5/31/2023 0 Comments Summer by ali smith![]() ![]() It wouldn’t surprise me if she can write hanging upside down like a bat. She can let a single exclamation point stand as an entire paragraph. She can start a new novel in the middle of another. She can build entire narratives around dreams and hallucinations. (Anyone fancy some literature right now about Trump and Macron’s long, strange handshake last May?)īut the Scottish marvel Ali Smith breaks rules better than anyone. ![]() The years of drafting and revision, the months awaiting publication: By the time a book appears, the conversation has moved on. Inconveniently for the artist, literary depth requires time, distance, composure. The mercurial politicians who demand our stringent, focused repudiation tend to prompt, instead, knee-jerk responses - angry email threads, reactive essays. ![]() Is it possible, in this vertiginous moment, for a novel to be both timely and deep? Timeliness, these days, requires a quick trigger finger the world of rising fascism and viral falsehoods and ongoing environmental disaster won’t hold still long enough to be written about with more than visceral haste. I’m not sure, though, that its author agrees. “There’s ways to survive these times,” a character says in Ali Smith’s new novel, “and I think one way is the shape the telling takes.” It’s a gorgeous, heartening sentiment, one I happen to believe. ![]()
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