A God in Ruins

It's been a while since I've written anything about books here, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading them. And the last book I read, A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson, was one of those books which after a few chapters I decided to read really slowly and attentively, because it is great and meaningful and complex and beautiful, and I didn't want to rush through it. Meaning that so far this year, it has been the best book I've read.
A God in Ruins runs parallel to Life after Life, which I'd read and loved a couple of years ago. In that novel, Ursula Todd lives her live again and again, trying to kill Adolf Hitler before he rises to power. It has vivid descriptions of the Blitz, as well as beautiful imagery of the British upper middle class in the twenties and thirties. In this novel, (a 'companion piece', rather than a sequel, according to Kate Atkinson) we follow the life of Teddy Todd, Ursula's younger brother (and one of the more sympathetic characters of Life after Life). It doesn't give any conclusions as to which of Ursula's lives finally became the 'true' one, we just have to see this as one version of reality. In this, Ted becomes a bomber pilot in the War, flying his Halifax deep into German country to bomb industrial areas (at first) and helpless civilians (as the war progresses). But it is about more than just WWII, as several other chapters tell of his life after the war, his marriage, his daughter Viola, and his grandchildren Bertie and Sunny. We don't just follow Ted, but Viola, Bertie, and Sunny as well. They are wildly different characters, each a product of their parents, their upbringing, and the time they live in. Their relationships don't always run smoothly, with the children often being the smarter ones than their parents, but as we (the reader) can look into their heads and see their histories and the decisions that made them who they are, we can sympathise with all of them.
The novel has some wonderful phrases that will stick in my mind for a while. "When the time came people stopped trying to forget the war, and started trying to remember it"; clearly painting the difference between Ted's generation and Viola's; between the people who lived through the war and don't need to remember to make sure something like that never happens again, and those born long after it, who can't really appreciate the sacrifices made by there parents. "Bertie loved her grandfather. Her grandfather loved Bertie. It was the simplest arrangement." closely followed by "Sunny loved his grandfather. His grandfather loved Sunny. It was the most complicated arrangement." Two sets of almost identical phrases, showing the difference in two very complex interpersonal relationships that form the backbone of the book.
Then there are the many literary, cultural, and historical allusions that run through the novel. I'm sure I missed at least half of these, as many are to Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress, and it's been a while since I read those, but the ones I did get brought a smile to my face. And you can easily read it without knowing about the extra layer. Smart little things like; "'Out,' she said, shooing Izzy toward the front door, and again, 'Out' 'Damed spot,' Hugh murmured." will ring a familiar bell, even if you've never read or seen Macbeth.
And in the end, as Kate Atkinson writes in her afterword, the novel really is about fiction, about telling stories, about living in a fictional world or living a version of yourself that you have decided to become. Especially Viola has a tendency to make the world the way she likes it to be, and to point to the fictional actions of others as the cause for her own character and place in life. Which can be a frustrating read, especially when you know Ted's or Bertie's or Sunny's version of the events, but every good book has characters you love to hate. And in the end, you can be the judge. What was real, and what wasn't?

Walklogger

About a year ago, when it was just as grey and rainy and windy as it is now, we (that is to say, me and my colleagues) were all sitting around whining about how much we wished for it to be spring so we could go outside and be active, instead of being inside and being depressed, We all felt bloated from the holidays, but nobody really bothered to do something about that, because we were still in our large comfy winter clothes. But we did feel inactive, and lazy. And then I remembered that someone had once told me that you had to take 10,000 steps each day to be healthy. So we looked online, and although not everybody was in agreement (the argument is still going strong), most people did agree that walking is good for your health, fitness, blood pressure, and what not. So we all decided to try and walk 10,000 steps a day.
Now you have to remember that we all have jobs which involve sitting behind the computer a lot. Or sitting in meetings a lot. Or listening to presentations a lot. And I mean, really a lot. But still, we could give it a shot. So we all downloaded some sort of app to our smartphones to track our steps (those in the possession of an iPhone didn't need to do that, because Apple already automatically registers your movements and probably uses that to some sort of advantage). I chose Walklogger, simply because someone else was also using that and said it was a good app.
I don't know how many steps I took the first day, but I know it was nowhere near 10,000. Turns out, 10,000 steps takes about 1.5 hours of walking, depending on how fast you walk. We were really competitive, sharing walking scores and trying to beat each other to a higher step count, but the only one who ever really made the 10,000 was the one person who already took a walk each morning after breakfast and before work. So we decided to go on lunch walks, instead of eating in the canteen, and that really boosted our step count. Still no 10k, but we were doing good. But then some people had meetings, or it was raining, or there was a nice lunch presentation, and we didn't really take the walks anymore. After about two months, nobody was sharing their step counts anymore, and most people had removed the app from their phone.
But not me. Not that I'm aiming for 10,000 every day, that would be absurdly optimistic. My daily step count aim is 2,000, with at least 3 days of 5,000 steps (Walklogger gives you a bronze medal when you reach 5,000, and a silver at 8,000, and a gold medal at 10,000) every week. Which seems to be a pretty managaeble goal, if I think to take my smartphone with me everytime I walk. In the office, I do take a lot of small walks (150 steps to and from the coffee machine) that are often not counted because I don't have my phone with me. And there are some days when I easily manage 10,000, when I take a walk in the woods or walk to the city centre for some shopping. Then there are other days when I don't even reach 1,000, although usually that's because I've forgotten my phone somewhere. But it does mean that when I can choose between walking or biking, and there is no time constraint, I more often go on foot. Which is a nice change, even though it won't really make me that much healthier in the long run.
So Walklogger works for me, but you can probably use any walk logging app in the store, I haven't tried any of the others. I like the medal system, although it is a bit disappointing that you don't get any extra medals for walking say 15,000 or 20,000 steps (my record high was around 23,000, the day I walked the Great Wall of China). I like how it shows when you were walking, using little graphs that go up when you take more consequetive steps. And it shows you how many steps you took in this month and year. Somehow, Thursday is the day I walk the least, although I have no clue as to why that is.
And it's just fun, collecting the numbers, and batteling against your lazy self to reach those 2,000 steps. As for today, I have exactly 306 steps to go.