With the same style of narrative but lacking the cold of Winter and the brightness of Spring, Autumn is my least favourite of the series so far but it's not all bad. (I'm yet to read Summer ).
There is love and hope and sadness: there is art and war and loneliness, there is growing up and growing old, being young and being bold, angst between family and friendships between neighbours, and not a small amount of chatter about a certain antiques show on the television - no, not the Fiona Bruce one!
Elisabeth meets Daniel, who is seventy years her senior, when they become neighbours and, twenty years later, with Daniel on his death bed, Elisabeth is the only person who visits.
Daniel spends his days asleep, dreaming of his past life, how he fell in love when he was young, fell in love with an artist, the only female Pop Artist in fact and how that love was never reciprocated.
The artist in question, Pauline Boty, influenced Elisabeth enough when she was young for her to become an art lecturer, so Daniel's love for Pauline did, in a way, lead Elisabeth to her chosen career.
Aside from art and love and friendship, this novel is about Brexit, but it's about human failure and human achievement too.
Elisabeth's mother's failure to see her daughter and Daniel's relationship as unusual but healthy, as opposed to just, wrong. Daniel's failure to move on from a love he never had. Elisabeth's failure to form strong bonds with people and find love herself but, then you have to ask: are these really failures or are they choices?
Could it not be an achievement that Daniel dedicated his life to his career and later on helped Elizabeth with hers? That Elisabeth isn't looking for love, or is just plane happy in her own company? Could we not argue that Brexit is both a good and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it?
Autumn is written in a way that leaves me confused. It hops around a bit and the style - as I have eluded to before - is somewhat strange, and I've yet to work out exactly what this book is about. I suppose it's about all of the above: love, friendship, fear and hate, being old and being young, art and division but even though I've had plenty of time for all of that to sink in, I'm still not sure what to take from it, even after a re-read.
Three stars.
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