The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
sammybook's review against another edition
5.0
Something I didn't realise when I was reading this is that the order of the two narratives that make up this book is different in every copy. I started with Francescho's half first. Love how Ali Smith is so playful with words, and how she delves into concepts like art, life, time, gender, love, death in such a clever and complex, yet weirdly digestible and light way. A bit like a modern Orlando. Yes yes !
medievaljuliana's review against another edition
3.0
My feelings towards this remind me those towards Groff’s Monsters of Templeton, in that I found the historical section of the book much more interesting than the contemporary one.
myeonghopabo's review against another edition
1.0
for a hot favourite of book awards, this was so acquired, meandering in seeming pointlessness.Â
rowanluv's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
oliviahurll's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
2.5
How to be both two stories and one, past and present, dead and alive. How to be both thoroughly engaging while simultaneously frustrating. ’How to be both’, by Ali Smith: an intriguing paradox of a novel. Â
Over two independent but linked chapters, Smith delivers to us a story of two halves. On the one hand, there is George - a sweet, smart, endearingly pedantic 16-year-old, navigating adolescence after the unexpected death of her mother. The prose here is relatively simple yet intimate; a stream of consciousness following the emotional aftermath of her passing, rich and seamlessly woven with reminiscence of time spent together - the special, the domestic, the memorable, the mundane. Through the skillful employment of flash forwards and flashbacks, we flit naturally between the past and George’s present and hardly notice. Grieving, George falls, no doubt, into a similar cognitive loop. A memory of particular personal significance to her surrounds an art trip they took to Italy on account of her mother’s fascination with a fresco by painter Francesco del Cossa. Art assumes a symbolic role of the central motif. Whether through music, film or ditching school for the National Gallery, ‘How to be Both’ says something about art’s nostalgic, distracting and optimally restorative effect on those in hardship. But perhaps what shines most on the page, separating this novel from other meditations on art, is the mode in which this comes across - through speech. The passing nuance grounded in the witty, playful dialogue between George and her mother offers stimulating insight, without taking itself too seriously.Â
On the other hand, or in the other order, depending on what edition you’re reading, we follow the story of Francesco del Cossa themselves; the story of whom, George notes, is otherwise elusive. And so the crossovers begin. Immediately, this chapter feels different, more experimental. It begins poetically, in free verse, to describe the scene of a boy in front of a painting which then flows into abstract prose. It emerges that we are reading from the perspective of an immortalised Francesco, sitting in an art gallery, who later delves into his memories of the past, much like before. While much of the language is acoustically marvellous, rhythmic and saturated with fast-packed similes, this seems to come at the expense of its semantic content. To animate the Renaissance artist and their internal dialogue, Smith indulges in a heightened level of language, as well as techniques such as false starts and rhetorical questions to convey a sense of bewilderment surrounding their own death. Though, arguably, the reader is supposed to share this sense to some degree, much of the time I felt I lacked the comprehension to fully engage. For me, the exposition was too vague to foster the mutual understanding between voice and reader that enabled the former chapter to exercise such agility between subjects. Unfortunately, instead of deciphering the overarching message of the chapters or fully appreciating their interconnectedness, I found myself returning too frequently to five simple questions: ‘who, what, where, when and why?’.Â
estherdb's review against another edition
5.0
Wow, just wow.
My book started with Francesco's part, but in hindsight I think I should've started with George's, because I think many elements would make more sense if you read them in that order. (E.g. the anachronisms - which confounded me at first - or the "boy" standing in front of Francesco's paintings, etc.) In addition, I have to admit that it took me some 20 pages to get into this book. I literally thought: "Oh no, not one of these weird stream-of-consciousness novels again." However, I can honestly say that it then hooked me and I could hardly put it down afterwards. There was just something in there that took me along with the stream and made me want to ride it forever. I am immensely happy that I persisted because it turned out to be one of the best books I've read so far. The novel turned me - a stubborn sceptic - into a believer, which, trust me, few books can (usually, I either like it from the start or I hate it). The writing is savvy and clever, and the interwoven plots are simply genius.
- Male - female: George/Georgia, Francesco del Cossa
- Real - imagined: is George's mom really spied upon? Is Francesco truly a spirit following George or did George imagine him and filled in his/her storyline as a sympathy/empathy experiment? (Some elements, like the origin of St. Vincent Ferrer, Francesco's mother also having died young, the sympathy/empathy school project, or George and her mother wondering about the painter's sex, etc. really made me question whether or not Francesco's part - whose narrative I enjoyed immensely - was ever "real" at all.)
- Past - present: is the past relevant? How does the past affect the present?
- Dead - alive: is there such a thing as being a "spirit"? Can you be both alive and dead? (I also loved how mourning was portrayed, as a sort of being dead and closed up from the outside world, yet still living in it.)
- Seeing and Seen: George and the girl in the porn film, George's mother and Lisa, Francesco and his/her paintings, Francesco and Barto... [A topic which is especially relevant in our modern society, where we are constantly "minotaured" and monitored, and where we are constantly looking at others. Either in real life/in the flesh or on a screen.]
- Loving and loved: George and Helena, George and her mother/father (I loved Smith's portrayal of a family that argues a lot and definitely isn't perfectly getting along, because many families are like that without it meaning that you don't love each other), George's mother and Lisa, Francesco and his father/mother, and so many others.
- etc.
And yet, How to Be Both teaches us that it simply doesn't matter. You do not have to think in binary oppositions: people's identities, behaviour and relationships are all sorts of in between. [Which was cleverly symbolised by Helena's being from North, East, South à nd West.] Every element in this novel is connected, just like everything is in the real world.
This book was an overwhelming mindfuck, but in a good way. I loved how Smith intertwined the past and the present. The multiplicity that's lurking around every phrase in this novel just makes for such a rich and beautiful whole. Smith doesn't pin her readers down on one interpretation, we are free to look at her work from different points of view. I both enjoy the idea of Francesco somehow being connected to George and looking over her as a spirit, yet I also really like the hypothesis of Francesco's narrative being a creation of a sixteen-year-old who's imagining the life of a painter who lived 500 years ago.
My book started with Francesco's part, but in hindsight I think I should've started with George's, because I think many elements would make more sense if you read them in that order. (E.g. the anachronisms - which confounded me at first - or the "boy" standing in front of Francesco's paintings, etc.) In addition, I have to admit that it took me some 20 pages to get into this book. I literally thought: "Oh no, not one of these weird stream-of-consciousness novels again." However, I can honestly say that it then hooked me and I could hardly put it down afterwards. There was just something in there that took me along with the stream and made me want to ride it forever. I am immensely happy that I persisted because it turned out to be one of the best books I've read so far. The novel turned me - a stubborn sceptic - into a believer, which, trust me, few books can (usually, I either like it from the start or I hate it). The writing is savvy and clever, and the interwoven plots are simply genius.
Spoiler
How to be both...- Male - female: George/Georgia, Francesco del Cossa
- Real - imagined: is George's mom really spied upon? Is Francesco truly a spirit following George or did George imagine him and filled in his/her storyline as a sympathy/empathy experiment? (Some elements, like the origin of St. Vincent Ferrer, Francesco's mother also having died young, the sympathy/empathy school project, or George and her mother wondering about the painter's sex, etc. really made me question whether or not Francesco's part - whose narrative I enjoyed immensely - was ever "real" at all.)
- Past - present: is the past relevant? How does the past affect the present?
- Dead - alive: is there such a thing as being a "spirit"? Can you be both alive and dead? (I also loved how mourning was portrayed, as a sort of being dead and closed up from the outside world, yet still living in it.)
- Seeing and Seen: George and the girl in the porn film, George's mother and Lisa, Francesco and his/her paintings, Francesco and Barto... [A topic which is especially relevant in our modern society, where we are constantly "minotaured" and monitored, and where we are constantly looking at others. Either in real life/in the flesh or on a screen.]
- Loving and loved: George and Helena, George and her mother/father (I loved Smith's portrayal of a family that argues a lot and definitely isn't perfectly getting along, because many families are like that without it meaning that you don't love each other), George's mother and Lisa, Francesco and his father/mother, and so many others.
- etc.
And yet, How to Be Both teaches us that it simply doesn't matter. You do not have to think in binary oppositions: people's identities, behaviour and relationships are all sorts of in between. [Which was cleverly symbolised by Helena's being from North, East, South à nd West.] Every element in this novel is connected, just like everything is in the real world.
This book was an overwhelming mindfuck, but in a good way. I loved how Smith intertwined the past and the present. The multiplicity that's lurking around every phrase in this novel just makes for such a rich and beautiful whole. Smith doesn't pin her readers down on one interpretation, we are free to look at her work from different points of view. I both enjoy the idea of Francesco somehow being connected to George and looking over her as a spirit, yet I also really like the hypothesis of Francesco's narrative being a creation of a sixteen-year-old who's imagining the life of a painter who lived 500 years ago.
jakeryave's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
not my favorite ali smith. wasn’t engrossed like i have been with her others - this felt much denser to me
mverissimo's review against another edition
3.0
Sendo um livro "romance-espelho", que liga duas histórias, posso dizer que adorei a primeira história e achei a segunda muito confusa. Claro, sempre ao estilo de Ali Smith