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bagusayp's review against another edition
4.0
I’ll have to admit that this is a book that I picked up solely for its cover, which features a photograph of Sylvie Vartan and Françoise Hardy by Jean-Marie Périer. It’s summer in the photograph, showing the two women “walking a road together past some shops in a very sunny looking place”. Both Françoise and Sylvie were born in the same year, 1944, and they grew to be 1960s icons in France. Any French learners would at least know Françoise’s song Tous les garçons et les filles, she’s reserved and shy as the lyrics of her song suggest. Whereas Sylvie was full of energy, bubbly and party-loving. This very photograph would be a subject of conversations between George and her friend H, about which H likens George’s characters to the image of Sylvie Vartan.
There are two ways to read How to be Both, and both ways are equally interesting. The story is told from two perspectives. First, we have George, a 16-year old pedantic girl living in Cambridge who grew up with a mother who was a child of the 1960s. The other one, we have Francesco del Cossa, an Italian Renaissance painter of the School of Ferrara who lived circa 1430-1477. Depending on the edition, some readers might end up with an edition that starts with George’s narrative, or another edition that starts with Francesco’s. My own copy starts with George’s, but I decided to take a rebellious act and started with Francesco’s on page 189.
Francesco is best known for his works making frescoes. His paintings are mostly on religious subjects, but he was also involved in a collaboration with another Renaissance painter, Cosimo Tura. Both painted a series of allegories around the themes of zodiac and cycle of months at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. Chief among his works is his portrait of St. Vincent Ferrer, which will become an important instrument in both perspectives of the story. Francesco’s narrative in this story is like disjointed fragments, with frequent travels to his memories of the past. Told from the first-person point of view, the words reveal the psychology of an artist, of how they see the world, about which Francesco says: “It is a feeling thing, to be a painter of things : cause every thing, even an imagined or gone thing or creature or person has essence … ” About love, he says: “ … love is best felt : the acts of love are hard and disillusioning to view like this unless done by the greatest master picturemakers … " Honestly, Francesco’s part is more abstract, harder to understand, but I’ll have to say that he had a way with words and funny remarks at times that are not easily translatable to the lexicons of laypeople.
In contrast, George’s narrative is more typical of everyday life in the 2010s. She is a student, who finds it hard to come to terms with the sudden death of her mother, Dr Carol Martineau Economist Journalist Internet Guerilla Interventionist – based on her obituary. She lives with Henry, a younger brother whose eyes are glued to his iPad all day long, and an alcoholic father. She has fond memories of her mother, with whom she travelled to see the frescoes in Ferrara which Francesco painted six centuries before and had a wonderful conversation about the artist. Her mother had a belief that she was constantly being monitored by the authorities, something George would confide later to Helena Fisker, her best friend whom she’d refer to as H throughout the story. They use the code term minotaur to describe the feeling of being monitored, something which George would inherit from her mother. The blur between George and her mother’s actions seemed to disappear as can be seen in George’s character development.
How to be Both is complex, but it’s dazzling in its complexity portraying how two persons from different eras could be interconnected. It hints at the message of interconnectedness, of gender-blurring with characters that have unisex names, of time-blurring with two alternating timelines, and describing how one person could contain multitudes with more than one personality at the same time, sometimes of two opposing camps. It’s a subtle philosophical rendition of art and the business of being humans which is full of contradictions in itself. And in the end, it is also a wonderful attempt to answer the question being posed in the first place: How to be both?
There are two ways to read How to be Both, and both ways are equally interesting. The story is told from two perspectives. First, we have George, a 16-year old pedantic girl living in Cambridge who grew up with a mother who was a child of the 1960s. The other one, we have Francesco del Cossa, an Italian Renaissance painter of the School of Ferrara who lived circa 1430-1477. Depending on the edition, some readers might end up with an edition that starts with George’s narrative, or another edition that starts with Francesco’s. My own copy starts with George’s, but I decided to take a rebellious act and started with Francesco’s on page 189.
Francesco is best known for his works making frescoes. His paintings are mostly on religious subjects, but he was also involved in a collaboration with another Renaissance painter, Cosimo Tura. Both painted a series of allegories around the themes of zodiac and cycle of months at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. Chief among his works is his portrait of St. Vincent Ferrer, which will become an important instrument in both perspectives of the story. Francesco’s narrative in this story is like disjointed fragments, with frequent travels to his memories of the past. Told from the first-person point of view, the words reveal the psychology of an artist, of how they see the world, about which Francesco says: “It is a feeling thing, to be a painter of things : cause every thing, even an imagined or gone thing or creature or person has essence … ” About love, he says: “ … love is best felt : the acts of love are hard and disillusioning to view like this unless done by the greatest master picturemakers … " Honestly, Francesco’s part is more abstract, harder to understand, but I’ll have to say that he had a way with words and funny remarks at times that are not easily translatable to the lexicons of laypeople.
In contrast, George’s narrative is more typical of everyday life in the 2010s. She is a student, who finds it hard to come to terms with the sudden death of her mother, Dr Carol Martineau Economist Journalist Internet Guerilla Interventionist – based on her obituary. She lives with Henry, a younger brother whose eyes are glued to his iPad all day long, and an alcoholic father. She has fond memories of her mother, with whom she travelled to see the frescoes in Ferrara which Francesco painted six centuries before and had a wonderful conversation about the artist. Her mother had a belief that she was constantly being monitored by the authorities, something George would confide later to Helena Fisker, her best friend whom she’d refer to as H throughout the story. They use the code term minotaur to describe the feeling of being monitored, something which George would inherit from her mother. The blur between George and her mother’s actions seemed to disappear as can be seen in George’s character development.
How to be Both is complex, but it’s dazzling in its complexity portraying how two persons from different eras could be interconnected. It hints at the message of interconnectedness, of gender-blurring with characters that have unisex names, of time-blurring with two alternating timelines, and describing how one person could contain multitudes with more than one personality at the same time, sometimes of two opposing camps. It’s a subtle philosophical rendition of art and the business of being humans which is full of contradictions in itself. And in the end, it is also a wonderful attempt to answer the question being posed in the first place: How to be both?
su9ernova's review against another edition
5.0
I didn’t know what to expect when I first read this book. But I was pleasantly surprised with the way it was written. Ali Smith writes in a way that I have never seen before, the way she plays with form and structure, using it to represent how memory works in text was absolutely incredible. The books goes through so many tangents that you as a reader would not know how they are reached as they are written in such a smooth and implicit way that doesn’t make it confusing. I really liked the way this book displayed the process of grief but also made me realize the importance of art and the way we interpret or don’t interpret it. I also really liked how she represented the mind of an artist which made me more motivated to make art again. Just a very, very unique book that makes me want to read more of her works.
ebutton11's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
5.0
yes. yeah. mhm. delectable.
breamfish1138's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Holy POOP that was good.
barbaraalfond's review against another edition
4.0
Five stars or no stars? Tour de force or sleight of hand? Male or female? A book magnificently written about a young fourteenth century artist or a book playfully written about a very young twenty-first century grammarian ? Life or death; lost and found; remembering and forgetting; happy or un? And why should I, or you, care? Because it's gorgeous. Or complicated. Or both.
thepageunfolds's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.0
bridieeflorence's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0