Tag: Sarah Winman

Book review: When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

Things happen. To everyone. No one escapes.

When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman is a story about the bond between siblings Elly and Joe spanning four decades. The story begins in 1968 and ends when they are adults in 2011. It is about growing up and how the good, bad, funny and weird that can happen in ordinary life shape us, and how people come in and out of our orbits through life and leave an impression.  When God was a Rabbit is also about how family in all its imperfections can provide a container for the the light and shade of existence.

I divide my life into two parts. Not really a Before and After, more as if they are bookends, holding together flaccid years of empty musings, years of late adolescent or the twentysomething whose coat of adulthood simply does not fit.

The first part of the novel covers Elly and Joe’s close childhood relationship, family connections, eccentric and sometimes dark friendships, and Elly’s relationship with her pet Belgian hare called God who was given to her by her brother. The vehicle of the rabbit God will resonate with anyone who had a special relationship with an animal and/or imaginary friends that had a magical realism quality to them in childhood.

She was of another world; different. But by then, secretly, so was I.

The second part of the story is set in adulthood. From Elly to her movie star aunt and lottery winning parents to her queer brother and odd ball friend Jenny Penny, the characters are beautifully flawed, generous, passionate, baggage laden uniquely ordinary people. Set partly in the UK and partly in the US, the passing of time is marked by pivotal public events like the death of John Lennon and Princess Diana and the 9/11 attacks. 

‘Do you believe in God, Arthur? I said, eating the last piece of sponge.

‘Do I believe in an old man in the clouds with a white beard judging us mortals with a moral code from one to ten? Good Lord no, my sweet Elly, I do not! Do I believe in a mystery; the unexplained phenomenon that is life itself? The greater something that illuminates inconsequence in our lives; that gives us something to strive for as well as the humility to brush ourselves down and start all over again? Then yes, I do. It is the source of art, of beauty, of love, and proffers the ultimate goodness to mankind. That to me is God.That to me is life. That is what I believe in.’

The rabbit as a deity provides humour in some of the darker moments of the novel and reappears as a symbol of the enduring power of relationships in the face of uncertainty. When God was a Rabbit is a lyrical beautifully crafted story – and what a fabulous title!

I am here but I am not yours.

Book review: Still Life by Sarah Winman

On By rlsmithwritingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

Sarah Winman’s Still Live is a character driven historical fiction novel with a fascinating caste that spans the decades from WWII through to the 1960s. It speaks to a series of life moments and how art, music and food can move us emotionally.

There are moments in life, so monumental and still, that the memory can never be retrieved without a catch to the throat or an interruption to the beat of the heart. Can never be retrieved without the rumbling disquiet of how close that moment came to not having happened at all.

Twenty four year old English soldier Ulysses Temper finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted Tuscany village during a bombing blitz in 1944. Sixty four year old Evelyn Skinner is a middle aged art historian visiting Italy to salvage paintings and reminisce about her youth. The two meet and connect by chance and the impression they make on one another is enduring. 

Art versus humanity is not the question, Ulysses. One doesn’t exist without the other. Art is the antidote.

Evelyn returns to London to teach. Ulysses returns home and reintegrates with his eclectic friends at The Stout and Parrot until a surprise inheritance from a man whose life he saved sends him back to Italy along with his ex-wife’s daughter, Alys and his friend Cress. Cress talks to trees and recites poetry, and has a parrot Claude who quotes Shakespeare.

So, time heals. Mostly. Sometimes carelessly. And in unsuspecting moments, the pain catches and reminds one of all that’s been missing. The fulcrum of what might have been. But then it passes. Winter moves into spring and swallows return. The proximity of new skin returns to the sheets. Beauty does what is required. Jobs fulfil and conversations inspire. Loneliness becomes a mere Sunday. Scattered clothes. Empty bowls. Rotting fruit. Passing time. But still life in all its beauty and complexity.

There is a beautiful section about the 1966 floods of Arno in Florence where neighbours looked out for one another communicating by candle light. The flood devastated the city displacing citizens and destroying millions of books and artworks.

And for two hours the wine was poured, the cheese cut, and the two men talked. Of what? Who knows? Of love, of war, of the past. And they listened with hearts instead of ears, and in the candle-lit kitchen three floors up in an old palazzo, death was put on hold.

Still Life is a story about what it means to be human, of the many ways we can love people, friendship and chosen family. Art, beauty and luck and how they can move and shape us thread through the narrative.