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inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had trouble with this book a bit insofar as I found two of the main viewpoint characters to be not just unpleasant, but tragic in having become so banally insensitive. Yet each is also allowed moments of grace and growth. I do love Ali Smith’s writing, and I think there is a fundamental hopefulness to this book. One that I hope can exist in real life as well.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Brilliant! So much so that you have to read this like an activity book in order to keep up. Pen in hand. Not perfect because I am a romantic and the story ended too soon
I may be in the minority, in that I loved Autumn even more than this exquisite piece of literary fiction, but definitely a 5 star read for me.
Started randomly to read this series in the appropriate seasons, not sure if I'm going to continue it in spring and summer. I enjoyed it but wasn't overly attached to it either. Feel like I enjoyed it a lot more first time around however I still find it well written and I'll stick with my 4 star rating as I did enjoy reading it
A beautiful and beautifully written book about memory and the ways we connect through it.
"That’s what winter is: an exercise in remembering how to still yourself and then how to come pliantly back to life again.”
I liked this book even better the second time. It's an apt read for cold weather and imminent holidays. Despite the nods to modernity (ubiquitous Googling, blogs, smart phones, and laptops), the backdrop of contemporary global politics, and Smith's always quirky writing, this novel is at its core almost old-fashioned.
Art has been dumped by his activist girlfriend and is feeling lost. He pays a young woman he spots at a bus stop to come home with him at Christmas and pretend to be his fiancé. But Christmas at home with his mother and aunt who haven't spoken to each other for years promises to be a holiday nightmare. Except that his proxy fiancé, the appropriately named Lux, in fact does provide some needed illumination to guide the family toward more forgiving versions of themselves.
Winter is informed by Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Smith invokes the classic several times throughout her novel. The primary characters all have their ghosts of Christmas past -- memories that float in and out of their consciousnesses and nightmares; along with a few future ghosts. Art's mom, Sophia, is Scrooge-like, Art's aunt Iris has Bob Cratchett's expansiveness, and of course, Lux is Smith's version of Tiny Tim. But the book is an utterly contemporary look at the obstacles family members face when they meet up.
In a gorgeous passage, Lux summarizes Shakespeare's play Cymbeline in an oblique reference to the challenges facing Art and his family:
“...it’s like the people in the play are living in the same world but separately from each other, like their worlds have somehow become disjointed or broken off each other’s worlds. But if they could just step out of themselves, or just hear and see what’s happening right next to their ears and eyes, they’d see it’s the same play they’re all in, the same world, that they’re all part of the same story. So.”
A floating child's head, a load of bird watchers showing up in a tour bus on Christmas Day and helping themselves to leftovers, wacky nightmares, and a dysfunctional (well, except for Lux) but utterly endearing and human bunch of characters make this an hilarious and stimulating, but also poignant, read.
Ali Smith is just the best. She packs her books with so much stuff, all coming rapid fire, but it it's good stuff and it mostly works somehow. I can't think of another living author as innovative or smart, and whose brain seems to operate at such lightning speed, integrating the events in her characters' lives, politics, literary, musical and artistic references and a whole lot more in a seemingly relaxed, contemporary way. She says she tries to write in real time and incorporates things going on around her as she writes. Most of the time she succeeds.
A perfect winter read.
I liked this book even better the second time. It's an apt read for cold weather and imminent holidays. Despite the nods to modernity (ubiquitous Googling, blogs, smart phones, and laptops), the backdrop of contemporary global politics, and Smith's always quirky writing, this novel is at its core almost old-fashioned.
Art has been dumped by his activist girlfriend and is feeling lost. He pays a young woman he spots at a bus stop to come home with him at Christmas and pretend to be his fiancé. But Christmas at home with his mother and aunt who haven't spoken to each other for years promises to be a holiday nightmare. Except that his proxy fiancé, the appropriately named Lux, in fact does provide some needed illumination to guide the family toward more forgiving versions of themselves.
Winter is informed by Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Smith invokes the classic several times throughout her novel. The primary characters all have their ghosts of Christmas past -- memories that float in and out of their consciousnesses and nightmares; along with a few future ghosts. Art's mom, Sophia, is Scrooge-like, Art's aunt Iris has Bob Cratchett's expansiveness, and of course, Lux is Smith's version of Tiny Tim. But the book is an utterly contemporary look at the obstacles family members face when they meet up.
In a gorgeous passage, Lux summarizes Shakespeare's play Cymbeline in an oblique reference to the challenges facing Art and his family:
“...it’s like the people in the play are living in the same world but separately from each other, like their worlds have somehow become disjointed or broken off each other’s worlds. But if they could just step out of themselves, or just hear and see what’s happening right next to their ears and eyes, they’d see it’s the same play they’re all in, the same world, that they’re all part of the same story. So.”
A floating child's head, a load of bird watchers showing up in a tour bus on Christmas Day and helping themselves to leftovers, wacky nightmares, and a dysfunctional (well, except for Lux) but utterly endearing and human bunch of characters make this an hilarious and stimulating, but also poignant, read.
Ali Smith is just the best. She packs her books with so much stuff, all coming rapid fire, but it it's good stuff and it mostly works somehow. I can't think of another living author as innovative or smart, and whose brain seems to operate at such lightning speed, integrating the events in her characters' lives, politics, literary, musical and artistic references and a whole lot more in a seemingly relaxed, contemporary way. She says she tries to write in real time and incorporates things going on around her as she writes. Most of the time she succeeds.
A perfect winter read.
My impression of this series so far is that Ali Smith writes collages—not only in content (close narration of several characters stitched with omniscient commentary and flights of fancy, time is fluid, unabashed puns and other thematic wordplay threaded throughout—Christmas carols and Dickens to name a few) but also in overarching sentiment: part whimsical, part political, part human. I like it, mostly. I particularly liked the characters in this one, even if Lux was too good to be true (went from a rom com nod to something of an emotional savant, always perfectly disarming because she was different—but likable all the same). Interesting commentary on nature writing.
Another one for my perfectly-in-season list this winter. :)
Edit: After having read Little Dorrit, I wonder if Art's mother is based on Arthur Clennam's mother? Details are fuzzy on Ali Smith's version of the character now but it seems like quite a coincidence that the sons share a name and the mothers share a rigid, steely, self-isolating business-mindedness.
Another one for my perfectly-in-season list this winter. :)
Edit: After having read Little Dorrit, I wonder if Art's mother is based on Arthur Clennam's mother? Details are fuzzy on Ali Smith's version of the character now but it seems like quite a coincidence that the sons share a name and the mothers share a rigid, steely, self-isolating business-mindedness.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No