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A review by beaingleby
Winter by Ali Smith
4.0
Ali Smith is such an original, confusing and all around brilliant author. This is the second of her seasonal quartet that I have read, as I’m trying to read them along with the seasons and in the intended order. Having read ‘Autumn’ a few months back, I was more in synch with Smith’s signature prose this time around.
‘Winter’ includes the narratives of Sophia, a woman in her sixties who is beginning to lose her mental faculties and exists in a state of confusion in her large family home, in which she resides alone. Between Sophia’s narratives, is that of her son, Art (short for Arthur), who pays a woman £1000 to pretend to be his girlfriend over Christmas as he has recently split with his ex girlfriend of three years, Charlotte. The narratives alternate between the present day setting and Sophia’s childhood, growing up with a rebellious older sister who is a political activist and also briefly covering the early years of Art’s life when Sophia first became a mother.
Smith’s fleeting between these perspectives in a non chronological order casts light on the overall transience and impermanence of time. Her prose is truly unique and once you give up on fully understanding what is going on at all times, it is a really enjoyable reading experience that no other author is able to rival. Her prose is clever, being both abstract and deeply rooted in reality as the novel additionally casts light on recent political affairs, such as Brexit, the country’s stance on immigration, the Grenfell fire and Trump’s power in America. There is frequent playing on words and a lot of hidden meaning behind supposedly benign and trivial things but yet the plot itself is captivating in and of itself.
I would say that I preferred this to Autumn, both because of the increased familiarity I had with the writing style and because of the intrigue of the characters. I found Lux an especially fascinating character and found my favourite passages where whenever she was on the page.
‘Winter’ includes the narratives of Sophia, a woman in her sixties who is beginning to lose her mental faculties and exists in a state of confusion in her large family home, in which she resides alone. Between Sophia’s narratives, is that of her son, Art (short for Arthur), who pays a woman £1000 to pretend to be his girlfriend over Christmas as he has recently split with his ex girlfriend of three years, Charlotte. The narratives alternate between the present day setting and Sophia’s childhood, growing up with a rebellious older sister who is a political activist and also briefly covering the early years of Art’s life when Sophia first became a mother.
Smith’s fleeting between these perspectives in a non chronological order casts light on the overall transience and impermanence of time. Her prose is truly unique and once you give up on fully understanding what is going on at all times, it is a really enjoyable reading experience that no other author is able to rival. Her prose is clever, being both abstract and deeply rooted in reality as the novel additionally casts light on recent political affairs, such as Brexit, the country’s stance on immigration, the Grenfell fire and Trump’s power in America. There is frequent playing on words and a lot of hidden meaning behind supposedly benign and trivial things but yet the plot itself is captivating in and of itself.
I would say that I preferred this to Autumn, both because of the increased familiarity I had with the writing style and because of the intrigue of the characters. I found Lux an especially fascinating character and found my favourite passages where whenever she was on the page.