Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum follows the tale of Ruby Lennox from conception to her early-forties. The tale also explores the back story of the Lennox family, spanning as far back as Ruby’s great-grandmother Abigail, through to the life of her mum Bunty.
Atkinson’s novel packs in many twists and turns and the Lennox’s family secrets rise to the fore-broken hearts, wars and family tragedies all feature heavily in the novel.
Yet whilst the book could be at risk of delving a little too much into serious territory, yet Atkinson’s novel is written in a generally comic tone, and has the amazing ability to inhabit Ruby from the age of a child-I loved her tale of Ruby trying to overcome her creepy twin cousins-to her forties.
Her skill also moves to her ability to take the reader back to the late 1800’s to rural Yorkshire and then to the First World War trenches, as with AS Byatt’s The Children’s Book, the scenes depicted in these passages do not stray from the horrors of war, there is a particularly sad passage about one of the characters becoming very attached to a young dog who was part of the army (I didn’t know they used dogs), and died trying to rescue her. There were other moments that I thought were captured wonderfully, such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 being watched in the Lennox’s living room-the idea of the small children running around and getting the way was very vivid, I almost felt as though I was there.
In class, I’ll be linking it to Great Expectations, and there are some obvious links-the search for identity, to know who you are and were you come from, courses through Ruby and Pip’s lives. There are also characters that seem similar, notably for me is Rachel, Nellie’s (Ruby’s grandmother) stepmother, who bares a resemblance to the equally hard and cruel Mrs Joe Gargery, Pip’s older sister.
I enjoyed Behind the Scenes, it was a fun, quite light read, and I’d be keen to read other novels by Kate Atkinson in the future.
Atkinson’s novel packs in many twists and turns and the Lennox’s family secrets rise to the fore-broken hearts, wars and family tragedies all feature heavily in the novel.
Yet whilst the book could be at risk of delving a little too much into serious territory, yet Atkinson’s novel is written in a generally comic tone, and has the amazing ability to inhabit Ruby from the age of a child-I loved her tale of Ruby trying to overcome her creepy twin cousins-to her forties.
Her skill also moves to her ability to take the reader back to the late 1800’s to rural Yorkshire and then to the First World War trenches, as with AS Byatt’s The Children’s Book, the scenes depicted in these passages do not stray from the horrors of war, there is a particularly sad passage about one of the characters becoming very attached to a young dog who was part of the army (I didn’t know they used dogs), and died trying to rescue her. There were other moments that I thought were captured wonderfully, such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 being watched in the Lennox’s living room-the idea of the small children running around and getting the way was very vivid, I almost felt as though I was there.
In class, I’ll be linking it to Great Expectations, and there are some obvious links-the search for identity, to know who you are and were you come from, courses through Ruby and Pip’s lives. There are also characters that seem similar, notably for me is Rachel, Nellie’s (Ruby’s grandmother) stepmother, who bares a resemblance to the equally hard and cruel Mrs Joe Gargery, Pip’s older sister.
I enjoyed Behind the Scenes, it was a fun, quite light read, and I’d be keen to read other novels by Kate Atkinson in the future.
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