291. Transcription

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Clare Telleen

Author:   Kate Atkinson

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

352 pages, published September 25, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

At the beginning of World War II, 18 year old Juliet Armstrong obtains employment with an obscure department of MI5.  Her job is to transcribe the conversations between an undercover MI5 agent and British Fascist sympathizers that he has recruited.  The work is both tedious and terrifying.  After the war has ended, she assumes the events of those years are done and buried.  However, ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. Juliet finds herself thrust into the Cold War and begins to understand that her previous actions have consequences.

Quotes 

“Do not equate nationalism with patriotism… Nationalism is the first step on the road to Fascism.”

 

“The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel,”

 

“[…] but her mother’s death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.”

 

“The blame generally has to fall somewhere, Miss Armstrong. Women and the Jews tend to be first in line, unfortunately.”

 

“Human nature favors the tribal. Tribalism engenders violence. It was ever thus and so it will ever be.”

 

“Being flippant was harder work than being earnest”

 

“…it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was.”

 

“People always said they wanted the truth, but really they were perfectly content with a facsimile.”

 

“But wasn’t artistic endeavor the final refuge of the uncommitted?”

 

“Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)”

 

“She didn’t feel she had the fortitude for all those Tudors, they were so relentlessly busy – all that bedding and beheading.” 

My Take

Transcription is the third book by Kate Atkinson that I have read.  The first two, Life After Life and A God in Ruins, were loosely linked by several shared characters and were engaging reads with compelling characters.  While I enjoyed Transcription, it does not live up to those other books.  There were several times when I was a little bored reading this book and asked myself, “where is this going?”   The failure of the book to provide an interesting answer to that question is the reason I didn’t rate it higher.