The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Ali Smith (1962-). Scottish novelist.

Bibliography:

Novels:

- Like (1997)
- Hotel World (2001)
- The Accidental (2005)
- Girl Meets Boy (2007)
- There but for the (2011)
- Artful (2012)*
- How to Be Both (2014)
- Autumn (2016)
- Winter (2017)
- Spring (2019)
- Summer (2020)

* Wikipedia includes this in its list of her novels, but I am not sure I agree with that!

Short story collections:

- Free Love and Other Stories (1995)
- Other Stories and other stories (1999)
- The Whole Story and Other Stories (2003)
- The First Person and Other Stories (2008)
- Public Library and Other Stories (2015)

Non-fiction:

- Shire (2013)

She has also written 7 plays (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Smith)

and a children's book:

- The Story of Antigone (2011)

Thanks Meike!

Lee wrote: "Thanks Meike!"

Hugh wrote: "Thanks Meike - do you want to do a bibliography? If not I will."

You're welcome, guys! :-)

Actually, it would be really nice if you could write one, Hugh! :-) (I am not an expert (yet), so I would simply copy what's on Wikipedia, which is a potentially dangerous strategy...)
Thank you so much!!

For tidiness may be better to delete Meike's first comment (sorry Meike!) so the bibliography appears on the first entry as per the usual format.

I can also vouch that several of the other bibliographies - at least the ones I wrote - are taken from Wikipedia!

Now I'm off to the bookshop to pick up my copy of Winter.

This was a nice moment for my daughter...

Ohh, she looks so happy!!! I think it's really cool that your daughter gets the chance to go to all of these events and meet so many writers!

It was nice when we then went to the Booker as Ali Smith recognised her and gave her a copy of Autumn (albeit we had one already but I guess now we have one each)

Made a start on Winter last night. Bit weird!

Neil wrote: "Made a start on Winter last night. Bit weird!"

We need details, Neil, details! :-)

There’s a floating head

Floating in the air, I mean, not in water

For those in the UK - the Big Issue has an excellent review this week ...... and if you don't currently buy The Big Issue then make this the week you start buying it.

Neil wrote: "Floating in the air, I mean, not in water"

Bit weird indeed! :-)

Also Ali Smith has written some introductions to novels. To my knowledge there's:

The Door by Magda Szabo
The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers
Wise Children - Angela Carter
The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
A Far Cry from Kensington - Muriel Spark
The Comforters - Muriel Spark
Fair Play - Tove Jansson
The True Deceiver - Tove Jansson

And then there's an anthology Refugee Tales, in which she contributes a story, which is here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Thanks Robert - I suspect there are a lot more of those. I found these:

Lewis Grassic Gibbon - Sunset Song
Katherine Mansfield - Collected Stories
Leonora Carrington - The Hearing Trumpet
Lorna Sage (ed.) - Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the art of Angela Carter
H.G. Wells - The Rights of Man
Jackie Kay - Trumpet
J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes
Tove Jansson - Sculptor's Daughter, Travelling Light, The Summer Book
George Mackay Brown - Greenvoe
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Angela Carter - The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman
Antal Szerb - Love in a Bottle

Great!

Paul wrote: "This was a nice moment for my daughter...

"

How nice for your daughter. She's a pretty girl, (not that it matters, but she is a cute girl.)

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...

Thanks, Robert!

Really looking forward to reading the review from whatever Mooksie gets to this one first ;)

My daughter has grabbed my copy!

Get her to write the review! She’ll have to hurry - I only have 57 pages to go and nothing else to do tomorrow morning.

Neil wrote: "Get her to write the review! She’ll have to hurry - I only have 57 pages to go and nothing else to do tomorrow morning."

I think you are most worthy of the honour of the first M&G review - I'm still getting round to her back book (and Levy's), thanks to your recommendations.

I can't do this book justice in a review, but here it is. 5 stars is not enough:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Ali Smith is so consistently interesting that it is difficult to compare her works. I have read all of the novels except Winter, but still have three short story collections to go before I can call myself a completist. It is also debatable whether Artful belongs on the list of novels, since it is an innovative hybrid of fact and fiction in lecture format.

Just received Winter - will start reading during my lunch break

Better warn your boss you might not be back this afternoon.

oh dear - This is not a book to read during a 20 minute lunch break - I'm trying to squeeze in a couple of pages in between lessons!

I tried to warn you!

I just love the way that Ali Smith crams so many references in her novels. Have you ever read a book that namechecks Cezanne , Kepler and contains lyrics from The Byrds??

*update*

Bowie reference and from my fave album too! , Hunky Dory

One of the most fascinating things for me is the commonality of themes, tone, approach etc between this and Autumn - way too many to add to this discussion thread but if you are interested then please check out my review here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I would be fascinated to know of any I have missed as well as if other's have better insights into the floating head and floating coastline than in my review.

Dotty mothers and David Hockney paintings are the others currently on my bingo card

The Chaplin connection ties up with Playing Possum (well sort of)

A question my daughter and I were discussing - when does Winter (season not book) start?

If the winter solstice is midwinter (which is what it is often called) then that dates the start of winter as early November. Which is presumably also the publisher's view since they (per Smith) delayed the publication until Winter.

Except assuming each season is 3 months long that means Autumn starts in early August.

Another view is that winter actually starts on the solstice - which actually fits better with weather - but that means midwinter is misnamed.

Discuss......

If you are a meteorologist, it starts 1 December. Traditionally it starts on the solstice. But global warming etc means the seasons are shifting, so in reality it’s a gradually moving target.

So either way the book was released too soon, hence my review.

If the intention is to release each one in the season it refers to, yes, it was early.

She said it was at the talk I attended - in the context of saying that next year would be odd as she essentially wasn't allowed to publish a novel as Spring would have to come out in Spring, hence 2019.

I guess publishers decided that releasing in in December risked, perversely, missing the Christmas present book sales boom.

Time to start bets on Spring. The decade will be the 1920s. So who is the artist? And what is the political event?

I can see the publisher wanting to avoid publishing the book in any month in from December to March, which are historically low points in the publishing/book selling calendar. That said, that’s just when Pantheon here in the U.S. is publishing it: January 9!

Well Jan 9th makes more sense - clearly in Winter. Although wasn't Autumn published in February there? The publishers perhaps didn't realise what Autumn meant!

Paul wrote: "Time to start bets on Spring. The decade will be the 1920s. So who is the artist? And what is the political event ..."

Surely Ethel Walker is the obvious candidate for artist - she has the advantage of being Scottish as well.

She painted the portrait of Hepworth which is discussed in "Winter" as the anecdote that Sophia wanted to share with Art's father but instead shares with Lux.

She studied at the Slade School of Art on I believe four separate occasions - the last time at 60 in the 1920s. Slade School of Art was where Pauline Boty's mother was offered a place but forbidden to attend - meaning that when Pauline was offered a place at Wimbledon Art College Pauline's Mum overruled Pauline's Dad to insist Pauline took her place.

I hadn't seen much by way of Smith interviews on Winter (other than hearing her in person) but just seen this

http://www.foyles.co.uk/ali-smith

Talks about Ethel Walker. Doesn't seem to link the head with Hepworth particularly.

Also talks about subtly inserted recurring characters. Which ones are there? Is Art's father Daniel Gluck? Identity of Sophie's lover in Winter is rather oddly hinted at which made me wonder, and I see Spectator is stating it as fact. On other hand, I thought Daniel was only ever in love with one person, and that was The Wimbledon Bardot.

Paul wrote: "Well Jan 9th makes more sense - clearly in Winter. Although wasn't Autumn published in February there? The publishers perhaps didn't realise what Autumn meant!"

Yes, that's right! It's very confusing!

I was wondering if gluck was art's father but there's no concrete evidence

Re-read the first chapter of Autumn. Daniel describes the exact same trip to Paris with a younger woman (her 40s, him almost 70 - which dates it correctly) and he buys the Boubat postcard that Sophie refers to in chapter 1 of Winter.

When reading Winter I thought it was a subtle hint/tease. Re-reading Autumn it is absolutely 100% obvious.

Ok. Thanks!

Looking, Autumn even names Sophie

Thank goodness for discussions like this one! As you say, we all missed or at most wondered about this. But now it seems very clear.

I wrote a whole review of “needles” I found and missed the “haystack”.

Probably proves we should have all re read autumn before we read winter. I guess was we know now for spring.