Book Review: Autumn, by Ali Smith (2016)

 

Hard to put my finger on this apparently rapidly written Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel. The themes are clear – it’s about the impacts of the aftermath of the Brexit vote on society, reflecting these impacts in a wholly negative light. It's also about relationships of various kinds – romantic, mother-daughter, and, most prominently, that between a young girl (Elisabeth, main character) and her much older next-door neighbour (Mr Gluck). The storyline also provides a narrative of the Profumo affair from the perspective of Christine Keeler, and focusses on the career and ill-fated life of the generally overlooked British pop artist, Pauline Boty. The book is also about time, jumping around as it does between now and then in a sometimes ill-defined manner, and the title – Autumn – provides a general focus for the descriptive passages.

The narrative overall is subtle, there are no big bangs or twists here, there is little in the way of action, but the political critique is clear – society is divided and unfair, nobody is happy (including those who in theory should be), and the future is bleak. There is a sense of futility permeating everything, from the mundane tasks of everyday life to the prospect of resisting processes and developments that refuse to rest easy on one’s conscience. Even death itself becomes uncertain.

The writing is enjoyable and effective. The author doesn’t seem to aim for an overall style that is consistent and complete (in the way of Vikram Seth, to take an example from this blog), but rather revels in the finer details and uniqueness of individual sentences or paragraphs, making short sections punchy, unpredictable, and stand alone, picking up the tempo or slowing it down at will.

‘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. A frost has snapped millions of trees all across the country into brightness. The ones that aren’t evergreen are a combination of beautiful and tawdry, red orange gold the leaves, then brown, and down.’

Perhaps as a consequence of having no strong storyline or particularly fulfilling ending, I don’t imagine the novel residing long in the memory. However, this is perhaps no bad thing. It will possibly lure readers back in an inquisitive way, and allows the opportunity for this narrative to be read afresh in the future, when the significance of the work might be all the greater.

To finish with a grumble… speech marks may not add anything to a story, but omitting them takes something useful away!

Favourite Character: Mr Gluck is undoubtedly a good guy… perhaps a bit too good. Kudos to him for inspiring the young Elisabeth and broadening her mind. However, given that the bulk of his conversation was with his young next-door neighbour, there was a lack of opportunity for his philosophical musings to be fully scrutinised or contested, which gave him something of a free pass. The grown-up Elisabeth was my favourite character – her attitude seems to be right for this world.