Still Life

✮✮✮✮

Aug 26

Still Life - Sarah Winman

my review : ✮✮✮✮

I truly went into this book blind as a bat. I skimmed the synopsis and thought I was diving into WW2 historical fiction, which I have historically (ha!) loved. This book is actually about what happens after the war. It's a book filled with contradictions; it's meandering but not slow, nestled in history yet modern, filled with loss but hopeful. I genuinely enjoyed it.

The story starts during WWII as Allied troops advance, and bombs fall around deserted villages. A young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amongst the rubble of war-torn Italy and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades.

As Ulysses returns home to London, reimmersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parrot -- a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics -- he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate and returns to the Tuscan hills.

It is a bit like everyday life- not a lot happens, yet simultaneously extraordinary things transpire.

My only complaints were that the sheer number of characters was difficult for me to keep track of. A character would appear from hundreds of pages earlier, and I felt like I needed to consult a set of notes (that I was not taking) to figure out who this person was. Also! There is no punctuation for dialogue, and I think that's a deal breaker for some. I did not mind it but feel you must go in forewarned.

This book had me incredibly introspective and a bit melancholy (maybe I should blame the hormones?) but ultimately left me with the feeling that life is long and beautiful.