Itemize Books As Behind the Scenes at the Museum
| Original Title: | Behind the Scenes at the Museum |
| ISBN: | 0312150601 (ISBN13: 9780312150600) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Whitbread Award for First Novel and Book of the Year (1995), Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (1996) |
Kate Atkinson
Paperback | Pages: 336 pages Rating: 3.96 | 31908 Users | 2658 Reviews
Identify Appertaining To Books Behind the Scenes at the Museum
| Title | : | Behind the Scenes at the Museum |
| Author | : | Kate Atkinson |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 336 pages |
| Published | : | November 12th 1999 by Picador USA (first published March 9th 1995) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Mystery. European Literature. British Literature. Literary Fiction. Contemporary. Novels |
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"As a family, we are genetically disposed towards having accidents." First and foremost, this is a challenging ambitious book, more so than Life after Life. The narrative is a labyrinth of twists and turns, false trails, loops and double helixes. There’s also an awful lot to remember because for some time it isn’t obvious which details or even characters are paramount and which stuffing. It covers four generations of a family – from WW1 almost to the present day. On the surface it’s a tragi-comedy, a family saga, primarily narrated by Ruby Lennox, born in the 1950s. You could though say it’s a gradual debunking of family mythology to find deeper more consequential truths. All families have their mythologies – anecdotes or opportunistic fabrications that play the historian’s role in simplifying and sanitising the official story. That these anecdotes are often a form of deliberate mystification or downright evasive lies on the part of one individual we all know (or suspect) from our own families. The series currently on TV about Bloomsbury is an example of taking mythology at face value and presenting it as the whole truth. It’s one reason why the series is so wooden and bloodless. Because the writer has failed utterly to imaginatively penetrate the various anecdotes that have come to (erroneously) define Bloomsbury – so we have Virginia Woolf as some dessicated twittering bundle of nerves who’s frigid and socially barely able to string a coherent sentence together. What Atkinson does is to lay down first the mythology – often created by parents who don’t want their children to know certain shameful truths – and then slowly peel off that outer crust. Individual memory is continually altering collective memory. The (often opportunistic) nature of memory is a central theme. And memory is often shown to reside in the secret history of objects, all of which Atkinson describes and utilises brilliantly as cyphers of more enduring truths than the fabrications created by the adult world for children. She plays all these memory games with an ingenious series of chapters known as “footnotes”. (She also lays down a mirroring impression of York itself as a city haunted by phantoms and mythologies). Ruby’s mother Bunty is the fulcrum of the novel – the reservoir in which all the family memories have collected but she is not a reliable historian because of the severely disciplined (or repressed) nature of her emotions so when she loses her memory to dementia there is the sense that Ruby is finally free of the spurious shackles of her family history. This is one of those novels that becomes more ingenious the more you think about it. I didn’t always enjoy it while reading it (one problem I had was that my sense of humour doesn’t quite chime with Atkinson’s which can verge on slapstick at times). There’s also so little tenderness in the book. It’s a rather brittle grey heartless world Atkinson depicts. Mothers do not love their children or their husbands. Children often don’t like their siblings. (The tone is anything but bleak though; almost it's lighthearted even when touching on tragic events. This is one of the clever quirks of this novel. It should be bleak but it manages to be exuberant often.) There’s also a huge cast of characters and I found it virtually impossible to retain memory of them all. And a number of clever plotting tricks that continually knock you out of your sense of being able to easily follow the narrative. As a reading experience I would have given it three stars but, as I said, only now am I beginning to understand its complexities of design and intent. I have this overriding feeling it’s a novel that will reveal more of its brilliant ingenuity on a second reading. There’s also one of the best descriptions of Italian spoken in anger I’ve ever come across when it’s described as being embroidered in blood.Rating Appertaining To Books Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Ratings: 3.96 From 31908 Users | 2658 ReviewsNotice Appertaining To Books Behind the Scenes at the Museum
"As a family, we are genetically disposed towards having accidents."First and foremost, this is a challenging ambitious book, more so than Life after Life. The narrative is a labyrinth of twists and turns, false trails, loops and double helixes. Theres also an awful lot to remember because for some time it isnt obvious which details or even characters are paramount and which stuffing. It covers four generations of a family from WW1 almost to the present day. On the surface its a tragi-comedy,I enjoyed this book much more than most of the members of my book club. I loved Ruby, the narrator, especially as a child, and I thought that the intricate story was very clever and hilarious. The funniest parts were when Ruby was scathingly commenting about her family members, especially her sisters and parents. Terribly traumatic events happen to this family but theyre told in such a light and breezy manner (by Ruby during and before her actual lifetime) that I didnt find the book at all
Kate Atkinson has written a multigenerational story about a dysfunctional family. It starts with the conception of the narrator, Ruby Lennox, in York in 1952. Her mother is irritable and unhappy, her father is a philanderer, and her sisters are not very likable. Chapters with Ruby's story moving forward alternate with flashback chapters filling us in on the family history, going back to Ruby's great-grandmother. It's a family tale of loss, lack of fulfillment, and unhappiness. However,
God, I can't even begin to express my depth of loathing for this book. I forced myself through to within about 60 pages of the end, but then I just couldn't bear it any more. I just didn't want to know any more about the vile people in this ridiculous family with all their dark, dirty, entirely predictable secrets. Gaaaah! I left it behind on a plane somewhere. Should have attached a toxic warning label.
This was her first book? Wow, Ian McEwan should have done so well! BtS@tM is a tale about Ruby, born in 1952, and her family, in particular her dysfunctional relationship with her mother Bunty; and brilliantly told it is too, beginning with Rubys own conception: I exist! Atkinson has a sharp and sardonic wit when it comes to family dysfunction and the novel opens with an air thick with disappointment, as Ruby relates the dire trap that Buntys loveless marriage has become: because Atkinson
Brilliant BritI enjoyed this wonderful book immensely, and would recommend it enthusiastically to all my British family and friendsexcept that all my British friends have already read it! My only hesitation in an American context is that people who have not grown up in postwar Britain as Kate Atkinson (and I) did might not get her dense texture of forgotten brand-names and vanished social customs. In this, she is pitch-perfect, recalling not only the lost era of her own childhood but also the
Behind the Scenes at the Museum is really a very good book, marred by one gimmick that frustrates me because it's so unnecessary to the story Kate Atkinson is telling. For the most part, however, I enjoyed this one immensely. Atkinson has a knack for turns of phrase that are amusing and piercing and unexpected, and I loved these in particular. The story is meandering, and weaves back and forth in time, but it was the sort of meander I greatly enjoy. Note: The rest of this review has been
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