
‘What kind of animals?’ Trudi asked, as everything from taffeta to winceyette suddenly went up in flames.”
The art of distraction to avert panic? They continue this inane conversation even as they make their escape.
There is more to it than this, of course, but it certainly makes me think of the head-in-the-sand approach so many of us have toward the current state of our world. (We need coffee. What's in the fridge?)
I always enjoy Atkinson’s writing:
“her ankles like melting Brie above those bloody awful faux Birkenstocks”
“The man was the color of newly poured concrete.”
There’s birth, life, and death.
“When he celebrated his fortieth birthday, Addison had neither child nor wife. When he celebrated his forty-first, he had both, one inside the other. Every morning when Addison woke up, he was surprised anew by these two facts.”
A different wife:
“Romney had opted to be knocked unconscious and split open rather than give birth naturally. Missy favoured natural childbirth whenever possible. She thought it was character forming for a child to have to fight its way into existence. Missy herself was a twin and had made sure she’d elbowed her way out first, ahead of her brother.”
Parents will relate to another wife and mother:
“They didn’t want a relationship with her, they just wanted her to exist somewhere in the background (I haven’t got any clean clothes). If she died, would her soul migrate? Into an insect, a tadpole, a bean?”
Trudi and Charlene reappear in the last story, having lowered their sights from dreaming of “peaches in Moscato wine, Madagascar green peppercorns, rose-petal champagne. . . " to something they think is more realistic.
“ ‘ From now on,’ Trudi said, ‘I only want good, simple things. A bushel of russet apples, a truckle of cheddar cheese, a firkin of bloodred win. Clean linen sheets, rinsed in lavender water and then dried in the sun and the wind on an old-fashioned rope in an orchard. A good book, a small dog, a single strand of pearls.’ “
Which is why we read--to transport ourselves out of our We Need Coffee, What's in the Fridge lives to either the imaginary delicatessen or the Good Life (but with power and indoor plumbing).
Quirky, well-written stories. Reliable Atkinson read that gives pause for thought.
Rating Of Books Not the End of the World
Ratings: 3.75 From 4384 Users | 435 ReviewsEvaluate Of Books Not the End of the World
Enjoyed this collection of short stories. A few misses but overall an entertaining read.These short stories delighted me so much that, before I'd even finished reading them, I went out in search of more books by Kate Atkinson. I've now read all her novels as well as this book of stories and have pressed them all upon my book-reading friends. NOT THE END OF THE WORLD is a good introduction to this exceptionally readable, humorous, yet seriously literary author. It includes stories that at first seem unrelated, but as one progresses through the collection, themes emerge, and one
I really enjoyed the intelligent but kooky nature of this book. It's a 5 star read for me.I don't think I understood enough of the references to ancient Greek/Roman mythology so I'm off to do some research and reading. I also must read more of Atkinson's work as I thought her writing style was really engaging. - It speaks volumes that I scored this book 5/5 when I dislike dystopian or 'magical/fantasy' fiction in general. I think Atkinson approached her themes in a way that was entirely
Mildly amusing, but a little too quirky for me, I guess. Several of the stories were more than a little surreal, which was a bit distracting, as was the little conceit of referring to some of characters in different stories which kept me flipping to try and recall "was he in a previous story, which one?" I am sure that there was some deeper message to the structure, but I wasn't getting it. I tend not to pick books because they are "trendy" or "stylish" as those are not typically traits that
Imagine my surprise when I finished this novel by Kate Atkinson and then found out that it was a collection of interlinked short stories. :-) I think the best way to describe my reaction to this book was that it left me with the sense that this life we think we're living is all but a dream within a dream (and perhaps within a dream)? Yet at the same time, hopeful. Full of hope that those glimpses of things around the edges that we're not quite sure if we really saw or not are, in fact, truly
I read Case Histories by this author last year. It was a very good book and Kate has a great style where there are different stories going on that eventually connect.In Not the End of the World, Atkinson does the same thing. Different stories, but this time, too many. I found myself often flipping back, trying to find chapters to see where I recalled "a" (one) character being mentioned before.What made it even more confusing for me was some of these characters occurred in different eras. A
3.5 rounded up. A very clever way of presenting a collection of inter-related short stories. My only complaint is that each one started with a quote, and the ones in Latin should have been translated...just like mentioned in the book, my school didn't offer Latin!
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