Autumn: Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 by Ali Smith - Paperback

Mi dispiace dare due stelline ma onestamente non è un libro che mi ha colpito. Di facile lettura ma con una “trama” non avvincente

All words have associations, associations as numerous and varied as there are people to form them. Autumn, for example. Some associate it with the encroachment of winter: sharper air and longer nights; darkness and cold. Others, with vibrancy: leaves turning to flame and bushes of scarlet berries; the radioactive greens and oranges of Halloween.Whatever you associate it with, autumn is a time of change and transformation, the transition between summer and winter. The first installment in a seasonal quartet, Ali Smith’s Autumn is now, autumn 2016: the transition between an explosively divisive summer and an anxious, uncertain winter, summarized neatly by the opening line, a deliberate mis-quotation of Dickens: “It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.”Autumn follows 101-year-old Daniel Gluck – lover of art, words, stories and one-time Songwriter – and 32-year-old Elisabeth Demand, a “no-fixed-hours casual contract junior lecturer at a university in London…living the dream… if the dream means having no job security and almost everything being too expensive to do and that you’re still living in same rented flat you had as a student over a decade ago.” Elisabeth first met Daniel when she and her mother became his neighbours. Fascinated by this sprightly elderly gentleman and the glimpses of his art collection – what her mother scornfully refers to as “arty art”– they create what will be a defining and lifelong friendship. Now, Daniel is lying in a care home, dreaming of the past, not yet dead but hovering somewhere close, with Elisabeth, adrift in a chaotic present, his only visitor.In terms of plot Autumn is light, consisting mainly of Elisabeth’s visits to Daniel interspersed with various dreams and flashbacks. It is instead more of a meditation. A meditation on storytelling: how hope can be found through their telling and the fact that change, good and bad, can be wrought through them, for “whoever makes up the story makes up the world.”On words themselves: the book is full of clever wordplay, references and allusions, from the opening riff on A Tale of Two Cities to a dream in which Elisabeth and Daniel are painting everything white, as a comment on the modern obsession with minimalism, a clear reference to painting the roses red from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Finding them all is like a literary Easter egg hunt. In fact, I’m sure I’ve probably missed quite a few, but I look forward to going back to look for them.On art and how artists are forgotten and rediscovered: perhaps the biggest artistic influence in the book is that of Pauline Boty (her 1963 painting ‘The Only Blonde in the World’, her interpretation of Marilyn Monroe, even adorns the endpapers). Known as the ‘Wimbledon Bardot’ she was Britain’s only female Pop Artist, one of its founders in fact, whose collages and paintings specialized in depicting a raw, rebellious and unbridled joy in female sexuality – how could you not love someone whose work includes a painting of a very generous rear, cheekily framed by a proscenium arch, the word BUM announced in gloriously large, bright red letters? Sadly, and perhaps inevitably, because of her gender Boty didn’t receive the recognition she deserved during her lifetime, and, after dying at the tragically young age of 28, most of her work ended up in storage only to be ‘rediscovered’ some years later. She exerts a great influence over Daniel and, through Daniel, Elisabeth: Daniel was in love with the woman as well as her art, describing Boty’s collages to Elisabeth before gifting her a book of her artwork.Nature: Autumn contains some beautiful descriptive passages of the natural world, and trees – as both a symbol of change and transformation – are a recurring motif throughout the novel.Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Autumn is a meditation on the world today: the present day segments of the story take place in the aftermath of the EU referendum. Elisabeth is visiting her mother and the village where she lives is a perfect microcosm of the effects: the village feels divided, each half resentful of the other; a house is sprayed with graffiti saying ‘go home’; a piece of what was once common land is fenced off and zealously patrolled by a private security firm, for reasons that are never explained, and society feels ever more divided, petty and bureaucratic – the scenes of Elisabeth trying to renew her passport are sharp enough to cut yourself on and will elicit many a sympathetic wince.Elisabeth’s mother Wendy encapsulates it nicely:I’m tired of the news. I’m tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren’t, anddeals so simplistically with what’s truly appalling. I’m tired of the vitriol. I’m tired of theanger. I’m tired of the meanness. I’m tired of the selfishness. I’m tired of how we’re doingnothing to stop it. I’m tired of how we’re encouraging it. I’m tired of the violence there isand I’m tired of the violence that’s on its way, that’s coming, that hasn’t happened yet. I’mtired of liars. I’m tired of sanctified liars. I’m tired of how those liars have let this happen.I’m tired of having to wonder whether they did it out of stupidity or did it on purpose. I’mtired of lying governments, I’m tired of people not caring whether they’re being lied toanymore. I’m tired of being made to feel this fearful. I’m tired of animosity. I’m tired ofpusillanimositySentiments you can identify with whichever way you voted, delivered in a tone that is raw, emotional, sincerely angry and confused, but without being polemic.Ultimately, Autumn is a literate, witty meditation on the redemptive powers of art and literature that also attempts to try and make some sense out of post-Brexit Britain. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Smith has in store for us in the rest of the quartet.

Autumn by Ali Smith is the first in her seasonal quartet. I really quite enjoyed it 😀. I was apprehensive going in due to other bookstagrammars' comments, however, I found it an easily accessible stream of consciousness novel. It was certainly much more put together than others like To The Lighthouse.I felt it had little to do with autumn as the season itself, but much more so metaphorically. It focused on the coming to an end of many things, whether that be a stage of life or a relationship, as well as how that can lead to change and space for renewal.It really encapsulated a specific period of time and mood - the post-Brexit result, which is magnificently apt for the current political climate too, and resonates to today. There were so many microcosms true to everyone's lives; shared experiences that Ali Smith brought excellent observational humour to.Above all, it is about the many and myriad types of love. Now I am really looking forward to reading the rest of the seasonal quartet, in the appropriate seasons, this coming year.Favourite quotes:- "But news right now is like a flock of speeded-up sheep running off the side of a cliff. The back of Daniel’s head nods. Thomas Hardy on speed, Elisabeth says."- “It is possible, he said, to be in love not with someone but with their eyes. I mean, with how eyes that aren’t yours let you see where you are, who you are.”- “The words had acted like a charm. They’d released it all, in seconds. They’d made everything happening stand just far enough away. It was nothing less than magic.”

It's the first in the season quartet. She always wanted to write one and Brexit came as the perfect time to pen down her thoughts, and oh she does!The writing had me with the first page. Her style is so unique, so eloquent. You just keep flipping pages.Elisabeth is a 32-year old art's lecturer and is seen having a special place for this old man, Daniel in her life and her work. Daniel is over a 100 and admitted in a hospital where he is diagnosed to have been falling in a deep sleep, the kind you have before you die of a ripe old age.Elisabeth visits Daniel and revisits her memories with him from the time they became neighbours, when she was just a teenager. The novel is set in 2015 just after the Brexit and the situation is explained in a beautiful way!!It incites anger and yet satisfies your senses, it feels so real and relatable. And laced with her poignant writing it's just a treat!You gotta read between the lines, there's tons of symbolism and so well put together. You'll be commending the author every few pages for her ability to just say something so differently and yet so easily.Can't wait to dig in Winter next 😍On Instagram as: themomesapient

Post modern.!!!,Heavy, totally unlinear, no problem with that but frustratingly repetitive, endlessly wordy and trying to be too clever. No affinity with the characters or plot. Has tried too hard and failed. Pity, but not worth the effort!