Book Review: Autumn, Ali Smith
Book Review: Autumn, Ali Smith (2016)
My rating: 4 stars / 5I recently visited Bath for my birthday and bought a million and one books for myself. I say recently, it was September. I went to Toppings Booksellers, and one of the novels I picked up was Autumn by Ali Smith.
Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer.
Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever…
This book is part of Smith’s seasons series. I believe that this is the first, despite being the UK’s “third” season of the year. Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2017, Smith uses words to convey feeling in the most magical way. I chose Autumn because it’s a beautiful book cover, and it’s my favourite season. I loved Smith’s girl meets boy (2007) and have always wanted to read more. This felt like an appropriate place to start.
Smith explores time, and how we experience it. So, fittingly, the book opens up on a spin on A Tale of Two Cities: ‘It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.’ (3). This passing of time is central to the novel. Our two protagonists, Elisabeth and Daniel, are both separated by time - Daniel is a lot older than Elisabeth - as well as spending time apart in the novel. They meet when Elisabeth is just an 8 year old child. He is her next door neighbour, and he opens her world into one filled with art, words, and constantly asks ‘What you reading?’ (68). Later on, their lives drift apart, and so they become separated again. When, at long last they reunite, they are separated by Daniel’s illness and old age. The way Smith portrays the impact Daniel has on Elisabeth is beautiful. Friendship, mentorship. Daniel has a complete understanding of words and how they work. Often picking Elisabeth up on the ones she uses.
The novel flits between time too. We frequently return to Elisabeth sitting beside Daniel in his last resting place. She moves backwards and forwards through memories and times and ages, but returns to his bedside to read to him, to remember him, to think about her life. I think this shows how time is different for everyone. It is difficult to tell one story, one timeline, because these things intermingle. So instead, our stories and lives are woven together in chapters and chunks and seasons.
I think my favourite section is the dreamlike state Daniel begins the novel in. He is in a heaven-like beachscape. Once more, showing the liminal nature of time, life, death, and people. In this heaven-scape, Daniel is within sight of the living. In this passage, comes one of my favourite lines from the book: ‘They are holidaying up the shore from the dead.' (12). A simple line which reinforces our proximity to death, and the consistent ‘thing about things [...] They fall apart’ (3). Impeccable.
The novel is set just after the referendum that leads to the UK being no longer part of the EU. A sad time in my life, the vote in which I had no say, and yet am greatly impacted by. So it was strange reading this given that I have heard the word Brexit thrown around so much, and yet at the time, I couldn’t make a difference to the outcome. In the novel, we read uncomfortable moments of xenophobia and the harsh reality of the way the world seems to be heading. Including, a very apt description of exactly what I’m sure a lot of people are feeling:
‘I’m tired of the news. [...] I’m tired of the vitriol. I’m tired of the anger. I’m tired of selfishness. I’m tired of how we’re doing nothing to stop it. I’m tired of how we’re encouraging it. I’m tired of the violence there is, and I’m tired of the violence that’s on its way, that’s coming, that hasn’t happened yet.’ (57).
And yet, within all of that, there are beautiful moments. The brief pauses in the plot to describe the changing of the season are a respite from the gloom and the constant ticking of life and whirlwind of stories interweaving. A sort of reminder that there is beauty in the passing of time. A moment to come together and remember that despite differences, the trees still look the same for everyone - though they might be seen differently. One of my favourites:
‘October’s a blink of the eye. The apples weighing down the tree a minute ago are gone and the tree’s leaves are yellow and thinning. [...] The ones that aren’t evergreen are a combination of beautiful and tawdry, red orange gold the leaves, then brown, and down.’ (177)
In fact, as you flip through, most of the chapters or sections or moments in time (by this I mean chunks of prose within the book) begin with a reference to time, or the passing of it. The first four begin: ‘It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times’ (3), ‘It is a Wednesday, just past midsummer’ (15), ‘Daniel is still here’ (29), ‘That moment of dialogue? Imagined.’ (33). That’s pretty cool.
So much thought goes into Smith’s writing and images and messaging and themes, that you don’t even notice. The mark of a good writer is one that is so meticulous, yet comes across so carefree. The novel feels like a wind blowing across your brain. Sprinkling gems of dialogue and turns of phrase, without thudding clunkily or purposefully into your eyelids. A dream to read, honestly. Despite using the line ‘I’m tired of not having the right words’ (57), I find Smith usually does.
Some more phrases of note:
‘Then he pulls, straight out of his chest, of his collarbone, like a magician, a free-floating mass of the colour orange.’ (39)
‘He said it as if time could be a place’ (75)
‘Silence from Elisabeth, except for the sound of her breathing.
Silence from Daniel, except for the sound of his.’ (203)
'Look at the colour of it’ (260)
Ultimately, Smith’s portrayal of the passing of time, of the hope and hopelessness of the human mind, of the transient nature of relationships, of life, is breathtakingly complicated. There isn’t an “answer”, there isn’t a moral. I don’t think there’s a lesson to be learned here, a takeaway. Simply, an exploration. Laying us all open flat on the operating table. Cutting chunks from our brains, our bones, our chests. A mirror showing you the real you, and lots of other you’s.
Autumn, Ali Smith: 4 Stars
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