A God in Ruins

Reviews

Triumphant...such a dazzling read...Atkinson gives Teddy's wartime experiences the full treatment in a series of thrilling set pieces. Even more impressive,though, is her ability to invest the more everday events with a similar grandeur...almost as innovative as Atkinson's technique in Life After Life - a possibly more authentic as an expression of how it feels to be alive...it ends on one of the most devastating twists in recent fiction...it adds a further level of overwhelming poignancy to an already extraordinarily affecting book. This is a novel about war and the shadow it casts even over generations who have never known it, but it is also a novel about fiction...this is a novel that cares deeply about its characters and about the purpose of fiction in making sense of our collective past. A God in Ruins, together with its predecessor, is Atkinson's finest work, and confirmation that her genre-defying writing continues to surpise and dazzle. With A God in Ruins she, once again, proves herself to be a writer of considerable talent. Her command of structure is extraordinary...She writes with terrific compassion for her characters...also shows off a brilliantly brittle sense of humour that on several occasions made me laugh out loud...to my mind, A God in Ruins stands as an equally magnificent achievement. Horribly funny...every page has some vividly original phrase...But the tour de force is her treatment of Teddy’s experience as a bomber pilot, recreated as memorably as the Blitz scenes in Life After Life... nothing can quite account for the imaginative leaps she has made...nailbiting...a really affecting memorial to the huge numbers of bomber crew who died. Better than most fiction you'll read this year...Atkinson's prose is as bright as gunfire in the Second World War sections...I can't think of any writer to match her ability to grasp a period in the past. No, not even you, Booker-winning Hilary Mantel. An amazing accomplishment, a breathtaking literary sleight of hand but, unlike chilly experimental novels, this one is brimful of heartbreaking emotion and with characters that mean the world. This is an unmissable book. Hugely impressive and immensely moving...Atkinson portrays intricate family conflict, the horrors of war and the terrors of illness with a candour coloured by kindness...Atkinson's descriptions of the life of a pilot in Bomber Command are harrowing, edge-of-the-seat stuff. Yet there is plenty of the sharply observed humour that makes Atkinson's work a treat...The twist, when it comes, is well earned and revelatory. "The bottom line is that it's fiction," Atkinson reminds us after the novel ends. Fiction of the very best kind. Atkinson pursues her own games with time, with an understated gracefulness that endows these pages with an assured, easeful sweep. In turn, we spend less time marvelling at Atkinson's bold formal accomplishment and more on what's happening to Teddy and others...bleakly funny...with her excellent new book, Atkinson reveals just how admirable such an ordinary man's life can be. There are glimpses of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong and Ian McEwan's Atonement...But most poignantly, this is a sweeping, all-consuming novel that finds its way into your bloodstream and writes off your Sunday afternoon...truly extraordinary. Engrossing...convincing and moving...I doubt that Atkinson's readers will be disappointed. Expand reviews