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Kate Atkinson

Miss Shelf

New Member
I've recently started reading all of this author's works (that I can find.) Has anyone else read her books, and what do you think?

So far I've read: One Good Turn, Human Croquet, and Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and liked all of them. I found Emotionally Weird too tedious and didn't finish it. I have two more on my TBR pile: Not the End of the World, and Case Histories, don't spoil them for me, please! I think Atkinson is an interesting writer-a nice change of pace from the other fiction I've been reading.
 
I really really like Atkinson. I just got One Good Turn the other day, otherwise I've read them all (and you're really in for a treat on Case Histories!)

Laughingman: Hmmm... her books are, in a way, good old-fashioned character-driven storytelling but with a bit of a postmodern twist - mostly realistic, with very well-drawn characters, but occasionally slipping in magical/mythological elements without breaking the realism. I once described her as "a British Donna Tartt", which is a comparison Donna Tartt should be proud of, frankly...
 
I'd say "quirky" but that sounds trite. I'd say "unique". I hesitate to compare any author's writing to another, because every author is different. This isn't a fluff-read author; she makes one think, because the plots are liable to take a sudden turn the reader isn't expecting.

I have high hopes for Case Histories!
 
hmm.. so if u were to recommend one of works, which would it be?
would you say she is part of the magic realism school??
and who's donna tart?
 
"magic realism"?? This isn't fantasy fiction. No, I'd say her characters are ordinary people who sometimes have extraordinary reactions to things happening in their lives.

I'd recommend anything she wrote. I started Case Histories and beer good was right, you're in for a treat there. I have a hard time putting it down. I was happy to see that it's the first book Jackson Brodie was in, I wish I'd read this before One Good Turn.
 
I'm with Miss Shelf; it's not magical realism by any stretch. Realism, yes, and once or twice magical things might happen (or it might all be in their minds), but we're very far from Rushdie and Marquez here.

Donna Tartt (two Ts) is an American writer, most well-known for her debut The Secret History which is also a fantastic (though not fantastical) book.
 
I finished Case Histories and it was one of the best books I've ever read. That's saying a lot, because I'm really persnickety about the books I read and rarely find one that sticks in my memory.
 
One Good Turn

Modern society is built on the idea that everyone minds their own business and don’t interfere. If you see something horrible happen you might pick up your phone and snap a digital image of it, but actually do something? Why? It’s Somebody Else’s Problem.

So when a traffic accident on a crowded street in Edinburgh appears to be leading up to outright murder, all the witnesses just stand around watching as if it’s on TV. All except a shy mystery writer who has spent his entire life on the sidelines and has no idea why he’s interfering, but manages to save a man’s life. And all he gets for it is to be drawn, along with a bunch of other “spectators”, into a story that turns their lives upside down.

One Good Turn is a standalone sequel to the brilliant Case Histories, and just like its predecessor it’s hard to place in a genre; it looks a bit like your typical crime novel with a humorous touch, complete with mysterious deaths, human trafficking and an anti-hero who likes sad country music and can’t get his relationships with women to work. But just like the Russian dolls that pop out throughout, there are layers here, boxes within boxes, and a good dose of serious thinking under the comedy.

Not completely unlike Baxter in McEwan’s Saturday, the bad guy here isn’t really a mystery; we know who he is, and his job isn’t as much to be caught as to act as a catalyst for the other characters. The core of the novel isn’t the solution to a crime but the characters themselves, caught in the middle of life with all the little nicks and bruises that the years bring, and really much to caught up in their own lives to have time to deal with other peoples’... but they have to. In Not The End Of The World, Atkinson tried to fuse her contemporary storytelling with various myths, from the old Greeks to Buffy, and the result was... mixed, to say the least. She’s toned that down considerably here, and when for instance Robin Hood pops up in the corner of the character’s eyes here and there it only serves to underline the central themes of the novel, all those things that we all profess to agree with but rarely find a reason to actually adress in our everyday life. Is there such a thing as an unselfish deed? Are we really supposed to look after each other? What do you mean, my actions may have consequences for other people?

Towards the end, Atkinson may try a little too hard to tie everything together; not enough to break the illusion, just bend it a little. But while it’s not quite up there with Case Histories, One Good Turn delivers enough insightful, funny and realistic storytelling to outweigh its flaws, and just enough darkness to keep it from getting too sugary. It might be autumn in Atkinson’s Edinburgh, but even if it doesn’t end well for everyone who deserves it (or, indeed, ends at all – life goes on), I get a little bit of a warm fuzzy feeling from the book. I like Kate Atkinson.

4/5
 
Hi Miss self! Oh, Kate Atkinson is one of my absolute favourites! I´ve read and reread all of her work. Unlike you though, I love "Emotionally Wierd"! The sense of humour in that novel is both sublime and punchy. "Case Histories" is number two, I think. "One Good Turn" is the only one I didn´t like. But I didn´t exactly dislike it either. It just lacked her usual spark. But then again, not all writers want to repeat themselfs to satisfy readers.

Talking about magical realism, in "Human Croquet" there is a parody on that term. The swallowed-by-the-tree-scene. For me it isn´t possible to label her. But I would just call her work "quirky fiction".
 
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