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"The shape of it somehow dictated what sort of life he would live."

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2012

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This novel takes five different approaches to illuminate the way an outer life is shaped in the world. It is replete within itself, and I believe each and every part links together in an absolutely necessary way. I didn't get it at first. The first part seemed so dispassionate at first. The affect as truly hard things impacted the characters did not seem up to the task. Life for the boy coming into the workhouse feltnasnif the author was unfeeling. The characters put their heads down and slagged on through. Then with similar thoughts, I read the next part and came to a horrific exam of the character's life in a Nazi concentration camp. I was sure he didn't get it. He kept trying to live through it without reacting to the to the monstrosity of where he was.

Halfway through the second Part, I got it. It is life itself that happens. We start with molecules "spun from stars" and revised a thousand times in different lifetimes. And the world happens and we learn who we are when it happens. I loved this late awakening. I had liked the book with its rich description and lucid details from the start. And then I loved it watching the shaping of each person's turn with space dust formed into bodies and somehow made human. I kind of think it was the author's intent to reveal himself in this fashion. And I am so enamored that I looked up and ordered the other books he has written. This is the ultimate compliment from me.

Read this book and let it take you where it goes right through to the end.

"It all in the end seemed to have been a matter of the purest chance."

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2013

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More so than is the case with most books, it is interesting to skim through the other Amazon reviews of A POSSIBLE LIFE. The fact that such a high percentage of them are thoughtful and say something that strikes me as sensible indicates that the novel is resonating with literate readers. I find, however, that what I take away from A POSSIBLE LIFE is somewhat idiosyncratic.

A POSSIBLE LIFE is composed of five stories, each featuring a different person, whose first name is the title of that particular story. Each story title also includes a year (1938, 1859, 2029, 1822, and 1971), which in each case corresponds to the year the story begins, but each story ultimately comprehends much of the entire scope of life of the titled character. So, on a superficial level, the book consists of the stories of the lives of five different fictional people.

Even for those who lead, to outside appearances, rather drab lives (one is a reclusive British public school teacher; another is an illiterate washerwoman and housekeeper in rural nineteenth-century France), their stories, as told by Sebastian Faulks, are interesting and worth reading simply as stories. For the most part, the narrative zips along at a brisk clip. Faulks demonstrates once again (this is the third book of his I have read) that he is a versatile and accomplished storyteller.

About mid-way through the book I began to feel that the five pieces might be somewhat unsatisfactory hybrids of a short story and a novel. They did not quite have the compressed intensity of a good short story, but they also lacked the full development of a satisfying novel. Even at book's end, that feeling vaguely persisted, but it had been muted by two things. One was the final story, "Anya - 1971": in several respects it is different from the others (among other things, it features the lives of two people - the named subject Anya King, a singer, and the first-person narrator Jack Wyatt); moreover, it really is a special story, one that I am sure will be worth re-reading some day. The other thing, as I gradually came to realize, is that the five stories are linked.

Of course, Faulks's subtitle - "A Novel in Five Parts" -- signals that the five stories of A POSSIBLE LIFE were at least intended by Faulks to be linked, to comprise a novel. What is the linkage or theme? Other Amazon reviews offer a range of answers. For me, the theme has to do with the contingency and ephemerality of individual human life, from both a philosophical/metaphysical perspective and a biological/chemical/physical one. In fact, in A POSSIBLE LIFE those two perspectives are intriguingly married. In the end, the novel proves to have intellectual depth as well as adept storytelling. Four-and-a-half stars, rounded up.

K. Sterling

Great stories, just didn't tie them together as well as I expected

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2013

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This "novel in 5 parts" actually tells the stories of the lives of five very different people living at very different times - and in different countries. All of the stories are compelling and the characters interesting. I expected the five lives to intersect somehow - and they do, a little; but it wasn't the masterful weaving together that the publicity summaries had led me to expect. However, it's still well worth a read. Faulks is a skilled writer - not pretentious or necessarily poetic, but he imagines the tales well, and enables the reader to see the scenes and experience each life, whether it's the gritty hand-to-mouth existence of Billy, who grew up in the workhouse of 19th century London, or the more glamorous life of Anya, a 1970s small-town poet and folk singer who hits the big time. I came away feeling as if I knew the characters - and even more importantly, cared about them. That's a quality I often find lacking in current fiction. Highly recommend - would actually have given it 4.5 stars if I could have, b/c my quibble with it is a pretty minor one. Totally enjoyable read.

Valerie Freer

Five Parts - Yes. Novel - No.

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2013

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Sebastian Faulks is a writer I most highly regard - he is a treasure, and I have only encountered one novel by him that did not work. If you consider him likewise, certainly read. Its promise of a novel in five parts, however, did not adequately come through. It is more a collection of five shorts. Yes, the reader can carry away the question of how the five are related, and ponder into the night.

But I don't think he will come up with anything: it is a useless (and pretentious) exercise: they are related primarily under the head of 'life' and 'things happen to people when they live.'

To do anything more to connect them is the stuff of excessive academic nonsense: the sort that academics might find necessary, but never yields anything of importance to what they might pick apart.

You know the type. Speaking in that 'exalted' nasal intonation.

For more normal readers, enjoy the book as five shorts written by an excellent wielder of the art of writing. And in the meanwhile, must just hope it was the publisher, and not Faulks, who did the connecting into a 'novel.'

Amazon Customer

A thought-provoking enigma

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2018

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Gripping from the start, shockingly stark at times, with seemingly unconnected leaps through stories, characters and times, A Possible Life ultimately reaches a beautiful conclusion making unique sense.

Top reviews from other countries

Tim Dumble

One multiplied by five equals six

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2014

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Much of the criticism of Faulks’s most recent offering is founded on the observation that it is a collection of short stories rather than a coherent novel. I disagree. The five stories here accrete like the five human senses uniting in the novel’s fictitious ‘Glockner’s Isthmus’ to create a compelling commentary on human consciousness, guilt, bravery, weakness and brilliance. This Gestaltist approach is technically challenging but ultimately rewarding in offering an insight into the human condition that is far reaching.

The author cleverly creates coherence between the stories by cross referencing places objects and characters. In so doing ‘A possible Life’ stands as a unique novel which contrasts the permanence of places and objects with the transience of human existence and in particular the fragile nature of a single human life,

Faulks investigates some profound notions here: the nature of human consciousness, immortality, and the poetic versus the prosaic. However the narrative excels at portraying the lives of different human beings in different places at different times and finding commonality- the defining features of what makes us self aware beings.

Thus successive protagonists in time and space are faced with difficult choices, lives that might have been, regrets, and guilt. We are repeatedly reminded of humanity’s brilliance, creativity, resilience and courage but also its selfishness, lack of commitment and ability to betray and hurt those we love.

As one character observes: ‘accepting that we are no more than recycled matter does not take away the aching of the heart’. Such is the price of sentience and awareness of our own mortality.

countrygirl

A dispiriting read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2013

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These loosly joined novellas make for a depressing read. While Faulks is a master story teller at times, here he misses either to skewer the period and setting or produce characters this reader much cared about. It wasn't obvious to me what had been gained by moving across the centuries or by introducing a new set of characters with each fresh tale. The structure seemed clumsily contrived to demonstrate E.M. Forster's theme of 'Only Connect' but without any warmth, compassion or humour. The prose style is deliberately sparse and unemotional.
When I finished the book I was reminded of the novellas of Flaubert and how he reveals the greatness of the human spirit and the power of love without sentimentalitiy or highly coloured writing. Put 'A Simple Heart' against Faulks tale of a French servant girl, and spot the difference.
So, I was disappointed, and felt the opposite of uplifted after reading these tales of the human spirit. Maybe that was Faulks' intention - but it doesn't make for a rewarding read.

Mr. P. H. Ball

A very good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 26, 2013

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I was very impressed by these 5 stories. Any connection between them was not obvious but each one was a 'good read' and enjoyable in its own right and Sebastian Faulkes is certainly a very good writer, able to conjure up an engrossing atmosphere within a few pages. I suppose the lives of the central characters in the stories are all 'possible' - I thought at some point they were meant to illustrate how people can achieve fulfillment in different ways but then I can't really see how the character of Jeanne achieved any sort of fulfillment. So, although I enjoyed reading the stories, it was unclear to me what in the end he was trying to say (assuming that it was meant to have any message).

mr david levy

Something of a disappointment

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2013

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I have long been a fan of Sebastian Faulks - I think that Birdsong is one of the best contemporary novels I have ever read - and I have really enjoyed most of his other books, particularly Human Traces and On Green Dolphin Street.
A Possible Life was, naturally, well written and is a profound attempt to examine shared humanity by way of five very different short stories. As short stories, a couple of them work very well indeed, but the book does not cohere and left me feeling very dissatisfied at the end. Perhaps read it as short stories with breaks between each of them? Not a good introduction to Faulks and not to be treated as a novel.

hejira38

Sebastian Faulks cannot write a poor novel...though not his best work

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2014

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If SF had to re-write the phone book he would make it interesting. His prose is just sublime. He also has enormous empathy for his characters, with all their foibles. He never has the heavy voice of the omniscient narrator, making the reader judge his characters. We feel we might just as easily shared their mistakes and their triumphs. Its' weakness for me is that as we deal with a number of different 'stories' within the novel the format doesn't allow the reader to feel as if the novel is a journey that they are travelling with the main charcters...it feels more like a series of short stories that have a connected theme, which creates a different rhythm. Few writers have such a variety of time frames and subject matters for their novels. I always await a new SF novel wondering in which direction he will take me this time.

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