Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Faber & Faber (2022), Edition: Main, 336 pages
Description
A novel set in 1944 London imagines the lives of five children who perished during a bombing at a local store, tracing their everyday dramas as they live through the extraordinary, unimaginable changes of twentieth-century London.
Media reviews
Light Perpetual opens with a slow motion reimagining of the V-2 rocket falling through that Woolworths on that long-ago Saturday. The lunchtime crowd, which has gathered to see a new delivery of aluminum saucepans (a rarity during the war), is instantaneously transformed into "a dome of debris."
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... Spufford checks in on his characters at intervals of 15 years, beginning with their deaths in 1944 and ending in 2009 when the "children" are about 70. ... Along with incisively describing the progression — and setbacks — of his fictional children's lives, Spufford conjures up an impressionistic history of six decades of London life. ... In resurrecting lives that never were, Light Perpetual is a miracle, not only of art, but of encompassing empathy. The novel becomes not only about the terribly brief lives of these five fictional children, but of the finitude that bounds all the living and the dead. Show Less
In “Light Perpetual,” the English writer Francis Spufford poses a kindred disaster-haunted question. Five children vanish when a German V-2 rocket slams through the roof of a Woolworth’s in South London in 1944. “Shoppers, saucepans, ballistic missile: What’s wrong with this picture?”
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But what if the kids had survived, Spufford speculates, saved by mechanical error or “a hiccup in fuel deliveries”? ... As Spufford’s title suggests, the narrative arc of “Light Perpetual” bends toward redemption. The good — two teachers, a trauma-hotline counselor, a selfless helper in a restaurant — are rewarded. The wicked — Mike the Nazi and Vermin Taylor — are punished. But the supreme being, doling out just deserts to the five kids rescued from Woolworth’s, is of course Spufford himself. I wish he had cut his richly drawn characters a little more slack. Show Less
Five children die in 1944, but imagined glimpses of their unlived lives generate powerful moments of reflection and redemption. ... By 2009, members of the group will have weathered divorce, bankruptcy, and prison, but they will have also known the joys of grandchildren, late-life romance, and
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forgiveness. Their lives are full, dynamic, and ordinary, their twists and turns tied to the turbulence of the late twentieth century. What is extraordinary, the author implies, may be the fragile miracle of life in the first place. Show Less
This richly imagined mosaic tracks the lives five Londoners might have experienced if they hadn’t been killed as children by a V-2 rocket during World War II. ... There’s a subtle theme on the war’s legacy woven from references to building and rebuilding. The bigger threads are people and
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family, change and time, how we hurt, love, and use each other and find or lose ourselves while our brief lives evolve in “a messy spiral of hours and years.” Entertaining and unconventional. Show Less
Spufford (Golden Hill) spins alternate narratives for five Londoners who died during the London Blitz in this magical yarn. The story opens in 1944 as the characters are killed in a rocket attack during Hitler’s “Vengeance Campaign” against Great Britain. After conjuring this tragedy, the
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narrator draws on Zeno’s paradox to theorize that for every historical event that’s occurred, there is an event that might have occurred. ... Thanks to Spufford’s narrative wizardry, all five protagonists come to vivid life in this spectacularly moving story. Show Less
As minutely knowledgeable details of the deadly build-up inside the V2’s warhead segue into theories of time and intimations of otherworldly dimensions, Light Perpetual looks set to explore an abstruse region where physics, philosophy and theology interact. Yet for the most part, despite an
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occasional fleeting sheen of mysticism, what follows is a solidly traditional novel ... Through his characters’ successes and setbacks, partnerships and realisations, Spufford displays shifting attitudes and altered assumptions about class, money, marriage, the media, music, sport, gender roles and race relations ... London’s history is ever-present. So is its diversity ... Allusions to light and time recur, sometimes suggesting transcendental significance. But the novel’s overarching feat is to resurrect with marvellous vitality not just its central five figures, but six transformative decades of London life. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member nancyadair
Lux Aeterna.
In the 1980s, I sang in masterworks choirs. We performed requiems, including those by Verdi and Mozart. "May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord, with thy saints in eternity, for thou art merciful. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may everlasting light shine upon them." The
This past year, millions have mourned victims of the pandemic. We have lost the very old and we have lost those whose life was yet to be lived. As someone who is nearing my seventh decade, I felt my vulnerability. I considered last things and the value of the life I have lived and the possibilities for the days that may be granted to me. At this time, reading Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford had special meaning and especially affected me.
In 1944, a rocket hit a Woolworth's and killed 168 people, including 15 children. This real event inspired Light Perpetual.
Spufford begins his novel with an amazing description of a bomb exploding.
And then, Spufford imagines the lives of five, fictional, children who died in the explosion, jumping 15 years at a time through their lives.
They are ordinary people living ordinary lives, with the ordinary sorrows and joys of being human. They are flawed people. Some try to do their best, while the actions of others are harmful and destructive. Their lives are just one thing after another, problem after problem.
Like ordinary people, their lives can be boring. Like ordinary people, they have fears and unfulfilled dreams. And, like ordinary people, they are here, and in the blink of an eye, they are gone. Into the light. Become dust.
It all seems accidental, how life works out. And not the way we had planned, or hoped. And then, we run out of options. We have lived our lives.
And yet. And yet. As one character faces death, he has peace and he is able to praise God for all the mundane beauty of this world. It inspired me to tears.
What a miracle life is--how we waste it! Let us praise those moments when the sunlight breaks through the clouds and warms our face and the birds are singing and someone holds our hand. Let us remember those who are gone and pray they find light perpetual.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
In the 1980s, I sang in masterworks choirs. We performed requiems, including those by Verdi and Mozart. "May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord, with thy saints in eternity, for thou art merciful. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may everlasting light shine upon them." The
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lux aeterna was always emotional, the grieving's hope that the afterlife compensates for the suffering of living. This past year, millions have mourned victims of the pandemic. We have lost the very old and we have lost those whose life was yet to be lived. As someone who is nearing my seventh decade, I felt my vulnerability. I considered last things and the value of the life I have lived and the possibilities for the days that may be granted to me. At this time, reading Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford had special meaning and especially affected me.
In 1944, a rocket hit a Woolworth's and killed 168 people, including 15 children. This real event inspired Light Perpetual.
Spufford begins his novel with an amazing description of a bomb exploding.
And then, Spufford imagines the lives of five, fictional, children who died in the explosion, jumping 15 years at a time through their lives.
They are ordinary people living ordinary lives, with the ordinary sorrows and joys of being human. They are flawed people. Some try to do their best, while the actions of others are harmful and destructive. Their lives are just one thing after another, problem after problem.
Like ordinary people, their lives can be boring. Like ordinary people, they have fears and unfulfilled dreams. And, like ordinary people, they are here, and in the blink of an eye, they are gone. Into the light. Become dust.
It all seems accidental, how life works out. And not the way we had planned, or hoped. And then, we run out of options. We have lived our lives.
And yet. And yet. As one character faces death, he has peace and he is able to praise God for all the mundane beauty of this world. It inspired me to tears.
What a miracle life is--how we waste it! Let us praise those moments when the sunlight breaks through the clouds and warms our face and the birds are singing and someone holds our hand. Let us remember those who are gone and pray they find light perpetual.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
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LibraryThing member maryreinert
This is a beautifully crafted and well-written book with lots of wonderful places and believable characters; however, not every page was easy to read. During WWII, a building was bombed and many children were killed. The author makes five imaginary children and gives them a future "what if" they
The paragraphs and paragraphs of long details are what are difficult for me to concentrate on; however, they do so perfectly illustrate the lives of these ordinary people in often ordinary circumstances. There are no heroes here. Every individual deals with the fortunes and tragedies that come their way - some better than others.
Spufford is a great writer and the technique of the chapters is interesting as is the first words and the last words. Though provoking book.
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had not been killed. There are sisters; one later married to a skinhead and the other a musician; there is a shyster "wheeler dealer", a man whose career as a typesetter ends with the changing technology, and a man suffering from an almost debilitating mental illness who finds peace and love with a woman and her family.The paragraphs and paragraphs of long details are what are difficult for me to concentrate on; however, they do so perfectly illustrate the lives of these ordinary people in often ordinary circumstances. There are no heroes here. Every individual deals with the fortunes and tragedies that come their way - some better than others.
Spufford is a great writer and the technique of the chapters is interesting as is the first words and the last words. Though provoking book.
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LibraryThing member brenzi
"That's time for you. It breaks things up. It scatters them. It cannot be run backwards, to summon the dust to rise, any more than you can stir milk back out of tea. Once sundered, forever sundered. Once scattered, forever scattered. It's irreversible."
I loved Francis Spufford's first novel, Golden
In 1944, a German V2 rocket comes roaring into a Bexford Woolworth's where unsuspecting Customers, well, don't know what hit them. Among them were five children: Ben, Vernon, Alec, Jo and Val. Completely vaporized really, as all the victims were. What Spufford does that is really unusual is to imagine that they had lived, and what their lives might be like. And the format he chose was to write long sections spaced fifteen years apart. So 1949, 1964, 1979, 1994, and 2009. Of course, in so doing he provides a fair history of the years since the war in England.
He chose to have the children grow into fairly average Brits, each with their own sets of problems. They endure hardships, experience joy and view life as a changing thing that spins uncontrollably. They're just so human, so like people you would meet anywhere.
The writing is absolutely exquisite, almost poetic. And the time frame allows the characters to change and grow in ways that are breathtaking to see. Very highly recommended.
I loved Francis Spufford's first novel, Golden
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Hill and although this is a completely different kind of book, I think loved it even more. Spufford has put forth a really unique kind of concept with this book and it's fascinating.In 1944, a German V2 rocket comes roaring into a Bexford Woolworth's where unsuspecting Customers, well, don't know what hit them. Among them were five children: Ben, Vernon, Alec, Jo and Val. Completely vaporized really, as all the victims were. What Spufford does that is really unusual is to imagine that they had lived, and what their lives might be like. And the format he chose was to write long sections spaced fifteen years apart. So 1949, 1964, 1979, 1994, and 2009. Of course, in so doing he provides a fair history of the years since the war in England.
He chose to have the children grow into fairly average Brits, each with their own sets of problems. They endure hardships, experience joy and view life as a changing thing that spins uncontrollably. They're just so human, so like people you would meet anywhere.
The writing is absolutely exquisite, almost poetic. And the time frame allows the characters to change and grow in ways that are breathtaking to see. Very highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Dreesie
This book feels soooo very close to being absolutely amazing.
Spufford uses the German 1944 bombing of a Woolworth's in South London as his start point. He locates it in Bexford, which does not exist, and creates 5 children that were killed that day. And he imagines what their lives could have
I found this all fascinating. He created interesting yet average lives. Dreams not realized, mental illness, business and relationship failures, bad choices, and simple happiness beyond one's dreams.
This book could have been a 5-star read for me if Spufford had looped the end back to the beginning. Or, perhaps, reorganized the story so the beginning was the end. The bombing gets lost in the book, while the reader gets invested in the characters. I think it needs the gut punch of the bombing at the end.
Spufford uses the German 1944 bombing of a Woolworth's in South London as his start point. He locates it in Bexford, which does not exist, and creates 5 children that were killed that day. And he imagines what their lives could have
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been. These lives are fascinating, because they also trace the changes to South London: the London Times strike of 1979 and subsequent digitalization of newspaper printing; immigrant communities; poor schools; the elimination of conductors on double-decker buses; skinheads of the 1970s; the music industry; soccer. I googled some of the happenings in the book to learn they were actually real, so I might have missed other things.I found this all fascinating. He created interesting yet average lives. Dreams not realized, mental illness, business and relationship failures, bad choices, and simple happiness beyond one's dreams.
This book could have been a 5-star read for me if Spufford had looped the end back to the beginning. Or, perhaps, reorganized the story so the beginning was the end. The bombing gets lost in the book, while the reader gets invested in the characters. I think it needs the gut punch of the bombing at the end.
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LibraryThing member alexrichman
I loved Golden Hill but I hated this... at first. The concept - of killing off your characters, then exploring the lives they could have lived - still seems a set-up in need of a punchline, but the 7 Up structure reeled me in and I was soon racing through to find out what everyone did (well, didn't
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do) next. Another enjoyable read, if not as good as his first novel. Show Less
LibraryThing member AnaraGuard
Gorgeous, heartbreaking, inventive. The imagined lives of children who died in the blitz: who would they have become? Realtor or punk, battered or beloved, successful or striving. Each character is fully drawn and unforgettable.
LibraryThing member Castlelass
“We are so many… Every single one of these people homeward bound…to different homes which are to each the one and only home, or else outward bound, to different destinations at which each will find themselves, as ever, the protagonist of the story. Every single one the centre of many whole
This novel is about time. It portrays what could have happened in the lives of five young children had they not been tragically killed in a V-2 bombing in WWII. It starts with the explosion, describing it in minute detail, as if in slow motion. It then jumps forward to 1949 and fifteen-year increments thereafter, until we reach 2009.
It reads like a series of short stories, with only occasional interconnections. The kids grow into ordinary people living ordinary lives. I enjoyed several of the period vignettes – descriptions of football matches, talking to a caller on a suicide hotline, a character’s appreciation for opera, another character teaching a group of students to sing, property development in London. The characters face challenges that many of us encounter during our lives – addiction, mental health, ethics, family disputes, unhealthy relationships, etc. There are also a few violent scenes, with one character witnessing a murder.
I am not convinced this is a true “multiverse” story, a theme I have been reading quite a bit recently. There is only one timeline for each character after the initial split. It portrays how events and lives are touched by the absence of a single person. It hints at the various courses our lives can take based on the decisions we make. I liked certain sections but found it difficult to remain consistently engaged.
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worlds, therefore, packed in together, touching, yet mutually oblivious. So much necessarily lost, skated over, ignored, when the mind does its usual trick of aggregating our faces.”This novel is about time. It portrays what could have happened in the lives of five young children had they not been tragically killed in a V-2 bombing in WWII. It starts with the explosion, describing it in minute detail, as if in slow motion. It then jumps forward to 1949 and fifteen-year increments thereafter, until we reach 2009.
It reads like a series of short stories, with only occasional interconnections. The kids grow into ordinary people living ordinary lives. I enjoyed several of the period vignettes – descriptions of football matches, talking to a caller on a suicide hotline, a character’s appreciation for opera, another character teaching a group of students to sing, property development in London. The characters face challenges that many of us encounter during our lives – addiction, mental health, ethics, family disputes, unhealthy relationships, etc. There are also a few violent scenes, with one character witnessing a murder.
I am not convinced this is a true “multiverse” story, a theme I have been reading quite a bit recently. There is only one timeline for each character after the initial split. It portrays how events and lives are touched by the absence of a single person. It hints at the various courses our lives can take based on the decisions we make. I liked certain sections but found it difficult to remain consistently engaged.
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LibraryThing member Helenliz
In 1944, a V2 rocket hit a Woolworths in New Cross, South London, killing 168 people, including 15 children. In chapter 1 of this book, the 5 children here (all fictional) die in the attack, but then the author wonders what would happen if they hadn't died, what lives would they go on to live. And
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so we revisit Jo, Val, Vern, Alec & Ben periodically over the next 65 years, as they grow and mature, between them experiencing success and failure, love and loss. Some of them suffer badly, others seem to skim through life. The first chapter is an excellent thesis on the nature of time and chance, the what if that exists in all fiction is writ large. In the end, it might seem that this makes no difference, we return to dust, but it is different, these lives that have played out due to a quirk of chance. Show Less
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2021)
Encore Award (Winner — 2022)
Blackwell's Book of the Year (Shortlist — Fiction — 2021)
HWA Crown Awards (Longlist — Gold — 2021)
NPR: Books We Love (2021)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction — 2021)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
336 p.; 7.8 inches
ISBN
0571336493 / 9780571336494