Book Review: Winter, by Ali Smith (2017)



This is the second installment in Ali Smith’s series of four books, each of which is named after one of the seasons. There is no connection between this novel and the previous, with new characters, situations, and circumstances. Like the last, this book also highlights the work of a lesser-known female artist (in Autumn it was Pauline Boty; this time it is Barbara Hepworth). A narrative is also included of the attritional protest held at a US army base at Greenham Common in the early 1980s against the installment of nuclear weapons, which developed into a permanent female-manned peace camp that lasted for years.

Winter has a stronger storyline than Autumn did, and I enjoyed reading this book more. Commentary on politics and society is still there, but more subtle and in the background than before. The plot involves few characters. Art is a somewhat aimless young man from London who has had one argument too many with his girlfriend Charlotte, prompting her to leave him just prior to Christmas. For the holiday they were due to be visiting his mother Sophia in Cornwall. Not wanting to go alone, Art persuades a girl (Lux) he meets at a bus stop to pretend to be Charlotte for three days in return for a thousand pounds. She is Croatian and struggling to make ends meet while aspiring to study Shakespeare. 


On arrival at the large country house Sophia has bought in Cornwall it becomes clear that Art’s mother is not at all well (the fridge is stocked only with some fermenting salad). To save Christmas, Lux persuades Art to call in his Aunt (Iris), which he does reluctantly, since his mother and her sister have opposite characters and haven’t got on with each other for years. Christmas is saved to a degree, although it is an unconventional one – the sisters accept (enjoy?) each other’s company although continue to argue, and Lux proves to be adept at helping both Sophia and Art in subtle, sophisticated, and soothing ways.


As I’ve stated before, the style of Smith’s writing is very enjoyable, especially the way she plays with time, jumping forwards and backwards and chopping and changing tenses to talk about what will have happened by a certain point and what is happening in the past. I don’t know, but I can imagine that writing is quite fun for her, spontaneous and organic and fitful, certainly not laborious or forced (but of course I might be wrong).


Is there a grand theme to this book? I think different readers will take different meanings from it. Certain things don’t seem to happen for any reason at all to me, or go unexplained (such as Art’s hallucination at the dining table when he believed there was a huge slab of rock suspended just above their heads). I think the book gives space to differing views without dictating that one has to be right or wrong. Perhaps the message is for us all to be more accommodating of each other on both the grand and the micro scale. 


I’m now looking forward to getting into Spring.

 

Favourite Character: Easy, it’s Lux (the unreal Charlotte).  

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