Another Tot of Rum

Sign for The Blue Lion, Gray's Inn Road. WC1
Copyright Mike Quinn. Licensed for further reuse.

There is no Blue Lion near  Chalfont St Peter, only a Red Lion in Beaconsfield. Is this where Mrs Haddock sits , eternally sipping?

I love the fact that Life After Life ends with Mrs Haddock, the midwife,  forever stuck in the Blue Lion sipping hot rum. as the landlord says

'You won't be going anywhere in a hurry tonight.'

And indeed she never does. It's interesting how some characters are fixed firmly in one place ( Mrs Haddock) or on one time-strand (Mrs Glover and her son George, Fred Smith, Pamela or Maurice) whereas others experience permutations of varying degrees ( Izzie, Sylvie). For some of them these different life-routes are a matter of life or death. Think of Nancy and Teddy, Bridget and Clarence Dodd. What about Roland, Izzie's son? In one life-route he is lost forever in Germany.

'The little Fritz. 'Couldn't we try and find him? Sylvie asked. 'Needle in a haystack,' Hugh said. 'The Hun are legion.'

Later on we discover another possibility: Roland is born at Fox Corner and absorbed into the Todd family.However, he, instead of Ursula, drowns in the sea at Cornwall. and yet he doesn't get another chance at life. One wonders about the possibilities of his German life. Was he also 'a simpleton' in that one? And what if he was? Under Hitler this would not bode well. 

Later Izzie torments herself that her son is either the enemy, 'dead or going to die' or that Hugh might have given her baby to a Jewish family. His life-route is subject to decisions made hastily by others. The butterfly effect has cruel wings.

Then there is, of course, Ursula. Perplexed and tormented by her reoccurring time-strands until, with the help of Dr Kellet, she finally becomes mistress of her life-route, there is so much to say about her. And yet Saturday Readers seemed to spend more time discussing  the effects of her actions, and other characters rather than Ursula herself. We did talk about her motivation for what she did. Personally I found Ursula a difficult character to grasp. I have no mental image of her, and yet even though physical descriptions are sparsely scattered in Life After Life, I have a clear picture of most other characters.

Perhaps it is because she  has such extraordinary experiences in such a familiar, well-known setting. For me such a person cannot be real, she remains something of a ghost, however much I admire her absolute determination and bravery. I find her the saddest character, she gives so much and suffers so hard for those she loves and yet she seems to receive so little back. For all the emotions and sacrifices she makes I find her detached from those around her. Although,  this might be understandable given her extraordinary circumstances. Towards the end of the novel, after Ursula has recovered from her nervous crisis brought on by the epiphany about her life, Ursula makes a plan and a vow. 

'Her heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around.she was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.'    

Admiration grows at her resolve and courage.

'She opened her arms to the black bat and they flew to each other, embracing in the air like long-lost souls. This is love, Ursula thought. And the practice of it makes it perfect.'

This last phrase is also uttered by Sylvie and provoked discussion of 'what if?' questions among the Saturday Readers. How much does Sylvie know, or realise? We can see that over Ursula's successive births Sylvie reacts differently, knowingly. What are her motivations?

Does Sylvie have her own life-routes, or are they simply a butterfly effect of Ursula's? she certainly seems to have some awareness of the situation, at least when it come to Ursula's birth. Yet there are other events where she could have reacted or stepped in to help Ursula ( think of Howie, Derek...)and never does. Once they are out of babyhood Sylvie cannot be accused of being over-protective of her children. An observant Saturday Reader pointed out that perhaps it is necessary for Ursula to experience these events in order to grow, to be able to then carry out her plan. Very much a case of 'Become such as you are, having learned what that is.' Thanks to Dr Kellet's introduction to Pindar, via Nietzsche, she learns to understand, to store her experiences, to do better next time round.

'Practice makes perfect' 
  
That leaves Teddy. Another point of discussion. Our conclusion was that surely he knows something? Why turn and look at Roy as his plane goes down? What is the significance of his 'Thank you' to Ursula across the noisy pub? What is he thanking Ursula for? 

It is telling, surely, that it is Teddy who ponders the idea of having the opportunity to try and try again. He is quoted in the preface, along with Nietzsche and Plato. 

Is Teddy Ursula's ultimate motivation? 

We can't finish talking about the various time-strands and life-routes without briefly mentioning the central question of Hitler and the possibilities and repercussions, had he been removed from history. The idea is discussed by a number of characters, and, early on,  the Saturday Readers came to the same conclusion as the author: war would not have been avoided although it might have had different results for individuals. All thanks to Ursula, of course.

Here is an interesting review of Life After Life, from a Counterfactual point of view.