Well, this is a strange one because, let’s face it,
I have bemoaned many an author before for being lazy with the time honoured
tradition of using the comma, speech-marks and the full stop where appropriate
and, when lacking I become somewhat distracted which, for me, spoils the
experience but here, Ali Smith's writing style has such a sense of freedom to
it, unshackled by those conventions and structures that it just works. Strange!
So, in honour of this damned right annoyance having been nothing more than a slight irritation, I shall fill you in on all things Spring.
Spring does not start it germinates. It germinates from Winter but the only connection between the books is the author's name on the cover, so you can read the seasons in any order you wish.
Spring is about loss, the loss of a friend; a best friend and onetime lover, for Paddy is dead, gone, and for Richard, who has known her, loved her, worked with her for decades, there seems little reason to carry on. With his ex-wife and daughter estranged he might as well just crawl under the train that’s arrived in the remote Scottish station and wait for it to roll.
Spring is about Florence, a schoolgirl with amazing powers, powers of persuasion. A schoolgirl who walks into a brothel and out again without hurt or trauma, whilst emancipating the ‘workers’. A girl who rescues her mother from a high security detention centre for illegal immigrants saves Richard and travel the country with impunity without payment or service.
Spring is about detention, immigration, power and our inability as a nation to truly comprehend the trauma, fear, pain, anguish and steadfast resolve those who have fled their countries have really gone through to get here, but when Brittany meets Florence and they travel to Scotland and save Richard and met Alda – not her real name as she too is illegal – and Florence and Alda disappear, it focuses the mind, Richard’s in particular.
Spring is a time for regeneration, life to bloom, death to be celebrated, be it the death of winter or Paddy’s death, and Richard is rejuvenated, he has a new project: Immigration, and he’s filming again, working, he’s found meaning.
This book is a charming, scary, slightly surreal experience that has an almost poetic flow to the narrative that has you not only flicking forward to see how things materialise but back to check you've made sense of it all and Spring, be it the book or the season, are so full of delights I can recommend them both. Be out, get out, come rain - which we have a lot of in England - or shine, and enjoy it, them, life, the memories of those who have passed, and read; read this, Spring, but read that too, the one you’ve been putting off the one you loved as a child, the one you didn’t read but should have and revel in beginnings.
Three and a half stars.
So, in honour of this damned right annoyance having been nothing more than a slight irritation, I shall fill you in on all things Spring.
Spring does not start it germinates. It germinates from Winter but the only connection between the books is the author's name on the cover, so you can read the seasons in any order you wish.
Spring is about loss, the loss of a friend; a best friend and onetime lover, for Paddy is dead, gone, and for Richard, who has known her, loved her, worked with her for decades, there seems little reason to carry on. With his ex-wife and daughter estranged he might as well just crawl under the train that’s arrived in the remote Scottish station and wait for it to roll.
Spring is about Florence, a schoolgirl with amazing powers, powers of persuasion. A schoolgirl who walks into a brothel and out again without hurt or trauma, whilst emancipating the ‘workers’. A girl who rescues her mother from a high security detention centre for illegal immigrants saves Richard and travel the country with impunity without payment or service.
Spring is about detention, immigration, power and our inability as a nation to truly comprehend the trauma, fear, pain, anguish and steadfast resolve those who have fled their countries have really gone through to get here, but when Brittany meets Florence and they travel to Scotland and save Richard and met Alda – not her real name as she too is illegal – and Florence and Alda disappear, it focuses the mind, Richard’s in particular.
Spring is a time for regeneration, life to bloom, death to be celebrated, be it the death of winter or Paddy’s death, and Richard is rejuvenated, he has a new project: Immigration, and he’s filming again, working, he’s found meaning.
This book is a charming, scary, slightly surreal experience that has an almost poetic flow to the narrative that has you not only flicking forward to see how things materialise but back to check you've made sense of it all and Spring, be it the book or the season, are so full of delights I can recommend them both. Be out, get out, come rain - which we have a lot of in England - or shine, and enjoy it, them, life, the memories of those who have passed, and read; read this, Spring, but read that too, the one you’ve been putting off the one you loved as a child, the one you didn’t read but should have and revel in beginnings.
Three and a half stars.
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