Kate Atkinson's Novel Emotionally Weird

My first review of the year was for Kate Atkinson's debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which inspired me to read more of my favorite authors' back catalogues. It seems fitting to end the year with a review of Atkinson's third novel, 'Emotionally Weird,' which was first published in 2000 and tells the story of Euphemia Stuart-Murray and her mother Nora, who live on a remote Scottish island.

Effie is telling Nora about her life as a student in Dundee, where she lives with her Star Trek-obsessed boyfriend Bob. Effie, on the other hand, has concerns about her family history, and what she really wants is for Nora to reveal who her biological father is.

Atkinson's sense of fun has always come through in her work, but 'Emotionally Weird' is the first of her books that can be described as a comic novel. The depiction of life at the University of Dundee in the early 1970s supposedly bears little resemblance to the Scottish higher education institution at the time, but the eccentric characters and detailed scene-setting suggest Atkinson has a keen eye for the foibles of human behavior in a similar environment, particularly when it comes to student politics and creative writing seminars.

XEM THÊM : 

Hướng dẫn Cách đánh bài Phỏm 52 lá ✔️ Hiệu quả

The structure is more postmodern and experimental than I expected, with extracts from Effie's detective novel written during her studies and frequent interruptions from Nora while Effie is narrating her version of events, using a variety of typefaces to differentiate between each strand. However, Atkinson is self-aware enough to recognize the obvious pitfalls of such techniques and uses meta-storytelling to parody different genres and make fun of pretentious literary criticism and academia without allowing the story to become overwhelmed by its own complexity.

The real strength of 'Emotionally Weird,' as with pretty much any comic novel, lies in the strange and wonderful cast of characters, while the plot, such as it is, does run out of steam towards the end, with perhaps a few too many knowing winks aimed at the reader. This, however, does not detract from what is otherwise a cleverly constructed and frequently very funny book, and I am now eagerly anticipating Atkinson's new novel 'Transcription,' which is due out in the UK in September.












READ ARTICLES:







 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Crossroads by Niccolo Ammaniti

Image
  Niccol Ammaniti's 'The Crossroads' is a darkly humorous thriller that won the Premio Strega - the Italian equivalent of the Man Booker Prize - in 2007. Unsatisfied with their lives, Rino Zena and his low-life buddies Danilo Aprea and Quattro Formaggi plan a bank raid and the ostensibly perfect crime. But events quickly take them in unexpected directions. This story ranges from the ridiculous to the extremely violent - I should warn you that the contents of this book are not for the faint of heart. Although the father-son relationship between Christiano and Rino was intriguing, it was the supporting characters who stood out for me - how could you forget a lunatic with the moniker Quattro Formaggi? 'The Crossroads' is unlike anything else I've read recently, and I appreciated the gritty depiction of 'real' Italy, as it is uncommon to find a completely unromanticized view of the country in modern literature. The story is told in very short segments. XEM T...
Read more

Kate Atkinson's Case Histories

Image
  I have reserved 'Life After Life' by Kate Atkinson, which is currently on hold at the library, so in case I don't get a chance to read it before the Women's Prize for Fiction event at the Southbank Centre in June, I thought I'd read the first of the Jackson Brodie novels, 'Case Histories,' to get a feel for Atkinson's writing. Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector turned private investigator, is working on three seemingly unrelated cold cases in the Cambridge area: the disappearance of a three-year-old girl in the 1970s, the murder of a solicitor's daughter, and another murder following a domestic incident between husband and wife.  These crimes are all linked in some way, but how? Atkinson excels at suspense, especially when it is later revealed that Jackson has a few dark family secrets of his own, which adds to the story's intrigue. I also enjoyed her character observations and Atkinson's dry humor. Although 'Case Histories' ...
Read more

Kate Atkinson's Life After Life

Image
  I recently finished Kate Atkinson's first Jackson Brodie novel, 'Case Histories,' which I thought was good but not spectacular. Several other bloggers suggested that I read Atkinson's other stand-alone novels, particularly 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and her most recent work, 'Life After Life,' which was nominated for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. I am happy to report that they were correct! The basic concept of 'Life After Life' is similar to that of the film 'Groundhog Day,' but in a very different setting with less amusing outcomes. Ursula Todd, born on a snowy day in February 1910 to a wealthy family, lives her life several times over. However, unlike Phil Connors, Ursula is unaware of this, despite having frequent feelings of déjà vu. The book focuses on several alternate versions of pivotal moments in her life that lead her in very different directions. In one life, she dies as a child after falling off the ...
Read more