Kate Atkinson: another good turn

After a short introduction and a couple humorous comments (“I’m a cheerful writer, really”) Kate Atkinson slips on her glasses and the reading begins: “Marianne was thinking of lemons when she died,” she announces brightly. Thus begins our journey into Temporal Anomaly, a short story extract from her collection Not the End of the World. And then, just like that, Atkinson conjures a woman. A woman with a husband, a son, a mother, a past. Memories are brought in subtly and skilfully wrought into the narrative. Twice, she stops, looks up, and comments to the audience: “See how many things have changed since 2002!” We delight in this aside, as she jokingly shares her anecdotes. The reading continues, and, though the subject matter is by no means cheerful, we cannot help but feel the exquisite irony and humour: “Was she dead? She didn’t look dead. She didn’t feel dead."

After the reading we are told we to ask questions covering “any topic within reason". Atkinson speaks of the creative process and undertakes a defence of the short story — “definitely not the little sister of the novel.” Someone brings up the idea of her being a women’s writer, and though she rejects the idea, the unbalanced gender ratio would seem to say otherwise. She dismisses the debate with a smile. “Anyway,” she says, “women read more than men.” Swiftly, we move on to style, which seems to be another thorny issue.

Interestingly, Atkinson finds the term “Magic Realism” pejorative.

Interestingly, Atkinson finds the term “Magic Realism” pejorative (frankly, I wouldn’t frown upon being compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez) “I don’t think I was using it,” she asserts in defence of her technique. But the problem lies not in the comparison, as much as in author’s legitimate reluctance to be strictly categorised, labelled, through genre.

But Atkinson need not fear, her novels and short stories perpetually challenge the neatly-defined borders of genre and if her technique does sometimes come close to “Magic Realism” it is in an effort to allow us to glimpse the improbable, fantastic truth, which we can only see in a distorting mirror. Behind the Scenes, much like Jonathan Coe’s The House of Sleep, defies conventional rules of narrative construction and linearity with the insertion of “footnote chapters” in between the main narrative arc. The effect is strange yet captivating—it’s a British One Hundred Years of Solitude; minus the claim of course, to the use of "Magic Realism".

I wonder what she thinks of us, as she tries to make us comfortable—less “well-behaved.” She mentions Henry James and an all-too-brief discussion follows. Somehow, we move on to Pantomine, and from there we seem only a step away from mentioning her idea of a rewriting the Bible (“it’s asking to be written!”), and from there, we are half a step away from silence. Luckily the taxi has been ordered (“We had better go soon”), Atkinson’s agent’s phone rings once and they rush off. And just like that, it’s over.

Having returned to the safety of my bedroom, my signed copy of Atkinson’s latest novel in hand, I cannot help but wonder: does meeting an author add to one’s enjoyment of his or her work? Do the words “To Marie, Kate Atkinson” scribbled quickly and nonchalantly in my newly-purchased copy of One Good Turn somehow enhance my experience? I doubt it. If anything, the uneasy twenty minutes spent fidgeting in an awkward silence with two professors, six literature students, Kate Atkinson and her agent were perhaps less worthwhile than twenty minutes spent reading her work. Yet, the harmony between the spoken and written word as the author read her short story was nothing short of magic. In any case, if Atkinson’s transcendent tragi-comic voice can guide us through her plotlines, then why not through life itself?

Add Comment

You must log in to submit a comment.