Public Library and Other Stories - Ali Smith

 

This book made me realize that, perhaps, I should reduce my consumption of Ali Smith books (something that was bound to happen sooner or later anyway, as I've read most of them by now). 

The wordplay and critical observations that would have blown me away a couple of years ago have now lost their spark. 

And this short story collection to me felt haphazardly put together, while the idea of alternating the stories with short personal recollections of (often nostalgically long gone) libraries was probably one of the least original that Smith ever came up with. 

Still, we agree that libraries should play a crucial role in our society, but - having worked in one for the last six years - I definitely believe we should really revolutionize how we think of the spaces and their purpose. 

The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith

  

This is not White Teeth. This is not even NW. It's a pretty average and innocuous novel, but its distinct lack of ambition made me like it more than On Beauty, and way, way more than Swing Time. 

At times I went so far as to find it endearing as it actually shed a light on a very unique community (like Whitehead's John Henry Days), and I actually do find kind of touching the quests for former celebrities - major or minor - that you see here, or in Auster's The Book of Illusions and also in the movie Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, which I was one of the seven people in the country to see in the cinema...

Companion Piece - Ali Smith

  

Yet another distinctively Ali Smith-esque book, and yet another very pleasant read. 

But that got me wondering: has Ali Smith reached her plateau as "amazing author, but maybe not the best of her generation"? It feels like a pretty good plateau to be completely fair, but the fact that the style, the pace and the prose in her novels is always so easily identifiable after a while to me is suggestive of someone who experiments, but mostly within his/her comfort zone. 

Still, I'll pick up an Ali Smith novel pretty much any time I see one, in particular as she pretty much covers and analyzes contemporary events as they happen, but I'm not going to be looking forward to the next one in the same way I was when I had just started to discover her.

Seasonal Quartet - Ali Smith

 

Funnily enough, the Southwark electronic library has a e-copy of the first two books of the series, but I had to go to the actual library (exotic!) to get the hard copies of the last two. 

With hindsight, that was somewhat fitting, as I fell in love with Autumn and Winter, thinking of ways to write to Ali Smith to tell her how impressed I was with her decision to tackle events "in real time", take such a clear stand on so many social issues, and express (yet again) her love for Italy and Italian culture. 

Said love started to subside by Spring, and ultimately Summer left me rather unsatisfied. Much like had happened with Jonathan Coe's Middle England I felt that Smith couldn't quite manage to finish with a "bang" so, to avoid finishing with a "thud", she decided to finish with something that is safe and whose vibe (though - in her defense - not its details) is largely predictable. 

Also, that should teach me about reading four books from the same author in quick succession. I had grown tired of her writing style by the end, and I really wish that hadn't happened.

Swing Time - Zadie Smith

  

Years ago, a colleague of mine carried Swing Time into work every single day for a whole term. I didn't know her then, and I assume that if she carried the same book around for three months she couldn't have been reading it. 

I later found out that she carried it around for so long because because she had loved Zadie Smith's other books, but found this one an absolute slog. 

Having finally read it, I can now officially agree with her. Swing Time has nothing of the brilliance of White Teeth, or even of NW. Yet, it's not an effortless uncommitted read like The Autograph Man, and I even liked On Beauty better than this. 

For me, this book was proof of the fact that good (actually, often great) writing can't save a bad novel, and I don't really care about the bickering of dancing friends who have an unresolved rivalry since their school years.

There but for the - Ali Smith

A novel that I started to read on my return journey from Bolivia this Christmas.

I highly doubt that one can appreciate a novel, or a movie, or anything really, while on an intercontinental flight in economy class on New Year's Eve while travelling with two young daughters. Also, I've probably read too many Ali Smith novels recently (more on those later, as I work my way backwards through the list of the books that I've read over the last three years).

There but for the is a typical Ali Smith novel for me, but its witticisms fell flat for me, and I've probably started to have enough of some of her likeable smart misfits. Yet, the book is set in Greenwich and along roads and buildings that I can see from my flat, and I now won't be able to enter the foot tunnel without thinking about Ali Smith, so after all it was worth the read.

And obviously there's a really good chance that if I hadn't read this book while on a flight, or if this was my first Ali Smith novel, I would have found it wonderful. Sadly, I read this book while on a flight, and it was the latest in a long list of Ali Smith novels for me.

Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith

And for the first time since 1927 I am now writing a book that I've literally just finished. This was the usual £2.50 buy from Fopp (promptly refunded by my work-place as it's a book crucial to my personal development - if my line manager happens to read this post, thank you!).

There are times when Girl meets boy is cheesy and relatively predictable. Yet, the book ends up being an overall delight for a variety of reasons:

a) Ali Smith is a uniquely talented writer
b) Her take on gender, but also on any process of personal growth, is eye-opening
c) She manages to tackle emotionally ponderous themes with a wonderful light touch
d) Screw it, it is cheesy but it's also so very heart-warming...

So yeah, after having read a few of her books I can officially say that Ali Smith is now one of my favourite authors.

Ali Smith - The Accidental

I probably jumped into my second Ali Smith a bit too soon, but I found it on the shelves of the world-famous local farm when all my other books were boxed up for the move, so yeah.

The Accidental is a good book. Problem is, I'm not quite sure if it's more than that. The story is interesting, the characters intriguing, and their reactions during challenging times are the right kind of bonkers (as in, they make the reader want to read about them, not that I condone them!).

Yet, this book lacks something that I can't put my finger on. Or maybe it's just me getting annoyed at the story coming full circle in the final chapter.

How To Be Both - Ali Smith

And thus I discovered Ali Smith. At the tender age of 31 (me, not Ali Smith).

How To Be Both is easily one of the best books I've read this year, and we are at 29 so far. This has to do partially with the fact that it's a novel of two halves that can be read in whichever order, and what blows my mind is that it can actually really work like that. Another reason is surely the decision to focus on Ferrara, a city that I have great memories of visiting as a kid and one that I went back to a couple of years ago with great joy.

Oddly enough, despite the factually questionable stories of disguise in the Renaissance (though extremely interesting from a 21st century perspective) Smith doesn't give a sickening sweet and fake picture of Italy as so many authors do, and that's one of the novels' greatest achievements.

And it also made me want to go back to the National Gallery, the London museum that I have neglected the most over the past 8 years (though I probably spent enough time there in my first 4 years to make up for the prolonged absence).

On Beauty – Zadie Smith

Well, at least to buy this book for 50p my mom had to go all the way to the Red House in Bexleyheath (disclaimer: she was going there to see the place, not to buy cheap second-hand books).

Much like with Franzen when he writes about things outside of Minnesota, I honestly think Zadie Smith loses her spark when she goes beyond (Northwest) London. On Beauty is undeniably well written (you don’t say…), but it’s simply not as witty as White Teeth or even NW (whose recent BBC adaptation I had to stop watching after 20 minutes as I found it excessively intense and humourless). Maybe it just doesn’t work as campus novel, or maybe I’ve had too much of the pettiness of some academics in real life, but to me so much of the book just reads like the script from an episode of Black-ish, a sit-com that I really don’t find particularly funny.

What probably disappointed me the most was the big faculty meeting towards the end of the book – I was expecting something as epic as the FutureMouse conference from White Teeth, but instead I actually got a bitchy, well, faculty meeting…

Hamlet's Dresser - Bob Smith

An extremely random book – a memoir rather than a novel really – that my parents bought for my wife ages ago (maybe when she moved to London and started to accompany me to see the Royal Shakespeare Company, first at the Novello Theatre, than at the fairly awful New London Theatre, and then finally at the Barbican?).

To me the book is fundamentally divided in three intertwined plots/narrative lines – the narrator’s troubled family past and his complex relationship with his sister and her mental illness, his personal experiences as a dresser/stagehand, and lastly his Shakespeare classes for elderly people in New York City.

The first narrative line is soft and touching, and Smith is actually remarkably good at portraying the situation for what it actually is/was (or at least, that’s the impression the reader gets) without any need to sweeten it, or to portray himself as better or worse than how he genuinely appears to be.

The second narrative line is intriguing – reading about Katherine Hepburn, Jessica Tandy, and all the other great actors who crossed the stage in Stratford CT is like watching a very good documentary with random comments and anecdotes by people who happen to have crossed paths with some of the greats of the 20^th century.

The last narrative line is clearly the one that touches me the least, probably because I am one of those awful people who tend not to find too much poetry in the elderly and the remarkably problematic challenges they have to face on a daily basis – to me those are just painful and very possibly insurmountable. 

White Teeth – Zadie Smtih

This is the book that started my love-hate relationship with Zadie Smith. Seriously, if you are 25 and have a degree in English literature, you should be worried about making ends meet, not getting stuck in a dead-end job and making sure that your flatmate has left you the money to buy the kitchen foil, instead at that age Zadie Smith had just finished writing one of the best British novels of the last 30 years!

Archie’s family is really interesting to begin with, but Samad’s is even better. Probably I’m saying this because I’m an immigrant myself and have questions about my roots, but the upbringing of Magid and Millat is somewhere between hilarious and astonishingly fascinating. And I can absolutely relate to Samad completely disregarding so many Bangladeshi customs yet constantly defending the memory of his supposedly glorious grandfather.

The last few pages, summarizing the lives of the main characters after the epic FutureMouse conference, give the reader hope for the future of Willesden/London/the UK/humanity as Alsana and Clara join their husbands at O’Connell, a place that in my mind is so seedy that it’s actually kind of charming.

NW - Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith is one of those people I would love to hate. Young, beautiful, supremely talented.

NW is a delightfully quick read, although I did spend a good couple of hundred pages thinking that – while undeniably well-written – the book didn’t really seem to be of the same calibre of, say, White Teeth. Despite being intriguing, the two female protagonists are not exactly likeable (unlike Felix and, in his way, Nathan)  and at times seem excessively stereotyped.

As often happens with great writers, however, the last page is undeniably jaw-dropping. The kind of thing that makes me wish I was still living in North London.

Luckily, although I now live south of the river, I can still go to the Seven Stars for a pint after work – much like Keisha Blake, who seemed a lot nicer before changing her name to become Natalie.