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Gezelschap
De nieuwe roman van Ali Smith is een ode aan ‘gezelschap’ in al zijn tijdloze en hedendaagse, legendarische en ongrijpbare, boeiende en steeds veranderende vormen. Het boek is een vervolg op een unieke prestatie, haar seizoenencyclus – Herfst, Winter, Lente en Zomer –, boeken die zo dicht mogelijk bij de echte tijd werden geschreven en uitgegeven, tussen 2016 en 2020, en die de tijd waarin we leven absorbeerden en weerspiegelden: ‘Romans over de stemming van de natie die begrijpen dat de natie uit jou, mij, ons allemaal bestaat.’ (The New Statesman)
Ali Smith (Inverness, 1962) is een van de grootste auteurs uit Schotland van onze tijd. Vier van haar romans, waaronder Herfst, werden genomineerd voor de Booker Prize.
‘Een vrouw krijgt een onverwacht telefoontje van een voormalige studiegenote die haar vraagt een raadselachtige mededeling te ontcijferen, en van daaruit spint Smith een breder verhaal over eenzaamheid, toevlucht en vrijheid.’
New York Times Book Review
‘Een eigenzinnig, geniaal lockdownverhaal. (...) Het vijfde deel van Smiths seizoenskwartet gaat heen en weer tussen lyrische visioenen, fabels en komedie, tussen geschiedenis en corona.’
The Guardian
‘Sprankelend. (...) Gezelschap is, net als het leven zelf, rommelig, grappig, droef, prachtig en geheimzinnig.’
The Observer
‘Een schitterend, boeiend en knap portret van de wereld waarin we leven, gezien door de verleidelijkste en aardigste romanschijfster die we ons kunnen voorstellen.’
The Telegraph
‘Het nieuwe boek van Ali Smith, zowel een zelfstandige roman als een pendant van haar seizoenskwartet, speelt zich af tijdens de pandemie en biedt een wijze en menselijke stem in riskante tijden.’
Financial Times
Ali Smith (Inverness, 1962) is een van de grootste auteurs uit Schotland van onze tijd. Vier van haar romans, waaronder Herfst, werden genomineerd voor de Booker Prize.
‘Een vrouw krijgt een onverwacht telefoontje van een voormalige studiegenote die haar vraagt een raadselachtige mededeling te ontcijferen, en van daaruit spint Smith een breder verhaal over eenzaamheid, toevlucht en vrijheid.’
New York Times Book Review
‘Een eigenzinnig, geniaal lockdownverhaal. (...) Het vijfde deel van Smiths seizoenskwartet gaat heen en weer tussen lyrische visioenen, fabels en komedie, tussen geschiedenis en corona.’
The Guardian
‘Sprankelend. (...) Gezelschap is, net als het leven zelf, rommelig, grappig, droef, prachtig en geheimzinnig.’
The Observer
‘Een schitterend, boeiend en knap portret van de wereld waarin we leven, gezien door de verleidelijkste en aardigste romanschijfster die we ons kunnen voorstellen.’
The Telegraph
‘Het nieuwe boek van Ali Smith, zowel een zelfstandige roman als een pendant van haar seizoenskwartet, speelt zich af tijdens de pandemie en biedt een wijze en menselijke stem in riskante tijden.’
Financial Times
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2022
436 people are currently reading
9884 people want to read
About the author
Ali Smith
146 books5,327 followersAli Smith is a writer, born in Inverness, Scotland, to working-class parents. She was raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a Ph.D. that was never finished. In a 2004 interview with writing magazine Mslexia, she talked briefly about the difficulty of becoming ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a year and how it forced her to give up her job as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde to focus on what she really wanted to do: writing. She has been with her partner Sarah Wood for 17 years and dedicates all her books to her.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,118 reviews
September 13, 2024
Ali Smith has built her already strong pre 2016 reputation (Encore Prize, 2 x Whitbread/Costa Novel Prize, Women’s Prize, Goldsmith’s Prize) with her fantastic seasonal quartet, published between 2017 and 2020 and which lead the New Statesman to proclaim “Ali Smith is the National Novelist We Need”.
Those books can I think be described in a number of ways:
As a form of literary and artistic palimpsest (the latter an idea Smith has played with in many of her previous books) as Smith makes a novel by building up the work of conceptual artists (Pauline Boty, Barbara Hepworth, Tacita Dean, Lorenza Mazetti respectively in each season) as well as by building up layers of themes and ideas.
As an engagement with topical (the books reflect national trends as they were written and were published almost as soon as written – Smith has talked about restoring the true meaning of novel) using wordplay to engage with topics such as Brexit, climate change and immigration;
This book is her follow up to that quartet.
It, like that quartet, has a very similar David Hockney cover of a path through woods (an idea I think is important – see below)
It has a similar emphasis on topical events: Summer was almost finished as COVID hit (I read a final version in June 2020) and Summer rather serendipitously had a quarantine theme, but otherwise had little on COVID, here it (as well as the NHS) are central to the novel, with anti-immigration themes as key here as throughout the quartet
And while not having many of the overlapping characters or other recurring motives (Charles Dickens, Eduardo Boubat’s “petite fille aux feuilles mortes jardin du Luxembourg Paris 1946”, S4A, Charlie Chaplin, TV links – albeit with reference to the last two the book does open with some “music-hall comedy language”)
It has some familiar Ali Smith devices:
The split time but also convergent storylines of “How to be Both” – with the “You Choose” heading of the novel (reflecting of course the choice of versions and reading order in “How to be Both”) and the Curlew/Curfew sections: one largely present day, one largely past seeming to follow that book’s idea of a novel which one could literally read in two different orders (note that the idea of repeating a book front to back or back to front is a key to the novel’s protagonist’s work);
One of her favourite devices (which seems to feature in many of her novels) a fey young girl with time/physic defying powers;
Heavy reference to other artists: here explicitly the poetry of ee cummings (see below), Dylan Thomas’s “In the White Giant’s Thigh, Robert Burns writing on “are we a piece of machinery …….. or [if there] something within us above the trodden clod” (note both these latter pieces refer to curlew’s – a vital theme of the novel); and more implicitly – by not much more than a book picked up - the work of Alan Garner (this 2015 article – unfortunately behind a partial paywall – appears to say a lot about the novel’s conception https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/...)
Characters names as word play (Shifting Sand here for the main modern day character of the novel: Sandy Gray)
But perhaps most of all this novel felt to me more autobiographical (or perhaps more personal) than the quartet.
Sandy Gray as a child is a fan of the same Alan Garner novel as Ali Smith was at the same age;
In what seems to me a reversal of Smith’s work on the quartet – Sandy is a conceptual artist whose work consist of taking a novel and painting each word of the novel in turn (sometimes front to back, sometimes back to front) onto a canvas, using the layers she creates to get to the underlying themes of the novel.
And perhaps most crucially at the start of the novel- Sandy, who is we learn over time, was from a young age both a master herself with word play and politically active is at the novel’s start worn down (by the corruption of the government, by the mass of COVID deaths it has overseen, and by the hospitalisation with heart disease of her father who bought her up largely as a single parent) which leads her to say (in words we can imagine Ali Smith herself expressing post her quartet) as everything she despaired of in the quartet and against which she wrote with the hope and optimism which is a key distinguisher of her work from the merely polemical, only seemed to get worse:
But while Sandy retains her anger and polemic – she is also inspired:
Firstly by a convoluted but engrossing story (how on earth [had she] known to make up the kind of story that really did intrigue even a deflated version of me) told to her by a lady Martina - who as a girl she previously spoke to once at college many years before - about a mysterious voice she heard while in detention at a both bureaucratic and racist immigration control (all familiar Smith themes) – a story which via a late medieval/early renaissance piece of English metalwork the Boothby lock (real to the book but I think fictional) ends with a disembodied voice and a consonant change challenge – “Curlew or Curfew, You choose” which gives the book its very structure
Secondly by a visitation from a young girl who seems to be a branded vagrant from another ear and whose story we (probably) then later follow - note that branding and labelling of others is an important theme to the book
And Smith, that master of wordplay in the cause of social activism and engagement, while also retaining her anger, is equally inspired - perhaps herself by the a story and a character that visited her - not to give up but instead to return to her ideas, in a story which takes in:
The companionship of a girl and an actual curlew;
That of a old man and his an ageing labrador (let us be honest a Golden Retreiver would have been better but Smith can be forgiven this lapse – perhaps like Sandy she is not that good with dogs);
The rather bizarrely entitled (albeit only there following in their mother's footsteps) and verbalised-TLA-spouting grown up twin children of Martina (who collectively end up as a family of uninvited house guests - a familiar trope seen in both Smith’s “The Accidental” and “There But For The”)
Colonialism and sectarianism in early 20th Century Ireland;
Blacksmithery (particularly female blacksmithery) and mythical stories of Vulcan - and if you want any more proof the book has autofictional elements then reflect on the narrative centrality of a female smith;
Social activism in the late medieval period;
“The Scarlet Letter” (and medieval branding);
ee cummings "to start, to hesitate; to stop" - a poem which is subject in the book to what is effectively a mini literary seminar by Sandy as a student to Martina - and a poem which as well as having thematic links to the novel in its text also features a series of individual letters entering the poem (with the links to branding) and them appearing in the poem in reverse order of what they signify (remember again the front to back, back to front theme)
The songs of Paul Mc Cartney's "Wings" (appropriate for a curlew heavy book)
The Cottingley Fairies (what is one to make of a story about how society was fooled by fake fairies in an author so prone to her fey young female protagonists) and so much more beside
Finally and (remembering the Hockney paintings) Sandy’s standard response when asked about her father – a response whose importance I think is reflected in it appearing on both the third page of the novel and then again three pages from the end (and symmetry and reversal of book order is another key theme) is “not out of the woods yet”
Is this perhaps what Smith is also signalling both in this continuation and companion piece to her own quartet and in her choice of a Hockney wood-path cover that we too as a country are not out of the woods and that neither is her writing. Much as I mourn the first I can only celebrate the second.
My thanks to Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House for an ARC via NetGalley
Those books can I think be described in a number of ways:
As a form of literary and artistic palimpsest (the latter an idea Smith has played with in many of her previous books) as Smith makes a novel by building up the work of conceptual artists (Pauline Boty, Barbara Hepworth, Tacita Dean, Lorenza Mazetti respectively in each season) as well as by building up layers of themes and ideas.
As an engagement with topical (the books reflect national trends as they were written and were published almost as soon as written – Smith has talked about restoring the true meaning of novel) using wordplay to engage with topics such as Brexit, climate change and immigration;
This book is her follow up to that quartet.
It, like that quartet, has a very similar David Hockney cover of a path through woods (an idea I think is important – see below)
It has a similar emphasis on topical events: Summer was almost finished as COVID hit (I read a final version in June 2020) and Summer rather serendipitously had a quarantine theme, but otherwise had little on COVID, here it (as well as the NHS) are central to the novel, with anti-immigration themes as key here as throughout the quartet
And while not having many of the overlapping characters or other recurring motives (Charles Dickens, Eduardo Boubat’s “petite fille aux feuilles mortes jardin du Luxembourg Paris 1946”, S4A, Charlie Chaplin, TV links – albeit with reference to the last two the book does open with some “music-hall comedy language”)
It has some familiar Ali Smith devices:
The split time but also convergent storylines of “How to be Both” – with the “You Choose” heading of the novel (reflecting of course the choice of versions and reading order in “How to be Both”) and the Curlew/Curfew sections: one largely present day, one largely past seeming to follow that book’s idea of a novel which one could literally read in two different orders (note that the idea of repeating a book front to back or back to front is a key to the novel’s protagonist’s work);
One of her favourite devices (which seems to feature in many of her novels) a fey young girl with time/physic defying powers;
Heavy reference to other artists: here explicitly the poetry of ee cummings (see below), Dylan Thomas’s “In the White Giant’s Thigh, Robert Burns writing on “are we a piece of machinery …….. or [if there] something within us above the trodden clod” (note both these latter pieces refer to curlew’s – a vital theme of the novel); and more implicitly – by not much more than a book picked up - the work of Alan Garner (this 2015 article – unfortunately behind a partial paywall – appears to say a lot about the novel’s conception https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/...)
Characters names as word play (Shifting Sand here for the main modern day character of the novel: Sandy Gray)
But perhaps most of all this novel felt to me more autobiographical (or perhaps more personal) than the quartet.
Sandy Gray as a child is a fan of the same Alan Garner novel as Ali Smith was at the same age;
In what seems to me a reversal of Smith’s work on the quartet – Sandy is a conceptual artist whose work consist of taking a novel and painting each word of the novel in turn (sometimes front to back, sometimes back to front) onto a canvas, using the layers she creates to get to the underlying themes of the novel.
And perhaps most crucially at the start of the novel- Sandy, who is we learn over time, was from a young age both a master herself with word play and politically active is at the novel’s start worn down (by the corruption of the government, by the mass of COVID deaths it has overseen, and by the hospitalisation with heart disease of her father who bought her up largely as a single parent) which leads her to say (in words we can imagine Ali Smith herself expressing post her quartet) as everything she despaired of in the quartet and against which she wrote with the hope and optimism which is a key distinguisher of her work from the merely polemical, only seemed to get worse:
Everything was mulch of a mulchness to me right then. I even despised myself for that bit of wordplay, though this was uncharacteristic, since all my life I’d loved language, it was my main character, me its eternal loyal sidekick. But right then even words and everything they could and couldn’t do could f--- off and that was that.
But while Sandy retains her anger and polemic – she is also inspired:
Firstly by a convoluted but engrossing story (how on earth [had she] known to make up the kind of story that really did intrigue even a deflated version of me) told to her by a lady Martina - who as a girl she previously spoke to once at college many years before - about a mysterious voice she heard while in detention at a both bureaucratic and racist immigration control (all familiar Smith themes) – a story which via a late medieval/early renaissance piece of English metalwork the Boothby lock (real to the book but I think fictional) ends with a disembodied voice and a consonant change challenge – “Curlew or Curfew, You choose” which gives the book its very structure
Secondly by a visitation from a young girl who seems to be a branded vagrant from another ear and whose story we (probably) then later follow - note that branding and labelling of others is an important theme to the book
And Smith, that master of wordplay in the cause of social activism and engagement, while also retaining her anger, is equally inspired - perhaps herself by the a story and a character that visited her - not to give up but instead to return to her ideas, in a story which takes in:
The companionship of a girl and an actual curlew;
That of a old man and his an ageing labrador (let us be honest a Golden Retreiver would have been better but Smith can be forgiven this lapse – perhaps like Sandy she is not that good with dogs);
The rather bizarrely entitled (albeit only there following in their mother's footsteps) and verbalised-TLA-spouting grown up twin children of Martina (who collectively end up as a family of uninvited house guests - a familiar trope seen in both Smith’s “The Accidental” and “There But For The”)
Colonialism and sectarianism in early 20th Century Ireland;
Blacksmithery (particularly female blacksmithery) and mythical stories of Vulcan - and if you want any more proof the book has autofictional elements then reflect on the narrative centrality of a female smith;
Social activism in the late medieval period;
“The Scarlet Letter” (and medieval branding);
ee cummings "to start, to hesitate; to stop" - a poem which is subject in the book to what is effectively a mini literary seminar by Sandy as a student to Martina - and a poem which as well as having thematic links to the novel in its text also features a series of individual letters entering the poem (with the links to branding) and them appearing in the poem in reverse order of what they signify (remember again the front to back, back to front theme)
The songs of Paul Mc Cartney's "Wings" (appropriate for a curlew heavy book)
The Cottingley Fairies (what is one to make of a story about how society was fooled by fake fairies in an author so prone to her fey young female protagonists) and so much more beside
Finally and (remembering the Hockney paintings) Sandy’s standard response when asked about her father – a response whose importance I think is reflected in it appearing on both the third page of the novel and then again three pages from the end (and symmetry and reversal of book order is another key theme) is “not out of the woods yet”
Is this perhaps what Smith is also signalling both in this continuation and companion piece to her own quartet and in her choice of a Hockney wood-path cover that we too as a country are not out of the woods and that neither is her writing. Much as I mourn the first I can only celebrate the second.
My thanks to Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House for an ARC via NetGalley
March 26, 2022
An exquisitely beautiful and imaginative novel by Ali Smith that appears to defy easy comprehension that revisits and builds on themes and issues from her previous works. This multilayered narrative carries more than a little of the qualities of surrealism and insanity that reflect our personal experiences of our contemporary realities, providing us with an astutely observed social and political commentary, a picture of the sorry state of our nation. Through the artist Sandy Gray, it draws on the pandemic, and focuses on companions, with literary and poetry references, a strange lock and key mystery and so much more. There are connections and the presence of the ordinary alongside the extraordinary, and is brimming with rage and fury at the widespread pain and sorrow we have endured, created by an incompetent government lacking compassion.
The offbeat and fragmentary, mosaic like nature of the novel may not appeal to some readers but for me it has charm and engages, the author is a talented wordsmith who delights and illuminates, whilst highlighting that the trees continue to press in on us as we try to navigate our way out of the woods. I feel this is a book that will reward rereads. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
The offbeat and fragmentary, mosaic like nature of the novel may not appeal to some readers but for me it has charm and engages, the author is a talented wordsmith who delights and illuminates, whilst highlighting that the trees continue to press in on us as we try to navigate our way out of the woods. I feel this is a book that will reward rereads. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
December 12, 2022
There’s no denying the beauty of Ali Smith’s prose. Even when a book doesn’t work - like Companion Piece - the craft is evident on every page. Companion Piece is set in the middle of the pandemic and already feels a bit dated. I’m not sure I understood the point of the story, other than Smith's need to write something, and I frankly didn’t have any affinity for the misanthropic narrator, Sandy. It reminded me of conversations with a family member who perhaps took the COVID restrictions a bit too far and, in her isolation, reached out with tediously long anecdotes and frequent digressions into politics. None of which I disagreed with but none of which I really cared to hear.
May 11, 2022
Amidst the tumult of the past four years it's been a balm when a new Ali Smith novel has annually appeared to herald in a new season, a new story and a new encounter with this author's inspiring imagination. “Autumn”, “Winter”, “Spring” and “Summer” have provided an invaluable frame for our recent times. So I felt worried when I read the beginning of her new novel “Companion Piece” which is described as being adjacent to the quartet or in the same family as this recent group of books. A character named Sandy states how “I didn't care what season it was... Everything was mulch of a mulchness to me right then. I even despised myself for that bit of wordplay, though this was uncharacteristic, since all my life I'd loved language, it was my main character, me its eternal loyal sidekick. But right then even words and everything they could and couldn't do could fuck off and that was that.” Oh no! Is Ali feeling so discouraged by the ongoing chaos in the world that she's feeling depleted? Well, frankly, who isn't? But, of course, the wondrous and surprising tale which continues on from this point shows that this author's creativity is still very much engaged and vibrantly active.
Sandy Gray is an artist whose elderly father is unwell and in hospital but it's “not the virus.” Visiting him is difficult as this takes place in 2021 while the pandemic is still causing restrictions when entering hospitals and what contact is allowed. She's also desperate not to get sick herself and inadvertently pass it onto her father so Sandy is limiting her interactions with other people. However, an unexpected call from an old classmate that she never even liked provokes a series of events leading to Sandy's house being colonized by a family that disrupts what's become her cautiously reserved existence. Those familiar with Smith's work will know that unexpected guests frequently appear and this novel is partly about what it means to let other people enter your life even when you don't want to interact with them. Given how isolated and distanced we've been from each other over recent years, this notion of letting others in is a challenge we all need to think about.
Read my full review of Companion Piece by Ali Smith at LonesomeReader
Sandy Gray is an artist whose elderly father is unwell and in hospital but it's “not the virus.” Visiting him is difficult as this takes place in 2021 while the pandemic is still causing restrictions when entering hospitals and what contact is allowed. She's also desperate not to get sick herself and inadvertently pass it onto her father so Sandy is limiting her interactions with other people. However, an unexpected call from an old classmate that she never even liked provokes a series of events leading to Sandy's house being colonized by a family that disrupts what's become her cautiously reserved existence. Those familiar with Smith's work will know that unexpected guests frequently appear and this novel is partly about what it means to let other people enter your life even when you don't want to interact with them. Given how isolated and distanced we've been from each other over recent years, this notion of letting others in is a challenge we all need to think about.
Read my full review of Companion Piece by Ali Smith at LonesomeReader
October 8, 2023
Su título original es “Companion piece: a novel” (Pieza complementaria: una novela) y tanto por estilo, libérrimo, ágil, juguetón, lírico en ocasiones, como por temática, el loco y perverso mundo en el que estamos inmersos y la pasividad con la que permitimos esa perversidad, es como el quinto beatle de su cuarteto estacional.
“Una historia es siempre una pregunta”Una pregunta será la que trastoque la vida de su protagonista, Sandy Gray. Sandy vive en la Gran Bretaña post-Brexit y aún bajo los efectos de la reciente pandemia. Pinta cuadros sobre poemas de sus escritores preferidos. No pasa por sus mejores momentos, ni personales, rondando los cincuenta años vive sola, tiene a su padre hospitalizado por problemas cardíacos al que, a causa de la pandemia, no puede visitar tan a menudo como quisiera, ni tampoco artísticos. Un día recibe la inesperada llamada de una antigua compañera de la universidad con la que apenas mantuvo relación en aquellos tiempos y a la que no volvió a ver después. Esa llamada cambiará algunas cosas.
“…tan solo un día antes no me importaba nada, tan solo seguir despreciándome.”La llamada la hace Martina Pelf. En la universidad, Sandy la ayudó en un trabajo sobre un poema de E. E. Cummings. A Sandy se le daban bien las palabras. Por ello fue que Martina se acordó de ella para plantearle un enigma que no se podía quitar de la cabeza, una pregunta que oye estando en una sala del aeropuerto al que había llegado portando una extraordinaria cerradura medieval que debía entregar al museo en el que trabajaba y donde la habían encerrado en un claro caso de abuso policial (“¿Un país no es suficiente para ti?”, le pregunta un funcionario cuando ella tiene que enseñar sus dos pasaportes). La pregunta que oye es “Zarapito o cubrefuego… tú eliges”(*).
“A primera vista ni siquiera se te ocurre que sea una cerradura ni que tenga un mecanismo dentro, no hay forma de saber cómo o dónde se introduce la llave para abrirla. Es difícil descubrirlo, aunque sepas dónde mirar.”Todo lo que ocurre a partir de aquí es dudoso, pudiera ser una forma alegórica de contarnos el proceso por el que Sandy se reconcilia consigo misma. De hecho, ya la pregunta que oye Martina es extraña y también lo es la forma en la que la escuchó, completamente sola en la sala del aeropuerto sin poder descubrir de dónde venía la voz. También resulta raro que se acordara de Sandy después de tantos años y a la que había ignorado antes y después de recibir su ayuda para el trabajo. Más extraño aun, y divertido, es como la familia de Martina, que también acaba de dar un giro a su vida, se introduce en la vida de Sandy e incluso invaden su casa. Pero lo más inaudito es que se topara una noche en su habitación con una niña andrajosa que hablaba con modos antiguos y que se acompañaba de un extraño pájaro de largo pico. Esta niña resultará ser aquella de la que sabemos en la última parte de la novela, la novela se divide en tres partes, la herrera que supuestamente forjó la extraña cerradura en una época devastada por una plaga.
La novela está llena de referencias cruzadas, de símbolos, de pistas, todo parece tener relación con todo, y la autora hasta se preocupa del modo en el que podemos acercarnos a su propia novela cuando nos cuenta cómo Sandy induce a Martina a interpretar el poema de su trabajo universitario o a solucionar el enigma de la pregunta que oye, o la propia cerradura en la que no es fácil encontrar el orificio por el que introducir la llave que la abra.
“(los libros son importantes) porque son una de las formas en que podemos imaginarnos de otra forma”Como en cada una de las novelas que forman parte de su cuarteto estacional, el cuadro que pinta del mundo actual es más que preocupante, pero de igual forma que en aquellas también aquí deja un huequito para la esperanza, aunque sea una esperanza desesperada.
“… estaba perdida. Estaba sola… Anochecía…No tenía ni idea de dónde estaba ni qué dirección tomar. Lo que había allí era todo lo que había…Lo que conocí fue mi propia ausencia. Lo que percibí nítido como el aire puro, fue el fantasma de una oportunidad, de una presencia distinta.”No solo Sandy es hábil con las palabras, también a la autora le gusta jugar con ellas, con sus posibles significados, con su etimología. En uno de los capítulos nos habla de la palabra “hola”, una palabra que utilizamos como saludo amigable e informal pero también como exclamación cuando alguien nos pilla desprevenidos o la utilizamos para preguntar si hay alguien en casa o como llamada de atención… “hola” es la última palabra del texto.
(4 estrellas y media, realmente)
(*) ”El zarapito es un pájaro y cubrefuego es un galicismo por toque de queda, la hora del día después de la cual las personas tienen prohibido salir… la población tenía que cubrir los fuegos de sus hogares, apagarlos para evitar percances nocturnos.”
September 26, 2022
A book celebrating the power of storytelling, language and imagination, with an especially touching historical part near the end. However the modern day parts, if immersive, at times felt whimsical and not as polished and full of depth
I’m not the story here. You’re not the story. Do you hear me? We’re not the story. In any case, a story is never an answer. A story is always a question.
I haven't read the Seasonal Quartet of Ali Smith, but was captivated into reading Companion Piece due to it's striking cover. We are sucked into the life of Sandy Grey, an artist/poet who is living in 2021, after the heyday of Covid-19. Her father is hospitalized, and she is confronted with an old fellow student of her. The storytelling is joyous, exuberant, and takes us from a drab airport to medieval craftsmanship and the origins of words and language.
The children of the school mate, a twin called Eden/CELINE and another one who uses the pronoun "they", a former employee of Instagram, are a bit much. Especially the latter Gen Z one not knowing how to reboot her iPhone stretches all credibility. Also their house invasion and general weird behavior made little sense in the overall story.
The last section of the book, focussing on vagabonds in the medieval plague period, reminded me a lot of the writing style of Jeanette Winterson, with magical realism. I really enjoyed this part, but I felt this overall matched too little with the contemporary pieces to be a satisfying novel.
Still the writing of Smith is lush, as is her imagination, so rounding this up to 3 stars.
I’m not the story here. You’re not the story. Do you hear me? We’re not the story. In any case, a story is never an answer. A story is always a question.
I haven't read the Seasonal Quartet of Ali Smith, but was captivated into reading Companion Piece due to it's striking cover. We are sucked into the life of Sandy Grey, an artist/poet who is living in 2021, after the heyday of Covid-19. Her father is hospitalized, and she is confronted with an old fellow student of her. The storytelling is joyous, exuberant, and takes us from a drab airport to medieval craftsmanship and the origins of words and language.
The children of the school mate, a twin called Eden/CELINE and another one who uses the pronoun "they", a former employee of Instagram, are a bit much. Especially the latter Gen Z one not knowing how to reboot her iPhone stretches all credibility. Also their house invasion and general weird behavior made little sense in the overall story.
The last section of the book, focussing on vagabonds in the medieval plague period, reminded me a lot of the writing style of Jeanette Winterson, with magical realism. I really enjoyed this part, but I felt this overall matched too little with the contemporary pieces to be a satisfying novel.
Still the writing of Smith is lush, as is her imagination, so rounding this up to 3 stars.
March 4, 2022
Companion Piece’s definitely the most inventive of the pandemic novels I’ve read so far, and the most explicitly, blisteringly angry, something I can easily identify with. As in her recent series of novels, Ali Smith’s latest’s composed of multiple overlapping and interwoven threads. The most prominent character’s Sandy Gray, a queer artist whose paintings build on a lifelong obsession with words and wordplay. Sandy’s anxious about her father who’s in hospital after a heart attack, barred from receiving visitors because of Covid risks. Sandy alone, except for her father’s aging Labrador, rails against the government, fake news, and a constant stream of needless deaths. Then, out of the blue she receives an unsettling call from an old college acquaintance and she’s drawn into a sinister mystery involving a priceless medieval lock; bizarrely demanding, near-Shakespearian twins; hallucinatory dreams; and what may, or may not, be a visitation from another time.
Smith’s highly referential narrative’s laced with soundbites, snippets from news headlines, literature and lines of poetry alongside strands of ancient legends. Smith abruptly shifts between registers, at one point drawing on British seaside humour, at another the kind of surreal, absurdist work I associate with British experimentalists like B. S. Johnson and N. F. Simpson. These in turn are juxtaposed with a medieval tale invoking the time immediately following the Black Death and the first stirrings of what, I assume, will be the Peasant’s Revolt. The addition of a mythical curlew, a source of fascination for poets and writers for centuries, allows for a meditation on death and renewal, as well as acting as a reminder of contemporary ecological disaster, as real-life curlews draw ever closer to extinction.
Perhaps key to Smith’s approach here’s the work of British fantasist Alan Garner, someone Smith’s written about in the past, a scene from Sandy’s childhood mirrors the moment when a seven-year-old Smith first discovered the lure of his enigmatic fiction and his radical ideas about language. The workings of the plot’s reminiscent of what Smith’s called his ”boundary moments, crossing places between the “real” and the “imagined” worlds, times and stories, the places where the very ordinary and the very unordinary coexist, leach into each other: the strangeness in the known, the familiar in the strange.” Even the form and expression of anger here echoes Smith’s feelings about Garner and his ability to communicate a palpable sense of unease and political fury. Although Smith’s book doesn’t have Garner’s sophistication and is, I think, unlikely to have his lasting appeal, it’s still a striking, timely piece. The execution can be quite heavy-handed and Smith’s sudden tonal shifts awkward and jarring but even so I found this sufficiently topical and thought-provoking to capture and hold my attention. I don’t think it’s one of Smith’s strongest novels but it’s still very much worth reading.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hamish Hamilton, Penguin, for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
Smith’s highly referential narrative’s laced with soundbites, snippets from news headlines, literature and lines of poetry alongside strands of ancient legends. Smith abruptly shifts between registers, at one point drawing on British seaside humour, at another the kind of surreal, absurdist work I associate with British experimentalists like B. S. Johnson and N. F. Simpson. These in turn are juxtaposed with a medieval tale invoking the time immediately following the Black Death and the first stirrings of what, I assume, will be the Peasant’s Revolt. The addition of a mythical curlew, a source of fascination for poets and writers for centuries, allows for a meditation on death and renewal, as well as acting as a reminder of contemporary ecological disaster, as real-life curlews draw ever closer to extinction.
Perhaps key to Smith’s approach here’s the work of British fantasist Alan Garner, someone Smith’s written about in the past, a scene from Sandy’s childhood mirrors the moment when a seven-year-old Smith first discovered the lure of his enigmatic fiction and his radical ideas about language. The workings of the plot’s reminiscent of what Smith’s called his ”boundary moments, crossing places between the “real” and the “imagined” worlds, times and stories, the places where the very ordinary and the very unordinary coexist, leach into each other: the strangeness in the known, the familiar in the strange.” Even the form and expression of anger here echoes Smith’s feelings about Garner and his ability to communicate a palpable sense of unease and political fury. Although Smith’s book doesn’t have Garner’s sophistication and is, I think, unlikely to have his lasting appeal, it’s still a striking, timely piece. The execution can be quite heavy-handed and Smith’s sudden tonal shifts awkward and jarring but even so I found this sufficiently topical and thought-provoking to capture and hold my attention. I don’t think it’s one of Smith’s strongest novels but it’s still very much worth reading.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hamish Hamilton, Penguin, for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
May 7, 2024
2-star reviews are often explosive and come packaged with overly negative thoughts on the content of the book. Not so here. I actually quite like Ali Smith. The Seasonal Quartet was enjoyable enough, even during its low moments. I still remember vivid images from Autumn and Winter, which is always a good sign. What happened here?
Perhaps time rolled on and the content of this book aged poorly. Perhaps I aged poorly and the content of the book rolled on. Perhaps Smith ran out of steam a bit but wanted to put something out. I’m really not sure, so speculation is a friend. Either way, it was sad. No anger on my end, nor even regret that I have read this book. Just a melancholy acceptance.
I’ve often had the base-level assumption that authors need to be top-notch observers of their environments. Smith’s strength does not seem to be observation powers, but wordplay and turn of phrase. The icky feeling that comes about when I am reading the dialogue between her characters in this book is not because it’s poorly written, but because those conversations never happen. Maybe they have happened. But no amount of truth can be sifted out of them. Nothing relatable, and that is me trying to have my empathic lens on. Instead, it feels as though the conversations and interactions have taken place entirely in Smith’s mind (duh), where she has had projections of others and brought out the worst in each person and put them into dialogue with each other, only to see where it all ends up. Funny, because I think this is somewhat of a theme that she wants to touch on within the book – however, the atmosphere of these moments is so contrived that you cannot help but be whisked out of the novel. It doesn’t hold together. It doesn’t work. I can’t help but to be reminded of specific individuals that I used to practice improv with: when the rules of “Yes, and” and “Don’t say no” became too horrifying, they would become anxious, opting to raise their voice and yell in the scene. Almost every single time, without fail. This was the number one giveaway that the individual was feeling the pressure of the moment, afraid that they would be unable to come up with a line or a clever remark. Characters in this book are yelling over each other, agitated, or repeating the same negative phrase over and over. There will be 10-15 pages on end where a character is saying the same thing (“Get out of my house”) while various other characters are not only not reacting to this, but dismissively responding to the character by discussing poetry or history, often using snippets like “oh em gee” or “en bee dee”. It’s farcical.
I suppose the process of writing a novel in this vein (or any novel, really) does include pitting your projection of yourself as an author against those people/entities that really grind your gears, as you try to solve a problem creatively and produce art at the same time. The best authors, in my opinion, are good at not making themselves so visible. Sometimes this can’t be avoided. Even then, the master will not short-change the antagonists. You read something like Dostoevesky, Tolstoy, Faulkner, or Steinbeck – these folks gave the “bad guys” the proper time of day. Compelling inner lives which did not strawman their beliefs immediately. I am not trying to toss Smith into the seas of these authors for her to drown. However, it would be nice to strive for a more compassionate form of writing when it comes to people and ideas that she disagrees with. After all, the 5 books that I have read by her have been about people and ideas that she disagrees with. And, ironically, they have been about how to overcome barriers between immovable forces. How to understand the other person’s story and show love and warmth. All I can ask, gently, is for her to try and apply the same principles to herself.
Perhaps time rolled on and the content of this book aged poorly. Perhaps I aged poorly and the content of the book rolled on. Perhaps Smith ran out of steam a bit but wanted to put something out. I’m really not sure, so speculation is a friend. Either way, it was sad. No anger on my end, nor even regret that I have read this book. Just a melancholy acceptance.
I’ve often had the base-level assumption that authors need to be top-notch observers of their environments. Smith’s strength does not seem to be observation powers, but wordplay and turn of phrase. The icky feeling that comes about when I am reading the dialogue between her characters in this book is not because it’s poorly written, but because those conversations never happen. Maybe they have happened. But no amount of truth can be sifted out of them. Nothing relatable, and that is me trying to have my empathic lens on. Instead, it feels as though the conversations and interactions have taken place entirely in Smith’s mind (duh), where she has had projections of others and brought out the worst in each person and put them into dialogue with each other, only to see where it all ends up. Funny, because I think this is somewhat of a theme that she wants to touch on within the book – however, the atmosphere of these moments is so contrived that you cannot help but be whisked out of the novel. It doesn’t hold together. It doesn’t work. I can’t help but to be reminded of specific individuals that I used to practice improv with: when the rules of “Yes, and” and “Don’t say no” became too horrifying, they would become anxious, opting to raise their voice and yell in the scene. Almost every single time, without fail. This was the number one giveaway that the individual was feeling the pressure of the moment, afraid that they would be unable to come up with a line or a clever remark. Characters in this book are yelling over each other, agitated, or repeating the same negative phrase over and over. There will be 10-15 pages on end where a character is saying the same thing (“Get out of my house”) while various other characters are not only not reacting to this, but dismissively responding to the character by discussing poetry or history, often using snippets like “oh em gee” or “en bee dee”. It’s farcical.
I suppose the process of writing a novel in this vein (or any novel, really) does include pitting your projection of yourself as an author against those people/entities that really grind your gears, as you try to solve a problem creatively and produce art at the same time. The best authors, in my opinion, are good at not making themselves so visible. Sometimes this can’t be avoided. Even then, the master will not short-change the antagonists. You read something like Dostoevesky, Tolstoy, Faulkner, or Steinbeck – these folks gave the “bad guys” the proper time of day. Compelling inner lives which did not strawman their beliefs immediately. I am not trying to toss Smith into the seas of these authors for her to drown. However, it would be nice to strive for a more compassionate form of writing when it comes to people and ideas that she disagrees with. After all, the 5 books that I have read by her have been about people and ideas that she disagrees with. And, ironically, they have been about how to overcome barriers between immovable forces. How to understand the other person’s story and show love and warmth. All I can ask, gently, is for her to try and apply the same principles to herself.
July 10, 2022
I have left it too long since finishing this book to review it, partly because I had a backlog of other books to review first and partly because this week has been busy in other ways. So this review cannot be as fresh as I'd like, and for that reason I'll try to keep it fairly short.
To start with the title - yes, it does share the look and feel of the great seasonal quartet, and as in those books recent events play a big part and once again there are plenty of references to other artists and historical events, but there are no links with the characters in the quartet.
The dominant current event in this one is Covid. The main protagonist Sandy, a writer, lives alone, and her father is seriously ill in hospital, and in order to be allowed to visit him she has to remain free of the disease and to maintain strict isolation. Sandy is also left in charge of his dog. At the start of the book she receives a phone call from Martina Pelf, a woman who was barely more than a casual college acquaintance who tells her a story about the problems she had transporting a historic lock back to the museum she works in from an exhibition abroad.
This sets in train the rest of the plot, as the renewed contact with Sandy changes Martina's relationship with her own family and her two children arrive at Sandy's house demanding answers. In a plot that has elements of farce, the Pelf parents also arrive at the house and Sandy flees to her father's house to maintain isolation.
As so often with Smith's novels, the plot is not the most important element - there are also recurring themes, not least the two that give the later sections their titles, curlews and curfews.
The Pelf children are familiar Smith characters - one is feisty and confrontational, the other is struggling to get their father to accept their gender choices, and both have the mixture of naivety and inquisitiveness.
There are also occasional interludes set much further back in which the story of the lock's female creator is told.
I may yet upgrade the rating to five stars, but although I greatly enjoyed reading this book and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, I am not sure it is quite as good as the best of the seasonal quartet.
To start with the title - yes, it does share the look and feel of the great seasonal quartet, and as in those books recent events play a big part and once again there are plenty of references to other artists and historical events, but there are no links with the characters in the quartet.
The dominant current event in this one is Covid. The main protagonist Sandy, a writer, lives alone, and her father is seriously ill in hospital, and in order to be allowed to visit him she has to remain free of the disease and to maintain strict isolation. Sandy is also left in charge of his dog. At the start of the book she receives a phone call from Martina Pelf, a woman who was barely more than a casual college acquaintance who tells her a story about the problems she had transporting a historic lock back to the museum she works in from an exhibition abroad.
This sets in train the rest of the plot, as the renewed contact with Sandy changes Martina's relationship with her own family and her two children arrive at Sandy's house demanding answers. In a plot that has elements of farce, the Pelf parents also arrive at the house and Sandy flees to her father's house to maintain isolation.
As so often with Smith's novels, the plot is not the most important element - there are also recurring themes, not least the two that give the later sections their titles, curlews and curfews.
The Pelf children are familiar Smith characters - one is feisty and confrontational, the other is struggling to get their father to accept their gender choices, and both have the mixture of naivety and inquisitiveness.
There are also occasional interludes set much further back in which the story of the lock's female creator is told.
I may yet upgrade the rating to five stars, but although I greatly enjoyed reading this book and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, I am not sure it is quite as good as the best of the seasonal quartet.
July 27, 2022
Smith writes literary novels that are packed with nuggets of pure brilliance. In this case, it is a kaleidoscope of words and images that shape-shift. She includes references to poets and dissects the word-play that they use. Segments of the novel include surrealism and insanity.
There are two narrative strands. The dominant one is told by Sandy. Her father is ill, and she moves into his house with his dog. (She is unable to visit her father in the hospital due to COVID.) She receives a call from a former classmate. It seems that Martina Inglis was stopped at the airport due to the centuries-old Boothby Lock she was transporting into the country. The authorities place her in a room for hours and while there hears a disembodied voice saying “curlew’ or ‘curfew’—you choose; she knew that Sandy would help her to understand this missive. Smith eventually posits that it is a choice between nature and a human invention.
The second part of the novel, called ‘Curlew’ takes as its recurrent theme freedom. Martina’s family takes over Sandy’s home despite her pleas to not do so, but seems incapable of forcing them away. Then there is the girl that appears via magical realism on Sandy’s bed. Could this be the girl that helped to forge the lock centuries earlier? Another turn of the kaleidoscope tells her story.
Sandy is an artist that paints words upon words. Smith does the same.
The critics are glowing in their praise of Smith’s cleverness. I, on the other hand, had trouble making sense of it all.
There are two narrative strands. The dominant one is told by Sandy. Her father is ill, and she moves into his house with his dog. (She is unable to visit her father in the hospital due to COVID.) She receives a call from a former classmate. It seems that Martina Inglis was stopped at the airport due to the centuries-old Boothby Lock she was transporting into the country. The authorities place her in a room for hours and while there hears a disembodied voice saying “curlew’ or ‘curfew’—you choose; she knew that Sandy would help her to understand this missive. Smith eventually posits that it is a choice between nature and a human invention.
The second part of the novel, called ‘Curlew’ takes as its recurrent theme freedom. Martina’s family takes over Sandy’s home despite her pleas to not do so, but seems incapable of forcing them away. Then there is the girl that appears via magical realism on Sandy’s bed. Could this be the girl that helped to forge the lock centuries earlier? Another turn of the kaleidoscope tells her story.
Sandy is an artist that paints words upon words. Smith does the same.
The critics are glowing in their praise of Smith’s cleverness. I, on the other hand, had trouble making sense of it all.
July 10, 2022
... but what did I know?
I knew nothing really, about anything or anybody.
I was making it up as I went along, like we all are.
I was quite surprised when I heard about ‘Companion Piece’, an unexpected addendum to the Quartet (can we still call it that now there is a fifth novel?) This is probably my favourite of the seasonal books, as it directly confronts the horror and loss so many of us experienced during these perilous times, which history is likely to simply annotate as ‘the latest pandemic’. No, it takes a writer with the generosity and humanity of Ali Smith to remind us what we have lost and sacrificed, to rage against the incompetence and sheer idiocy of those institutions and elected officials who were supposed to protect us, and to point out the perilous beauty and wonder of the world around us. And how fortunate we are to continue to be a part of it. Luminous, wonderful, heartbreaking, funny, dazzling, tender. This is Smith firing on all cylinders. Long may the Quartet continue.
I knew nothing really, about anything or anybody.
I was making it up as I went along, like we all are.
I was quite surprised when I heard about ‘Companion Piece’, an unexpected addendum to the Quartet (can we still call it that now there is a fifth novel?) This is probably my favourite of the seasonal books, as it directly confronts the horror and loss so many of us experienced during these perilous times, which history is likely to simply annotate as ‘the latest pandemic’. No, it takes a writer with the generosity and humanity of Ali Smith to remind us what we have lost and sacrificed, to rage against the incompetence and sheer idiocy of those institutions and elected officials who were supposed to protect us, and to point out the perilous beauty and wonder of the world around us. And how fortunate we are to continue to be a part of it. Luminous, wonderful, heartbreaking, funny, dazzling, tender. This is Smith firing on all cylinders. Long may the Quartet continue.
March 12, 2022
I didn’t care what season it was. I didn’t even care what day of the week. Everything was mulch of a mulchness to me right then. I even despised myself for that bit of wordplay, though this was uncharacteristic, since all my life I’d loved language, it was my main character, me its eternal loyal sidekick. But right then even words and everything they could and couldn’t do could fuck off and that was that.
Ali Smith's seasonal quartet was one of the literary highlights of recent years, drawn together magnificently in the final volume, and while I loved the series I was looking forward to see what she did differently in her next work. Disappointingly, Companion Piece, as the name hints, seems like a re-hash of the same style of book, but without the inter-novel links of the quartet. Smith's strong compassion for the suffering of others is in companion with her anger at those she sees as causing it, and her disdain what the country is still going through blazes as fiercely as ever.
But when she holds it in her arms she can feel its bones so thin that the pain that’s unlike any other pain happens in her chest. This is the pain of the thought of something painful happening to another being. This is pain sensed or the thought of it happening in another body by the body of the person not feeling that same pain but feeling this thing that’s both pain and unlike pain instead.
Covid hasn't served Smith's real time novels particularly well. It felt rather bolted on to Summer and here the opposite applies, with Smith's focus on the topic looking rather odd in a novel that will be released when we've come to live with Covid and the headlines are dominated by Ukraine. On Covid as well, the determination to take a negative view on the UK government (a consistent theme of the books) gets a little wearing. At one point Smith's narrator comments:
Like I’m hallucinating a government, I said, running this country so successfully, with such calculated ineptness that we’ve one of the top death tolls per capita in the world. Of course it can’t be real. Why didn’t I think of that? No wonder it feels so surreal. I’m just – making it up.
And in fact, although the narrator is being sarcastic, it is made up. Official death count statistics have UK outside the global top 30 and close to the EU average and as explained on this Twitter thread, a recent study in The Lancet using the most reliable, if less direct, metric of excess mortality concluded: "far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)".
Despite the quote which opens my review, Smith's weapon remains that of word play, which is as sharp as ever:
He’s saying death’s a game, she says. Which it really isn’t.
Or saying there’s a way to be playful even in times of really terrible doubt? I say.
Ah, she says. I like that. Even when the day is dark and the sky is falling and things and words and everything they mean are falling to pieces all around you.
At the plot level though I struggled, with certain parts appearing almost random such as the bizarre inclusion of two twins, one spouting three-letter acronyms and the other (or was it the same one) deciding they were non-binary. It wasn't at all clear what Smith wanted to say or what she was satirising (it seemed like she was poking fun at those rejecting binary identities or gendered pronouns, which I suspect wasn't her intention, but I've no idea what was). One of the lessons of the quartet was that there was usually method to Smith's madness, but as of now I am struggling to see it and I wonder if we will see more companions to this book.
A reluctantly disappointed 3 stars
Ali Smith's seasonal quartet was one of the literary highlights of recent years, drawn together magnificently in the final volume, and while I loved the series I was looking forward to see what she did differently in her next work. Disappointingly, Companion Piece, as the name hints, seems like a re-hash of the same style of book, but without the inter-novel links of the quartet. Smith's strong compassion for the suffering of others is in companion with her anger at those she sees as causing it, and her disdain what the country is still going through blazes as fiercely as ever.
But when she holds it in her arms she can feel its bones so thin that the pain that’s unlike any other pain happens in her chest. This is the pain of the thought of something painful happening to another being. This is pain sensed or the thought of it happening in another body by the body of the person not feeling that same pain but feeling this thing that’s both pain and unlike pain instead.
Covid hasn't served Smith's real time novels particularly well. It felt rather bolted on to Summer and here the opposite applies, with Smith's focus on the topic looking rather odd in a novel that will be released when we've come to live with Covid and the headlines are dominated by Ukraine. On Covid as well, the determination to take a negative view on the UK government (a consistent theme of the books) gets a little wearing. At one point Smith's narrator comments:
Like I’m hallucinating a government, I said, running this country so successfully, with such calculated ineptness that we’ve one of the top death tolls per capita in the world. Of course it can’t be real. Why didn’t I think of that? No wonder it feels so surreal. I’m just – making it up.
And in fact, although the narrator is being sarcastic, it is made up. Official death count statistics have UK outside the global top 30 and close to the EU average and as explained on this Twitter thread, a recent study in The Lancet using the most reliable, if less direct, metric of excess mortality concluded: "far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)".
Despite the quote which opens my review, Smith's weapon remains that of word play, which is as sharp as ever:
He’s saying death’s a game, she says. Which it really isn’t.
Or saying there’s a way to be playful even in times of really terrible doubt? I say.
Ah, she says. I like that. Even when the day is dark and the sky is falling and things and words and everything they mean are falling to pieces all around you.
At the plot level though I struggled, with certain parts appearing almost random such as the bizarre inclusion of two twins, one spouting three-letter acronyms and the other (or was it the same one) deciding they were non-binary. It wasn't at all clear what Smith wanted to say or what she was satirising (it seemed like she was poking fun at those rejecting binary identities or gendered pronouns, which I suspect wasn't her intention, but I've no idea what was). One of the lessons of the quartet was that there was usually method to Smith's madness, but as of now I am struggling to see it and I wonder if we will see more companions to this book.
A reluctantly disappointed 3 stars
May 12, 2022
Although Ali Smith has moved away from the textually arousing miasma of earlier novels Hotel World and There but for the to write more contemplative and quietly furious works that explore contemporary angst amid the backdrop of an eccentric fixation (such as pop artist Pauline Boty in Autumn), her novels remain lyrical, unique, and wholly Alicentric. In her most recent one, a grouchy artist ministering to her sick father is ambushed by an old friend fascinated by the history of a wrought-iron lock. The story freely meanders through a farcical series of interactions with two incendiary millennials, ruminations on an e.e. cummings poem and the origins of ‘hello’, taking us swiftly back in time to the tale of the smith who originally carved the ivy-leaved designs of the lock. A mysterious, eccentric, mercurial, and softly spoken novel deftly smithed with Smith’s trademark warmth and humanity.
April 21, 2024
Ale to było dobre 😭
March 9, 2022
This is Ali Smith’s follow-up to her brilliant Seasonal Quartet, a set of books I got to know quite well in the period 2016-2020 because each time a new volume came out I re-read all the preceding ones (yes, that means I read Autumn four times). Those four books are, I think, best viewed as a single work, as what the book blurb here quotes the New Statesman saying “state-of-the-nation novels which understand that the nation is you, is me, is all of us”. In my review of Summer, the conclusion of the quartet, I noted that even though Smith didn’t write the books to be from a Christian perspective, that’s how they read to me with the first three volumes (picking up on the New Statesman’s “you, me and all of us”) considering attitudes towards your neighbour, yourself and other countries. And this book, as its title suggests, picks up on those kinds of themes and runs a bit further with them.
A key element of all five of these books has been their contemporaneousness (I had to check that was a real word and once I knew it was I had to use it!): each novel has been published very quickly after being written and has reflected very current trends. We’ve had Brexit, climate change, immigration detention centres and now COVID. Reading the books can turn out to be a multi-layered experience. If you read them on publication, you get one experience when all the events are recent and fresh. Then you read them again and you get a different experience. The fourth time I read Autumn, a lot had happened in-between!
The hardest part of writing this review was deciding where to start. There’s a point in this book when the main character, Sandy Gray, is talking about an e.e. cummings poem and she says Anyone could choose a single phrase of this poem and write fifteen different papers about it. I felt that kind of confusion as I thought about what to write here!
But, at the end of the novel, there’s one phrase that particularly echoes around in my thoughts: ”Not out of the woods yet.” It’s a phrase used to describe Sandy’s father who spends the novel in hospital (and we all know that wasn’t a fun place to be during COVID, especially for the NHS staff who get a specific thank you from Smith in the acknowledgements at the end of the book). It’s a phrase that bookends the novel (as do three hellos). But it is also a phrase echoed by the Hockney image used on the cover of the book which shows a woodland scene. This is the overriding impression I come away from the book with: we (you, me, all of us) are not out of the woods yet.
And we (you, me, all of us) have choices to make. When you open the book the first thing you see is an almost blank page with just two words on it: “You choose”. This phrase feeds quickly into the narrative when Sandy receives a call from someone she knew at college, but has not seen for years, who tells her about a weird experience she had where she heard a voice saying “Curlew or curfew. You choose.” It is from this phrase that, appropriately, the story takes flight and spreads its wings to include a real curlew, blacksmiths (especially female ones) and lock making, the Cottingley Fairies, Paul McCartney’s Wings, and politics (there has to be politics). And so much more (which is why I didn’t really know how to start). I haven’t, for example, mentioned the apparently time-travelling vagrant who appears in Sandy’s house and whose story then suddenly appears in the novel.
I think this is a book that will reveal more of its layers as more of my friends read it (I hope they will read it) and we get to discuss it. It feels like a multi-layered novel which is appropriate because Sandy is an artist who takes poems and creates artwork from them by layering the words of the poems on top of one another. I really enjoyed the experience of reading it, but I feel I will enjoy it even more when I talk to other people about it. We (you, me, all of us) could have a lot of interesting conversations.
Here is a curlew:
My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.
A key element of all five of these books has been their contemporaneousness (I had to check that was a real word and once I knew it was I had to use it!): each novel has been published very quickly after being written and has reflected very current trends. We’ve had Brexit, climate change, immigration detention centres and now COVID. Reading the books can turn out to be a multi-layered experience. If you read them on publication, you get one experience when all the events are recent and fresh. Then you read them again and you get a different experience. The fourth time I read Autumn, a lot had happened in-between!
The hardest part of writing this review was deciding where to start. There’s a point in this book when the main character, Sandy Gray, is talking about an e.e. cummings poem and she says Anyone could choose a single phrase of this poem and write fifteen different papers about it. I felt that kind of confusion as I thought about what to write here!
But, at the end of the novel, there’s one phrase that particularly echoes around in my thoughts: ”Not out of the woods yet.” It’s a phrase used to describe Sandy’s father who spends the novel in hospital (and we all know that wasn’t a fun place to be during COVID, especially for the NHS staff who get a specific thank you from Smith in the acknowledgements at the end of the book). It’s a phrase that bookends the novel (as do three hellos). But it is also a phrase echoed by the Hockney image used on the cover of the book which shows a woodland scene. This is the overriding impression I come away from the book with: we (you, me, all of us) are not out of the woods yet.
And we (you, me, all of us) have choices to make. When you open the book the first thing you see is an almost blank page with just two words on it: “You choose”. This phrase feeds quickly into the narrative when Sandy receives a call from someone she knew at college, but has not seen for years, who tells her about a weird experience she had where she heard a voice saying “Curlew or curfew. You choose.” It is from this phrase that, appropriately, the story takes flight and spreads its wings to include a real curlew, blacksmiths (especially female ones) and lock making, the Cottingley Fairies, Paul McCartney’s Wings, and politics (there has to be politics). And so much more (which is why I didn’t really know how to start). I haven’t, for example, mentioned the apparently time-travelling vagrant who appears in Sandy’s house and whose story then suddenly appears in the novel.
I think this is a book that will reveal more of its layers as more of my friends read it (I hope they will read it) and we get to discuss it. It feels like a multi-layered novel which is appropriate because Sandy is an artist who takes poems and creates artwork from them by layering the words of the poems on top of one another. I really enjoyed the experience of reading it, but I feel I will enjoy it even more when I talk to other people about it. We (you, me, all of us) could have a lot of interesting conversations.
Here is a curlew:
My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.
June 7, 2022
I loved Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet so I was beyond excited to read her latest offering, a companion to those four novels that came before.
Smith's cleverness with words shines through. The absurd and the bizarre are present as well. Some entitled teenage twins and a vagrant girl make an appearance. There are many literary references, many of them unknown to me, but that's my problem.
This novel takes place during the pandemic, so some of the issues that prevailed at the height of Covid are front at centre.
In the Seasonal Quartet novels, Smith showcased different female artists. This time she focuses on a blacksmith woman from hundreds of years ago. I'm guessing it's a fictional character, I haven't checked.
I don't know if my cluttered brain and general mood had something to do with it, but I wasn't as enthralled with this novel as I was with Smith's previous works. Something was missing. There were moments that shone through, but they seemed to be covered up by a melange of disparate sequences that confused me and made me wonder if I had skipped pages.
Of course, I'll keep reading Smith.
I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review. My thanks to the publishers for the opportunity to read this novel.
Smith's cleverness with words shines through. The absurd and the bizarre are present as well. Some entitled teenage twins and a vagrant girl make an appearance. There are many literary references, many of them unknown to me, but that's my problem.
This novel takes place during the pandemic, so some of the issues that prevailed at the height of Covid are front at centre.
In the Seasonal Quartet novels, Smith showcased different female artists. This time she focuses on a blacksmith woman from hundreds of years ago. I'm guessing it's a fictional character, I haven't checked.
I don't know if my cluttered brain and general mood had something to do with it, but I wasn't as enthralled with this novel as I was with Smith's previous works. Something was missing. There were moments that shone through, but they seemed to be covered up by a melange of disparate sequences that confused me and made me wonder if I had skipped pages.
Of course, I'll keep reading Smith.
I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review. My thanks to the publishers for the opportunity to read this novel.
April 7, 2022
Quite possibly my favourite of the seasonal cycle (can we count it as such, as a kind of addendum to that series? It should certainly form part of a single-volume, in future...). And therefore probably Ali Smith's crowning achievement. Very upset to finish Companion Piece, in fact -- can't she just go round again? We need more of this -- a deeply humane and indispensable riposte to a devilish government / police / media, none of whom would ever read it, but for the rest of us -- vital literary medicine.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this novel, in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this novel, in exchange for an honest review.
November 23, 2023
My "love it, yet am utterly puzzled by it", stance on Ali Smith continues.
The wordplay here is sublime and mischievous. Its like Ali has inhaled several dictionaries and is reguirtating them as some eleborate art piece, interspirsed with aserbic social/political commentary. For the most part I was onboard with all this. Maybe I got a little lost with the Curlew vs Curfew stuff which is essentially admitting that I don't understand the novel at all. Thats fine, thats really the point of an Ali Smith novel right ? Just being delightfully mystified ?
The wordplay here is sublime and mischievous. Its like Ali has inhaled several dictionaries and is reguirtating them as some eleborate art piece, interspirsed with aserbic social/political commentary. For the most part I was onboard with all this. Maybe I got a little lost with the Curlew vs Curfew stuff which is essentially admitting that I don't understand the novel at all. Thats fine, thats really the point of an Ali Smith novel right ? Just being delightfully mystified ?
April 13, 2022
Earlier this week I was listening to an interview with Ali Smith on BBC radio and at the same time started reading this book. It was weird because I almost began mixing up Ali Smith and the character Sandy in the novel. I don’t know if it’s the case and I don’t really care, but ‘Companion Piece’ feels somewhat autobiographical. Not only their backgrounds are more or less the same, but they almost had the same voice, same thoughts, same sense of humour , same quickness of thought, word play. Excellent stuff 😊.
This novel is just so smart, playful, political, and funny and I’m so sorry I finished this! It was unbelievably brilliant!
This novel is just so smart, playful, political, and funny and I’m so sorry I finished this! It was unbelievably brilliant!
September 11, 2023
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...
"Últimamente, al menor atisbo de fingimiento, falsedad o interés personal, yo alzaba el vuelo como la mariposa que presiente una red."
Es raro el fenómeno Ali Smith porque es una autora a la que no consigo encajar: no me apasiona pero al mismo tiempo me encanta, a ratos, y me siento identificada con muchos momentos, (y aquí en esta Fragua he reconocido muchos momentos míos), no me disgusta pero tampoco me vuelve loca y sin embargo, hay escenas que se me quedan ya grabadas e incluso citas, a pesar de mi mala memoria, todo muy contradictorio, sí. El año pasado me leí el Cuarteto estacional, cuatro libros que me vi incapaz de reseñar precisamente porque no consigo encuadrarla o porque aborda tantos estados, que realmente en su momento no supe ni por donde empezar. De las cuatro estaciones hubo alguna que me gustó más que otra, no todas en la misma medida, aunque sí que es una obra que aprecio más viéndola con la perspectiva del conjunto, no los cuatro libros por separado sino como un único volumen. Ahora me encuentro con esta Fragua, que bien podría ser un apéndice o epílogo a ese Cuarteto, no tanto por los personajes sino porque es una especie de cierre al mundo que describe en el Cuarteto.
"Cuéntame algo. Cuéntame algo sobre, no sé. Lo que sea. Ya sabes. De esa forma tan tuya."
En Fragua, Ali Smith aborda el tiempo de la pandemía y el confinamiento, un momento que reconoceremos de inmediato. Sandy Gray, temporalmene ocupando la casa de su padre que se encuentra aislado en el hospital, recibe la llamada de teléfono de una ex compañera de universidad. Nada más recibir la llamada, Ali Smith nos sumerge en una de estas conversaciones tan habituales en ella, inconexa, de la que se intuye mas por los silencios, pero que enlazan el presente con el pasado. La amiga le cuenta una historia aparentemente surrealista pero totalmente enganchante que parece sacada de una novela de misterio, enlaza ese presente claustrofóbico y casi totalitario en un aeropuerto en torno a unos pasaportes con una historia del pasado en torno a un candado de la Edad Media. Y a partir de aquí entraremos de pleno en la vida de Sandy, las conversaciones con su padre, los encuentros con gente de su entorno, y a medida que avanza, la autora nos va presentando las claves para entender el presente que vivimos. Y para entender este presente, lo mezcla con el pasado, y en mitad de la historia de Sandy, es capaz de crear otra historia, aquella en torno a la de una niña de trece años en la Edad Media, dos historias, una en el presente otra del pasado, y en un momento dado, se produce la magia y estas dos historias se cruzan. No conozco a otra autora ahora mismo que sea capaz de esto tan raro.
"No odies un poema, le digo. Es una pérdida de emociones fuertes. Solo mira las palabras. Ellas te dirán lo que significan. Porque eso es lo que hacen las palabras."
En Fragua, independientemente de la historia lo que importan de verdad son las palabras, el poder que tienen si te detienes en ellas sin prisas. Igual en la traducción se pierde ese juego de palabras que construye en torno a la palabra zarapito y toque de queda (curlew y curfew) pero así y todo merece la pena porque las escenas que construye en torno a estas disgresiones, se convierten en un concepto medio atemporal: la reflexión en torno al lenguaje, el poema del que proceden ciertas palabras. El estilo de Ali Smith que mezcla ficción, poesía, con crónica social, con una buena dosis de protesta además por los tiempos tan áridos en los que vivimos, convierte esta pequeña novela en muchos momentos, en una especie de hechizo fuera del tiempo. Una novela muy cortita que prácticamene me he leído en dos sentadas y que una vez acabada, hasta me pregunté si es que toda la novela finalmente no habría sido únicamente una historia con un único personaje, el de Sandy Gray,y el resto de los personajes una proyección de su mente. Funciona como un hechizo pero es un complemento perfecto para el Cuarteto Estacional.
“Por el poema pasan todas las estaciones, o quien habla en el poema pasa en la barca por todas las estaciones sin mas compañía que el mar y la vida marina. Excepto, papá, y eso es lo que me encanta, que en realidad esa persona no está sola porque yo estoy leyendo o escuchando el poema, o tú, si eres tú quien lo lee. Una conversación con algo o alguien que guarda silencio sigue siendo una conversación.
Además, imaginate, nosotros en el futuro todavía leemos ese poema, yo estoy sentada aquí, hablándote de ese poema, más de mil años después de que se haya escrito. Me llena de asombro pensar que la persona del poema no está sola cada vez que alguien lo lee.”
"Últimamente, al menor atisbo de fingimiento, falsedad o interés personal, yo alzaba el vuelo como la mariposa que presiente una red."
Es raro el fenómeno Ali Smith porque es una autora a la que no consigo encajar: no me apasiona pero al mismo tiempo me encanta, a ratos, y me siento identificada con muchos momentos, (y aquí en esta Fragua he reconocido muchos momentos míos), no me disgusta pero tampoco me vuelve loca y sin embargo, hay escenas que se me quedan ya grabadas e incluso citas, a pesar de mi mala memoria, todo muy contradictorio, sí. El año pasado me leí el Cuarteto estacional, cuatro libros que me vi incapaz de reseñar precisamente porque no consigo encuadrarla o porque aborda tantos estados, que realmente en su momento no supe ni por donde empezar. De las cuatro estaciones hubo alguna que me gustó más que otra, no todas en la misma medida, aunque sí que es una obra que aprecio más viéndola con la perspectiva del conjunto, no los cuatro libros por separado sino como un único volumen. Ahora me encuentro con esta Fragua, que bien podría ser un apéndice o epílogo a ese Cuarteto, no tanto por los personajes sino porque es una especie de cierre al mundo que describe en el Cuarteto.
"Cuéntame algo. Cuéntame algo sobre, no sé. Lo que sea. Ya sabes. De esa forma tan tuya."
En Fragua, Ali Smith aborda el tiempo de la pandemía y el confinamiento, un momento que reconoceremos de inmediato. Sandy Gray, temporalmene ocupando la casa de su padre que se encuentra aislado en el hospital, recibe la llamada de teléfono de una ex compañera de universidad. Nada más recibir la llamada, Ali Smith nos sumerge en una de estas conversaciones tan habituales en ella, inconexa, de la que se intuye mas por los silencios, pero que enlazan el presente con el pasado. La amiga le cuenta una historia aparentemente surrealista pero totalmente enganchante que parece sacada de una novela de misterio, enlaza ese presente claustrofóbico y casi totalitario en un aeropuerto en torno a unos pasaportes con una historia del pasado en torno a un candado de la Edad Media. Y a partir de aquí entraremos de pleno en la vida de Sandy, las conversaciones con su padre, los encuentros con gente de su entorno, y a medida que avanza, la autora nos va presentando las claves para entender el presente que vivimos. Y para entender este presente, lo mezcla con el pasado, y en mitad de la historia de Sandy, es capaz de crear otra historia, aquella en torno a la de una niña de trece años en la Edad Media, dos historias, una en el presente otra del pasado, y en un momento dado, se produce la magia y estas dos historias se cruzan. No conozco a otra autora ahora mismo que sea capaz de esto tan raro.
"No odies un poema, le digo. Es una pérdida de emociones fuertes. Solo mira las palabras. Ellas te dirán lo que significan. Porque eso es lo que hacen las palabras."
En Fragua, independientemente de la historia lo que importan de verdad son las palabras, el poder que tienen si te detienes en ellas sin prisas. Igual en la traducción se pierde ese juego de palabras que construye en torno a la palabra zarapito y toque de queda (curlew y curfew) pero así y todo merece la pena porque las escenas que construye en torno a estas disgresiones, se convierten en un concepto medio atemporal: la reflexión en torno al lenguaje, el poema del que proceden ciertas palabras. El estilo de Ali Smith que mezcla ficción, poesía, con crónica social, con una buena dosis de protesta además por los tiempos tan áridos en los que vivimos, convierte esta pequeña novela en muchos momentos, en una especie de hechizo fuera del tiempo. Una novela muy cortita que prácticamene me he leído en dos sentadas y que una vez acabada, hasta me pregunté si es que toda la novela finalmente no habría sido únicamente una historia con un único personaje, el de Sandy Gray,y el resto de los personajes una proyección de su mente. Funciona como un hechizo pero es un complemento perfecto para el Cuarteto Estacional.
“Por el poema pasan todas las estaciones, o quien habla en el poema pasa en la barca por todas las estaciones sin mas compañía que el mar y la vida marina. Excepto, papá, y eso es lo que me encanta, que en realidad esa persona no está sola porque yo estoy leyendo o escuchando el poema, o tú, si eres tú quien lo lee. Una conversación con algo o alguien que guarda silencio sigue siendo una conversación.
Además, imaginate, nosotros en el futuro todavía leemos ese poema, yo estoy sentada aquí, hablándote de ese poema, más de mil años después de que se haya escrito. Me llena de asombro pensar que la persona del poema no está sola cada vez que alguien lo lee.”
June 8, 2022
3,5
With the last two books (Summer and this one) of Ali Smiths great achievement of writing like a maniac about the sign o' the times, I feel like watching a chess grandmaster playing speed chess:
the impulsive, rather spontaneous moves are incredible and show the skills of a great player but lack the compellingness, depth and urgency of a normal chess game.
With the last two books (Summer and this one) of Ali Smiths great achievement of writing like a maniac about the sign o' the times, I feel like watching a chess grandmaster playing speed chess:
the impulsive, rather spontaneous moves are incredible and show the skills of a great player but lack the compellingness, depth and urgency of a normal chess game.
May 15, 2022
Perhaps my favourite of all of them.
May 12, 2022
You don’t need to hear it from me, an American reader who used to only tentatively enjoy Ali Smith (or loved some books, turned away from others); please do read the reviews from UK readers who had their sharp eyes alert to her every British nuance. At one time, some years ago, I glared when she was too self-aware. But now, with her latest book, I am deeply in love with her humanity and well-spring of ideas. The author’s word play was not performative, but rather explorative; I am wowed by its beauty and empathy. Ali Smith isn’t just a writer’s writer and reader’s reader; she may well be an empath.
While reading COMPANION PIECE, I deep-dived into the spaces between words. Smith commands those white spaces by conveying a disarming wisdom. This story was of humankind itself. The prose, passages, paragraphs, pages—-they stretch out so that I see those spaces as openings, and fall through them. I cannot elucidate it with my own words, so I will use hers:
“The trees spoke their language. The light and dark took turns. What I knew was my own absence. What I sensed, clear as ruined air, was the ghost of a chance, a different presence.”
“a story is never an answer a story is always a question.”
I used to think Ali Smith only wrote for the academically sophisticated crowds. But now I see that she writes for everyone—-lowbrow, middlebrow, highbrow, eyebrow…ok, she whispers to some, but to others it may be a yelp, a cry, a laugh, or a silent tear (in those white spaces). There is a sense of plot here, but the narrative strands circle around and back, which reminded me of David Foster Wallace’s structure (not story) in Infinite Jest. Things don’t have to begin and end on the pages, in the formal physical book. Smith kicks up a wind that turns into a vortex, and inside that vortex, the words and thoughts spin, and life circles infinitely.
Her protagonist is Sandy Gray (a play on words right there!)—she is a queer artist that paints by overlaying words, letters, into an image. She’s way into her fifties now, been doing this a long time, and usually makes enough money to pay her bills. Her father has been in hospital for some time when the book opens. It’s during the pandemic, circa 2021, and he’s not sick with Covid (it’s a heart condition)—but pandemic rules apply.
Sandy has been isolated for so long that, as the reader begins to understand, some events are real, but perhaps some arise from the surreal space of pandemic effects. It is often dreamlike, and non-linear. She receives a call from a former college classmate, a nodding acquaintance that once asked her to cheat for her. Now the acquaintance calls, all cringe-y familiar, and asks her for advice on an academic matter that created problems for her with airport security. The former classmate states she traveled with an antique lock and key, a Booth one. We also learn that this woman has twin daughters—well, one is non-binary. That’s its own world of mustering in the narrative.
I don’t need to atomize this book for readers—in fact, I’m not that competent to do so. But, I slipped into this stream so quickly that I forgot where I left myself. I think I’m still right between her pages. Soon, I will go back to read her quartet! Now, when I read Smith, she will be a companion. We can cleave or cleave either way, and I think her novels can be companion pieces to the universal layers of what it means to be human. Her themes? She said “You choose.”
A hearty thanks to Pantheon and Penguin Random House books for sending me a finished copy for review.
While reading COMPANION PIECE, I deep-dived into the spaces between words. Smith commands those white spaces by conveying a disarming wisdom. This story was of humankind itself. The prose, passages, paragraphs, pages—-they stretch out so that I see those spaces as openings, and fall through them. I cannot elucidate it with my own words, so I will use hers:
“The trees spoke their language. The light and dark took turns. What I knew was my own absence. What I sensed, clear as ruined air, was the ghost of a chance, a different presence.”
“a story is never an answer a story is always a question.”
I used to think Ali Smith only wrote for the academically sophisticated crowds. But now I see that she writes for everyone—-lowbrow, middlebrow, highbrow, eyebrow…ok, she whispers to some, but to others it may be a yelp, a cry, a laugh, or a silent tear (in those white spaces). There is a sense of plot here, but the narrative strands circle around and back, which reminded me of David Foster Wallace’s structure (not story) in Infinite Jest. Things don’t have to begin and end on the pages, in the formal physical book. Smith kicks up a wind that turns into a vortex, and inside that vortex, the words and thoughts spin, and life circles infinitely.
Her protagonist is Sandy Gray (a play on words right there!)—she is a queer artist that paints by overlaying words, letters, into an image. She’s way into her fifties now, been doing this a long time, and usually makes enough money to pay her bills. Her father has been in hospital for some time when the book opens. It’s during the pandemic, circa 2021, and he’s not sick with Covid (it’s a heart condition)—but pandemic rules apply.
Sandy has been isolated for so long that, as the reader begins to understand, some events are real, but perhaps some arise from the surreal space of pandemic effects. It is often dreamlike, and non-linear. She receives a call from a former college classmate, a nodding acquaintance that once asked her to cheat for her. Now the acquaintance calls, all cringe-y familiar, and asks her for advice on an academic matter that created problems for her with airport security. The former classmate states she traveled with an antique lock and key, a Booth one. We also learn that this woman has twin daughters—well, one is non-binary. That’s its own world of mustering in the narrative.
I don’t need to atomize this book for readers—in fact, I’m not that competent to do so. But, I slipped into this stream so quickly that I forgot where I left myself. I think I’m still right between her pages. Soon, I will go back to read her quartet! Now, when I read Smith, she will be a companion. We can cleave or cleave either way, and I think her novels can be companion pieces to the universal layers of what it means to be human. Her themes? She said “You choose.”
A hearty thanks to Pantheon and Penguin Random House books for sending me a finished copy for review.
November 12, 2022
4 stars for the hardcover
I am so happy I reread this in print! I made so many more connections and enjoyed it for all the reasons I enjoyed Smith's Seasonal Quartet, just not quite as much as those four brilliant books. This one has the hallmarks of Smith's writing that I love. Lots of word play - the word Hello in all its many meanings threads throughout and hit me in a way I completely missed in the audiobook. Art, antiquities and magical realism also feature in Companion Piece. I'm eager to see what she offers up next and wonder if I should read some of her back catalogue.
Why I'm rereading this: As you can see below, I listened to this recently but feel that I need to see the words on the page to really take it in. (I can't figure out with the new GR format how to create a separate review for the hardcover! Insert sighs of exasperation.)
3 stars for the audiobook
One star? Five stars? I'm not sure what I just listened to, but parts I loved and parts I scratched my head. I think this demands to be seen in print, thinking it will make more sense to see the words and how the book is formatted, like her Seasonal Quartet. I will do a proper review after reading!
Why I'm reading this: Just saw this on Instagram. Not sure how I missed this, but since I read and loved Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet, I decided I needed to read (listen) to this one too.
I am so happy I reread this in print! I made so many more connections and enjoyed it for all the reasons I enjoyed Smith's Seasonal Quartet, just not quite as much as those four brilliant books. This one has the hallmarks of Smith's writing that I love. Lots of word play - the word Hello in all its many meanings threads throughout and hit me in a way I completely missed in the audiobook. Art, antiquities and magical realism also feature in Companion Piece. I'm eager to see what she offers up next and wonder if I should read some of her back catalogue.
Why I'm rereading this: As you can see below, I listened to this recently but feel that I need to see the words on the page to really take it in. (I can't figure out with the new GR format how to create a separate review for the hardcover! Insert sighs of exasperation.)
3 stars for the audiobook
One star? Five stars? I'm not sure what I just listened to, but parts I loved and parts I scratched my head. I think this demands to be seen in print, thinking it will make more sense to see the words and how the book is formatted, like her Seasonal Quartet. I will do a proper review after reading!
Why I'm reading this: Just saw this on Instagram. Not sure how I missed this, but since I read and loved Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet, I decided I needed to read (listen) to this one too.
April 14, 2022
Setting out to write a definitive summary of the “meaning” in Ali Smith’s books is not only difficult but goes against the author’s own often proclaimed belief that a book once published, is then relinquished by the author, for the reader to take ownership.
Reflecting on the ‘meaning’ of a poem by e.e. Cummings, the narrator, Sandy, observes:
“Anyone could choose a single phrase of this poem and write fifteen different papers about it” (46)
My overall response is that I liked the book very much. It’s certainly whimsical, playful and digressive, but as ever with Ali Smith there are serious messages underlying the various tangential parts of the story and despite the backdrop of the times against which this is set (Covid 19), Ali Smith manages to retain her sunny, optimistic outlook on life.
The central conundrum in Companion Piece revolves around Curlew and Curfew. The two words mean things that at first glance have nothing to do with one another. In Ali Smith’s imagination she conjures up a linkage and a meaning which is entirely relevant to the world today, and which creates a coherent theme. Birds are clearly creatures of freedom (they can fly… humans can’t(!)). They are also migratory; and in the case of the curlew it is an untamed spirit and one which is present in many countries across the world, with some local variation. It is also threatened in the UK. Making the link with people and the dislocation of peoples across the globe is not difficult.
Curfew is the opposite of curlew. The locking down is familiar across the world in the Covid world, and curfews have always been an instrument used by governments as a constraint on people
As Ali Smith says to the reader (of Curlew and Curfew) … “You Choose”
What a great juxtaposition.
Parts of the book which are straightforward
• Parent child relationships aren’t always easy.
• Those in need (minority groups, the oppressed, women, refugees deserve support and not persecution)
• Be nice to people. Say hello; be graceful under pressure
• None of us have all the answers “I was making it up as I went along, like we all are”.
• The surveillance society is all around us. Online as well as CCTV
• Ali Smith loves to incorporate song lyrics (as well as poetry) in her novels. (Paul McCartney’s Wings)
Parts of the book which initially (and maybe always will) baffle
• Who is Christine Gross?
• Since when are wolves guardians rather than assailants?
I had the chance to be present as Ali Smith was in conversation with Sarah Wood at LRB Bookshop on launch date. April 7, 2022
• The event started with an impromptu and joyous rendition of the Peters and Lee classic “Welcome Home” (!!). The sense of joy and relief at doing a live person to person event was palpable. Ali Smith had been very quiet and cautious during lockdown. The sense of returning to human contact feeds into the theme of Companion Pieces.
• Thresholds are important: the level or point at which you start to experience something, or at which something starts to happen: doorways, border controls. Its bigger than personal security.
(I wasn’t altogether certain of the full meaning of this strongly made point).
• A number of influences were mentioned. John Berger whose book, A Seventh Man, is in the form of photography and text on migrant workers in Europe.. Asked about refugees Berger said the story teller has a duty to be hospitable. Toni Morrison was mentioned. Nicola Barker was present at the event, and the book is dedicated to her. Barker had sent Ali Smith Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being by Philip Shepherd. The concept of “Balance” – drawn from a West African tribe.
• When Ali Smith was writing Summer she found herself ‘flying off to the side’. The need to write a story in which Companionability was the central theme was irresistible.
• The nature of Vagabond goes back in time. Freedom of movement is sacred ; people were branded with a V if they had no money or job. They were kept in place. The Enclosures Act of the eighteen century enshrined the restrictions by government.
• Curlew/ Curfew. When writing the book Ali Smith asked herself… where is this going? She recalls Alan Garner’s assertion that it will come. Then Paul McCartney, in 2021 for the publication of his The Lyrics answered a question/statement from Ali Smith “I like it that your sheep get old”. Macca in a blog, talked about curlews and his sheep. This was when the Ali Smiths “Givens” emerged again, since she was writing about curlews at that very moment.
• Boothby Lock. This was made up! But.. Booth is a habitat; Boothby has political undertones (Ali Smith always seeking and finding unlikely connections).
My five star rating of this book strangely is at odds with my normal wish to then recommend the book to everybody I know. It’s taken me several years for Ali Smith to work for me, but as a convert I was delighted in this latest novel.
Reflecting on the ‘meaning’ of a poem by e.e. Cummings, the narrator, Sandy, observes:
“Anyone could choose a single phrase of this poem and write fifteen different papers about it” (46)
My overall response is that I liked the book very much. It’s certainly whimsical, playful and digressive, but as ever with Ali Smith there are serious messages underlying the various tangential parts of the story and despite the backdrop of the times against which this is set (Covid 19), Ali Smith manages to retain her sunny, optimistic outlook on life.
The central conundrum in Companion Piece revolves around Curlew and Curfew. The two words mean things that at first glance have nothing to do with one another. In Ali Smith’s imagination she conjures up a linkage and a meaning which is entirely relevant to the world today, and which creates a coherent theme. Birds are clearly creatures of freedom (they can fly… humans can’t(!)). They are also migratory; and in the case of the curlew it is an untamed spirit and one which is present in many countries across the world, with some local variation. It is also threatened in the UK. Making the link with people and the dislocation of peoples across the globe is not difficult.
Curfew is the opposite of curlew. The locking down is familiar across the world in the Covid world, and curfews have always been an instrument used by governments as a constraint on people
As Ali Smith says to the reader (of Curlew and Curfew) … “You Choose”
What a great juxtaposition.
Parts of the book which are straightforward
• Parent child relationships aren’t always easy.
• Those in need (minority groups, the oppressed, women, refugees deserve support and not persecution)
• Be nice to people. Say hello; be graceful under pressure
• None of us have all the answers “I was making it up as I went along, like we all are”.
• The surveillance society is all around us. Online as well as CCTV
• Ali Smith loves to incorporate song lyrics (as well as poetry) in her novels. (Paul McCartney’s Wings)
Parts of the book which initially (and maybe always will) baffle
• Who is Christine Gross?
• Since when are wolves guardians rather than assailants?
I had the chance to be present as Ali Smith was in conversation with Sarah Wood at LRB Bookshop on launch date. April 7, 2022
• The event started with an impromptu and joyous rendition of the Peters and Lee classic “Welcome Home” (!!). The sense of joy and relief at doing a live person to person event was palpable. Ali Smith had been very quiet and cautious during lockdown. The sense of returning to human contact feeds into the theme of Companion Pieces.
• Thresholds are important: the level or point at which you start to experience something, or at which something starts to happen: doorways, border controls. Its bigger than personal security.
(I wasn’t altogether certain of the full meaning of this strongly made point).
• A number of influences were mentioned. John Berger whose book, A Seventh Man, is in the form of photography and text on migrant workers in Europe.. Asked about refugees Berger said the story teller has a duty to be hospitable. Toni Morrison was mentioned. Nicola Barker was present at the event, and the book is dedicated to her. Barker had sent Ali Smith Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being by Philip Shepherd. The concept of “Balance” – drawn from a West African tribe.
• When Ali Smith was writing Summer she found herself ‘flying off to the side’. The need to write a story in which Companionability was the central theme was irresistible.
• The nature of Vagabond goes back in time. Freedom of movement is sacred ; people were branded with a V if they had no money or job. They were kept in place. The Enclosures Act of the eighteen century enshrined the restrictions by government.
• Curlew/ Curfew. When writing the book Ali Smith asked herself… where is this going? She recalls Alan Garner’s assertion that it will come. Then Paul McCartney, in 2021 for the publication of his The Lyrics answered a question/statement from Ali Smith “I like it that your sheep get old”. Macca in a blog, talked about curlews and his sheep. This was when the Ali Smiths “Givens” emerged again, since she was writing about curlews at that very moment.
• Boothby Lock. This was made up! But.. Booth is a habitat; Boothby has political undertones (Ali Smith always seeking and finding unlikely connections).
My five star rating of this book strangely is at odds with my normal wish to then recommend the book to everybody I know. It’s taken me several years for Ali Smith to work for me, but as a convert I was delighted in this latest novel.
July 11, 2022
73rd book of 2022.
I enjoyed this more than Winter, Spring and Summer of Smith's seasonal quartet which this serves as a kind of companion (companion!) to. It's much of the same: contemporary setting with more lockdown and Covid, art, random threads and stories over several parts. I enjoyed the modern section where Smith's 'boomer' protagonist is thrown into dealing with two young twins, one being non-binary, both of whom end up moving into her house without her consent. There are some witty lines and Smith explores some modern themes. The last part went mostly over my head, as Smith tends to, and the first part was intriguing enough, too. As ever with Smith, I enjoy parts of her novels but when taken as a whole, I just can't be bothered to work out why she chose to write it, what connects to what, etc., because I don't enjoy them enough to care. So I read it for the wordplay and the thrilling paragraphs dotted throughout. When I come to the end I am always met with the same feeling of 'fun' but 'good riddance' and drop it off the side of my bed.
I enjoyed this more than Winter, Spring and Summer of Smith's seasonal quartet which this serves as a kind of companion (companion!) to. It's much of the same: contemporary setting with more lockdown and Covid, art, random threads and stories over several parts. I enjoyed the modern section where Smith's 'boomer' protagonist is thrown into dealing with two young twins, one being non-binary, both of whom end up moving into her house without her consent. There are some witty lines and Smith explores some modern themes. The last part went mostly over my head, as Smith tends to, and the first part was intriguing enough, too. As ever with Smith, I enjoy parts of her novels but when taken as a whole, I just can't be bothered to work out why she chose to write it, what connects to what, etc., because I don't enjoy them enough to care. So I read it for the wordplay and the thrilling paragraphs dotted throughout. When I come to the end I am always met with the same feeling of 'fun' but 'good riddance' and drop it off the side of my bed.
January 17, 2024
No se bien como escribir una opinión sobre Fragua. A medio libro no tenía ni idea de que estaba leyendo y en el penúltimo capitulo tenía la completa certeza de que el libro era exactamente el cuadro que estaba pintando la protagonista. Ese traslado a pintura de un poema, aquí ha trasladado una idea a un libro un tanto enigmático. Lleno de capas con significados interpretables. En las fraguas se forjan los metales. Esos objetos duros que necesitan del fuego para convertirse en elementos como cuchillos, espadas... En la fragua, dice la autora, que hay que separar la escoria para conseguir lo mejor del metal. Y aquí es donde yo veo una perfecta analogía con la vida. Las pruebas de fuego a las que nos somete, esa escoria qué tenemos que ir soplando, para que al final seamos un metal brillante
"¿Sabes qué es la escoria?, le dijo. ¿No? Está dentro de la fragua, es más ligera que el carbón y se le pega debajo, entorpeciendo el fuego y lo que tú quieres que haga. Un fuego odia su escoria. La escoria odia su fuego. Bien. Vamos a ver si consigues encontrar el odio ahí dentro y sacarlo para que podamos librarnos de él."
Sitúa toda la historia en la época del covid. Ha querido dejar constancia del momento histórico en el que ha escrito una hilarante historia enlazandola con un pasado en el que una mujer, una herrera, pelea por salir adelante. El objeto que une los tiempos de la novela es una cerradura muy especial...
La palabra cubrefuego que da título al último capítulo y forma además parte de una pregunta que me parece muy interesante guarda relación a mi modo de ver, con ese toque de queda impuesto en el covid, en el que no se podía salir de casa.... Aquí hay muchas más capas que se quedarán días vagando en mi mente...
"Cuando el martillo golpea una zona iluminada del metal, es luz lo que sale de él, en forma de escamas. Cada escama, al moverse, es tiempo que se mueve por la potencia de su propia disipación.
Eso es lo que quiero, pensó la niña. Tiempo en forma de aire, solo vivo hasta que se desvanece. Como una estrella que cruza como una flecha el cielo en verano."
"A lo que es inflexible, envíale calor. Es posible conseguir que la naturaleza mezquina acabe siendo generosa. A los fieros tierra, aire, agua, fuego, a los cuatro, se les puede persuadir para que trabajen con nosotros, como hacen los caballos, si respetamos sus poderes y aprendemos a hablar su lengua."
"
"Tú tienes lenguaje, dice. Eso tiene más poder que cualquier puñetazo. Y con lo de poner agua a hervir me refiero a la educación. Acoger lo que suceda, lo que pase, sea lo que sea. Eso también es resistencia. Mantener la compostura, mantener la compostura, decía tu madre continuamente."
La importancia del lenguaje, del origen de las palabras de su etimología, hace una pequeña e interesante digresión sobre la palabra hola que me ha parecido muy interesante.
En general creo que es un pequeño gran libro ante el que me he sentido muy perdida.
"¿Sabes qué es la escoria?, le dijo. ¿No? Está dentro de la fragua, es más ligera que el carbón y se le pega debajo, entorpeciendo el fuego y lo que tú quieres que haga. Un fuego odia su escoria. La escoria odia su fuego. Bien. Vamos a ver si consigues encontrar el odio ahí dentro y sacarlo para que podamos librarnos de él."
Sitúa toda la historia en la época del covid. Ha querido dejar constancia del momento histórico en el que ha escrito una hilarante historia enlazandola con un pasado en el que una mujer, una herrera, pelea por salir adelante. El objeto que une los tiempos de la novela es una cerradura muy especial...
La palabra cubrefuego que da título al último capítulo y forma además parte de una pregunta que me parece muy interesante guarda relación a mi modo de ver, con ese toque de queda impuesto en el covid, en el que no se podía salir de casa.... Aquí hay muchas más capas que se quedarán días vagando en mi mente...
"Cuando el martillo golpea una zona iluminada del metal, es luz lo que sale de él, en forma de escamas. Cada escama, al moverse, es tiempo que se mueve por la potencia de su propia disipación.
Eso es lo que quiero, pensó la niña. Tiempo en forma de aire, solo vivo hasta que se desvanece. Como una estrella que cruza como una flecha el cielo en verano."
"A lo que es inflexible, envíale calor. Es posible conseguir que la naturaleza mezquina acabe siendo generosa. A los fieros tierra, aire, agua, fuego, a los cuatro, se les puede persuadir para que trabajen con nosotros, como hacen los caballos, si respetamos sus poderes y aprendemos a hablar su lengua."
"
"Tú tienes lenguaje, dice. Eso tiene más poder que cualquier puñetazo. Y con lo de poner agua a hervir me refiero a la educación. Acoger lo que suceda, lo que pase, sea lo que sea. Eso también es resistencia. Mantener la compostura, mantener la compostura, decía tu madre continuamente."
La importancia del lenguaje, del origen de las palabras de su etimología, hace una pequeña e interesante digresión sobre la palabra hola que me ha parecido muy interesante.
En general creo que es un pequeño gran libro ante el que me he sentido muy perdida.
March 19, 2022
Somewhere between 3-3.5
A new Ali Smith novel is always A Literary Event (in the UK at least), so my expectations for this were always going to be high. A "companion" to the Seasonal Quarter published between 2016-2020, Smith's latest offering follows a similar formula to Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer - and also has a David Hockney painting on the cover of the UK edition to boot - Companion Piece tackles the pandemic, lockdown and is a 'state of the nation' novel tackling very current topics.
I found the novel to be very readable, but a mere two days later I find that I am left with very little to say about it beyond that: the writing was dazzling at times, but I am not sure I quite got the Pelf twins or what Smith was trying to say with the broader plot and themes. I wanted more of Sandy and her dad, and found the narrative a bit too fragmented for my personal taste. Worth a try if you liked the Seasonal Quartet, but it's probably my least favourite of Smith's most recent work.
Thank you Netgalley and Penguin UK for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
A new Ali Smith novel is always A Literary Event (in the UK at least), so my expectations for this were always going to be high. A "companion" to the Seasonal Quarter published between 2016-2020, Smith's latest offering follows a similar formula to Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer - and also has a David Hockney painting on the cover of the UK edition to boot - Companion Piece tackles the pandemic, lockdown and is a 'state of the nation' novel tackling very current topics.
I found the novel to be very readable, but a mere two days later I find that I am left with very little to say about it beyond that: the writing was dazzling at times, but I am not sure I quite got the Pelf twins or what Smith was trying to say with the broader plot and themes. I wanted more of Sandy and her dad, and found the narrative a bit too fragmented for my personal taste. Worth a try if you liked the Seasonal Quartet, but it's probably my least favourite of Smith's most recent work.
Thank you Netgalley and Penguin UK for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
May 10, 2022
Whew. This was a rapid fire cannon of ideas poured into an experimental framework, and I think it's worth reading, though I lack the chops to really synthesize it all.
I will add that there is an amazing section in which the MC does an on the spot exegesis of an e.e. cummings poem, and it blew me away. This was a more instructive exercise than the one I got in college freshman English, and my professor studied under Robert Penn Warren (and never let us forget it).
I will add that there is an amazing section in which the MC does an on the spot exegesis of an e.e. cummings poem, and it blew me away. This was a more instructive exercise than the one I got in college freshman English, and my professor studied under Robert Penn Warren (and never let us forget it).
January 15, 2024
Ali Smith una garanzia di intelligenza, arguzia e fantasia, oltre che ottima scrittrice.
Ho molto amato la prima parte di questo libro, decisamente meno la seconda dove ho trovato il suo girovagare/vagare mentale un po' sopra la mia portata per seguirla costantemente.
La cosa che mi piace molto della Smith è che la trovo una scrittrice unica. Fatico a fare paragoni, non saprei con chi confrontarla. C'è un'altra autrice britannica, molto più giovane, che me la ricorda a tratti, ma molto lontanamente. Quindi leggerla è essere consapevoli di entrare in un mondo complesso e lontano dal conosciuto, per quello mi piace. Poi, a volte, ti trasporta nel suo mondo e ti ci fa rimbalzare a suo piacimento, a volte le riesce un po' meno e il risultato è solo farti perdere. Ma che bello perdersi così.
Ho molto amato la prima parte di questo libro, decisamente meno la seconda dove ho trovato il suo girovagare/vagare mentale un po' sopra la mia portata per seguirla costantemente.
La cosa che mi piace molto della Smith è che la trovo una scrittrice unica. Fatico a fare paragoni, non saprei con chi confrontarla. C'è un'altra autrice britannica, molto più giovane, che me la ricorda a tratti, ma molto lontanamente. Quindi leggerla è essere consapevoli di entrare in un mondo complesso e lontano dal conosciuto, per quello mi piace. Poi, a volte, ti trasporta nel suo mondo e ti ci fa rimbalzare a suo piacimento, a volte le riesce un po' meno e il risultato è solo farti perdere. Ma che bello perdersi così.
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