I find something very moving about stories of intergenerational friendships. Novels such as “Autumn” by Ali Smith and “The Offing” by Benjamin Myers describe profound connections between individuals who are at very different stages of life but establish a rapport that obliterates traditional social divides based on age, gender or sexuality. Sarah Winman has explored such a relationship before in her novel “A Year of Marvellous Ways” where an eccentric ninety-year-old woman and a soldier who just returned from fighting in France form an unlikely bond. In her new novel “Still Life” a similar dynamic is established at the beginning of the story when Evelyn Skinner, a 60-something art historian and Ulysses Temper, a young British soldier meet in Tuscany during wartime. This fleeting but profound encounter sticks with them both over the years. When he returns to England Ulysses discovers his early love affair and marriage to free-spirited Peg has inalterably changed during the time he's been away at war. Meanwhile, Evelyn fights for the preservation of art while musing upon the early years of her life when she fell in love with Florence and a woman who taught her more than Italian. We follow their lives over the decades from the mid-40s to the late 70s as their lives separately develop and society changes.
While I found the interactions between Ulysses and Evelyn (and, later on, between Peg's daughter Alys and Evelyn) touching, I felt somewhat ambivalent about the way the narrative keeps them separated and then draws them together again through coincidence. There was something artificial and controlled about this device which makes a game of how they come close to encountering each other on numerous occasions before finally reuniting. Similarly, there's a whimsical nature to Winman's style of characterisation which kept me at a bit of a distance from many of the personalities in this story and meant I never fully believed in them. This was especially true when it came to a blue-feathered parrot named Claude who likes to quote Shakespeare and performs near-fantastical feats. I wanted to love them yet never found myself completely falling for them. This was dismaying because I love to read about unconventional personalities in historical novels which bring colour to a history which too often feels black and white. People who break social boundaries and live their own truth aren't often memorialised so I appreciate how stories like this try to forge connections across time.
One of the most dramatic and striking sections of the book concerns the 1966 flood of the Arno in Florence. This is brought vividly to life as people hastened to preserve themselves and the vast treasures of art the city holds. It also reinforced the moving sentiment of the book concerning how life and culture can be so quickly obliterated due to war or natural disasters. However, I felt the most successful and poignant section of the novel is the final part which suddenly switches back to the beginning of the century when a young Evelyn first arrives in Florence. Here we see the details of a past she anecdotally recalled at the novel's start concerning the sentimental importance of a pressed flower and her fleeting interactions with the writer E.M. Forster. After following Evelyn as an endearingly eccentric older lady throughout the bulk of the novel to suddenly see her as a naïve love-struck expat who discovers herself in a foreign city was very moving and beautifully rendered. It was a very good way to end this predominantly enjoyable novel that breathes new life into the past.
