Cultural Dessert

‘Light Perpetual’ by Francis Spufford

29 July 2021

Francis Spufford’s first novel ‘Golden Hill’ (reviewed here in August 2017) was one of my cultural highlights of 2017: beautifully written, historically fascinating with wonderfully drawn characters and a mesmeric plot – one of the best novels I’ve read in years. If you haven’t read it please do! My expectations of its successor were therefore incredibly high but I am pleased to say that I really enjoyed ‘Light Perpetual’ by Francis Spufford, which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audiobook, narrated by Imogen Church. This is a much more recent historical novel, leaping forward from Golden Hill’s 1746 to start in 1944 with the bombing of a Woolworth’s store in South London which killed five young children from the same school class. This is the spur for a ‘what if’ narrative that reminded me of Kate Atkinson’s novel 'Life After Life' (reviewed here in June 2013) in which the (repeated) death of the main character is not the end of the story but merely the start of a new strand of the narrative, imaging what might have happened if she hadn’t died at that moment. In ‘Light Perpetual’ Spufford shows us the lives that might have been if the five children had lived, using a structure a bit like Michael Apted’s famous Seven Up! television documentaries, revisiting each of the main characters every 15 years. Their stories take us through the second half of the 20th century via a series of linked short stories that allow Spufford to focus on a wide range of real events and situations in painstaking detail. The novel also reminded me of Peter Flannery’s classic TV serial ‘Our Friends in the North’ (reviewed here in April 2006) as we watch the protagonists go their separate ways and bear witness to all manner of historic moments. ‘Light Perpetual’ is in turns brutal, funny, sad, poignant and moving - a very human tale of life and death. It’s a very different book to ‘Golden Hill’ but equally beautifully written (and brilliantly read by Imogen Church).

Labels: Books

posted by Robin Simpson @ 7:33 pm