Summer, book review. (Ail Smith)

So that's it. The seasons concluded, all read; so do I have a favourite? How does Summer stack up against the others?

Art and Charlotte (the real Charlotte), are back and doing their Art in Nature web posts, although they aren't a couple anymore, just friends. Art's mum has died since, Winter but they keep in touch with his aunt, Iris, the activist sister who marched on Greenham Common.

When Art's mother died she left a stone sculpture to Daniel Gluck who, it turns out, has the other half of the work, and so they journey to see him, inviting, Sasha, her brother, Robert and their mum, Grace Greenlaw to go with them - they only met Sasha at the beech that morning after her brother had played a cruel trick on her but now, having seen her home safely, via the A&E, they're all becoming friends.

Daniel now lives with his old neighbour and friend the art historian/lecturer, Elisabeth. He drifts in and out of reality, spending most of his time dreaming of the past and during those dreamy flashbacks the reader learns all about his life when he and his father were interned in a camp on the Isle of Man during WWII, due to his German heritage - even though he was born in England. We also learn of his sister, Hannah, who he used to write to, only to burn the letters because he didn't know if she was alive or dead - she was dead, killed by the Nazis in the war - but before she died she too would write letters she would never send. And so we learn about her life: how she fell in love, had a daughter, worked for the French resistance and died doing so.

Later, when Art & Charlotte meet Daniel & Elisabeth, Art & Elizabeth connect so, as the book draws to a close we discover Charlotte is living with Iris in the massive house, Chei Bres in Cornwall, whilst Art is living with Elizabeth the other side of the country.

The style of writing is carried across all four seasons as are the characters, Sasha even writes to a detainee in an asylum centre which brings Spring back to mind and it's a worthy conclusion to the tetralogy and merited the time I spent reading them and so, in answer to my initial question, no, I don't have a favourite as they all brought something unique to what is, essentially, a study of humanity (and a very interesting one at that), but the writing is quirky and if you do start with Autumn - the first one published and the weaker of the quartet in my opinion - keep going.

Four stars for this one then and do check out Autumn, (posted 08/11/23), Winter, (posted 06/10/22) and Spring, (posted 04/09/22) for my thoughts on all the Seasons by, Ali Smith.

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Autumn, book review. (Ali Smith)

Being part one of the author's 'Seasons' series, I first read this about five years ago but, having read Spring and Winter last year (see post 04/09/22 & 06/10/22 respectively), I thought a re-read in order.

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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Winter, book review. (Ali Smith)

Everything is dead!
You name it and it’s dead: God is dead, chivalry is dead, Jazz, politics, thought, love, TV, Christmas, Earth, the internet, in fact the only thing that isn’t dead are ghosts.
Sophie wakes one morning in her fifteen bedroom house – Chei Bres – and sees a large floating head, just a head, which gradually transforms into the head of a small child before becoming a lifeless floating stone so, maybe ghosts too are dead?
Art (Arthur), Sophie’s son, is traveling to his mother’s for Christmas but has an issue. Charlotte, his girlfriend – possibly – and he, have fallen out and she’s trashing his Twitter feed, his ‘Art in Nature’ posts, which he just makes up anyway to sound earthy and environmentally conscious, so he needs a plan. His mother is expecting a Charlotte!
Talking of environmentally conscious, Sophie’s estranged sister, Iris, who, decades earlier used to squat in Chei Bres with a group of ecologically minded souls, now lives close-by because, in spite of their dislike for each other she worried when her sister moved to such a remote house – sisterly love in the face of adversity. Maybe not everything is dead!
Although it is supposed to be winter, it is also February when Iris takes Sophie to watch an Elvis movie when they were kids, April when a loved one passes, July when Sophie meets a man she first met at Chei Bres in ‘78 and abscond to Paris to look at art make love and drink coffee – he is Arthur’s father – and it is September, Greenham Common airbase and there’s a protest, and the few become thousands and they encircle the entire perimeter, hand in hand, one of them being Iris and then it’s Christmas eve and Art has arrived, called his aunt as his mother has no food and has to ask his fake girlfriend (Lux) to pretend to be Charlotte!
The crux of this story is love, family ties and how sometimes things get stretched to a point where you’d never believe it possible to pull them back but then, somehow they are, and I suppose, on that basis this book is about, above all else, hope.
Ali Smith’s writing bucks convention (see blogpost 04/09/22 for Spring) but is fluid, and her setting of a scene, her ability to create tension between the sisters, make Art feel unloved but loved, the reader to feel sorrow, anger, fear and joy and wonderment are a testament to her skill as a writer, a skill I feel all should enjoy and so, as bizarre as the above might sound, I’m recommending this to all.
Three and a half stars

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Spring, book review. (Ali Smith)

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.

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