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monkeelino 's review for:
There But for the
by Ali Smith
I don't know that anyone but me will find this of interest, but I'm going to use this space to keep a reading journal/diary instead of a normal review. Warning: This is likely to contain spoilers.
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July 2: Took the book off my shelf and put it near my bag for work. Had every intention of starting it, but was too tired from getting up way too early, bike commuting, etc. Feeling old. Did lovingly turn the book over in my hands several times, admire the cover design, and peel off the used price sticker.
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July 3: Started this on the 40 min. train ride to work. Smitten at once. From the intro quotes to the brief, odd opening section (let's call it Before There; would that be Now? Here?). "Fact is, imagine... " Reality sprung from the mind. In just a few pages, Smith take two flat images (the idea of a censored face/person usually seen in a photo or video; the flat piece of paper) and gives them dimension/life (image become "real" fiction character; paper becomes folded airplane with dimension, perceived "weight," and motion). Feels like a metaphor for writing/storytelling to frame what may follow. Only 15 pgs in but already dog-earing page corners, underlining passages, and making little pencil notes to myself. Brain off on flights of fancy. Single lines and paragraphs operating on multiple levels with Smith.
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July 4: Read some more on the train ride home. Finding the characters quite funny. I think I actually laughed aloud with the young girl Brooke piping back into the conversation, hidden behind the couch when she was supposed to have gone "elsewhere" (is that the same as "over there?"). Find myself ruminating on the word "There" and how it's quite specific for such a word that is vague without context (especially when talking about location). E.g., When we were there, Over there, There by the... It can function as multiple parts of speech, but is almost always serving as a substitution or vague modifier. A stand-in. A substitute. A sign of a sign a few steps removed from the signifier. (My internal editor screams for someone to step in and stop me from these type of ramblings... a this, a that, another this... how my wife lives with me is beyond my comprehension but not my gratitude.)
Last night I really wanted to read some more, but fatigue, the Internet, and the U.S. vs Jamaica Gold Cup game distracted me. I've begun to see so many things as a trade-off: If I do X, then I will have 35 minutes less reading time. Part of me wants to maximize time efficiently and part of me yells in McCoy's voice from Star Trek: "Dammit, Marc, you're a human, not a reading machine!" But am I... ?
Ahem... back to the book. Loving the word play. Smith seems to have this genius way of integrating important points about technology/contemporary life so seamlessly into the narrative that you almost miss these huge revelations. Right now, I can't think of a better writer I've read who is able to transmit and leverage the play/confusion/dynamic at work among writing, reading, and speech. Thinking here of three specific instances: 1) communicating subtly to the reader that Brooke is black with one word ("But it was a white woman... who came to the door" letting the reader know the child's initial appearance made Anna expect a non-white adult to come greet her; Gen, the white woman, later drops a line about Brooke's parents not actually coming from Africa--again, there's a leap here that the writer is invited to take on--this assumption that one would have expected the parents to have come from Africa; both these convey more about how these characters judge and interpret the world and race than they do anything about Brooke; 2) the way a person talks about stereotypes with Gen making some sort of general stereotype comment---positive and negative---about "gays" every time she makes reference to the dinner guest, Mark; and, 3) how we try to interpret, or how we misinterpret, what we hear: Gen is trying to share what she thinks is a very witty acronym, "O--U--T," but Anna hears "oh you tea" and so does the reader because that's how it is written to put us into Anna's perspective. All these things are minute, tiny details, but they all work to great measure in Smith's writing. It would be a great disservice to Smith were I not to point out that in addition to all these details and technical wizardry, her writing is fun and enjoyable. Technique and concept without skimping on the performance!
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July 5:Surprised to find how endearing I'm finding Miles's character. Because he's first presented to the reader by Gen and seems to upset everyone's life by locking himself upstairs, which then also interrupts Anna's life, I disliked him without ever realizing it. That is, until we start to get a little of his backstory and then I found myself surprised at his charm and wit, as well as that he genuinely seems like a "good guy."
I don't particularly like to break the reading flow of fiction by looking stuff up as I'm reading. The downside of this is sometimes forging on without context or knowledge that I'm lacking (e.g., what a certain word means, what a reference to history/art/another book might mean, etc.). I normally, mark such words or passages for later reference/research. Sometimes I go back, sometimes I don't. In this case, Gen ignores Anna's last name (Hardie) and refers to her as Anna K. Smith makes explicit the Kafka reference but it also invokes Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and, possibly the more contemporary Anna Ks (neither of which I was aware of, but both of which came up as top Google hits: Anna K the Ukranian designer and Anna K the Czech singer). Do these have any relevance? Peripherally, maybe.
There's just a brief line in the "There" chapter when Brooke skips across the street where Anna seems to imply that she was once responsible for a child or something bad happening to one... ? It's vague and brief, but I'll be curious to see if this comes up again. Smith seems like too detailed a writer to not have a purpose for almost every word she uses.
The absurdity at the heart of all this (that you would just let a strange guy stay locked in your house and continue to feed him) is just barely believable because of Gen's obsession with her house/architecture (no way to get Miles out without damaging the historic door) and her social standing. I'm not sure a lesser writer could pull this off. I'm also not sure Smith can pull it off, but for now, I'm buying it.
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July 6: Got news yesterday that a family member's chemo is not working. Tumors still growing. Makes reading feel like an indulgence. Like there should be some sort of moratorium on personal enjoyment of any kind, much less exploring fiction. And yet I think in reading we are often exploring life at a deeper more emotional and intellectual level than we do during most of our day-to-day existence. Especially because fiction puts you inside of another's head in a way that is impossible in real life. You simply cannot peer into another person's thoughts and feelings the way writing allows. Which makes me think, thus far (I'm about halfway through the "But" chapter), this novel has suppressed a lot of the emotion with humor and wordplay. There's obviously a kind of ennui or spiritual dissatisfaction at work here with the modern age, with the jobs these characters have, with their relationships, etc. But for now, this sort of hovers above or below actual events and dialogue without really being explored. I sort of suppose that's where general dissatisfaction sits most of the time in real life, too.
I found the transition to the "But" chapter rather abrupt, almost like I was starting over reading a whole new book, despite that it's just a different perspective. I was so fond of the dynamic between Brooke and Anna, that I found myself almost disappointed... missing them. So it took me a bit to switch gears and sort of adjust to the new rhythm (like I had been playing double dutch and everybody left and instead of picking up a single jump rope and swinging it myself, I was still waiting for the two ropes to start swinging again; you know, the normal double dutch memories you have while reading, right? what?!! not sure where that reference came from... ). The dinner party interactions are hilarious. More play on speech/expectations with even Gen's name being spelled differently (Jan, Jen) depending on which character's perspective is presented. Lots of awkward race issues/references just prancing around the table.
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July 7:Not too much reading today... maybe 20 pages. Thrilled by the U.S. women's World Cup victory (a brief bask in the escapist fantasy sport provided where merit rules, justice is mostly immediate and fair, and women got to own the day). Still loving the ping-ponging dinner table dialogue as the topics and puns reveal more about each character and the increasing inebriation levels ratchet up the tension. Here I was commenting on the suppressed emotional aspect of this novel and we find Mark's mother committed suicide. After using the restroom, he overhears the other guests talking quietly about this and him---it takes him back to when it happened when he was 13 and the other children whispered behind his back. I needed to take a break right around here as it took me back to when I was 8 and my mom died (kidney disease complications, not suicide). Makes me wonder whether Smith lost a parent or sibling at a young age given how well she captures the alienation this creates for an adolescent. Maybe she's just that amazing of a writer. It causes a kind of split like one is now marked. Before there was everyone and that included you. After, there is everyone and then you. Like you're in the same room with everyone else, but there's a sheet of see-through glass between you and them. Thirty-five years scar tissues over the pain and grief, but I'm not sure the divider has ever disappeared. Mostly, it's in one's head, but the disclosure also changes how other's see you. In Mark's case, the suicide makes it a much bigger deal/divider.
That Richard... Man, he's a dick.
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July 10: I'm finding that just as I'm getting attached to a character or sort of settling into the current storyline, Smith switches gears on me. Mark's section (the "but" section... ) eventually roped me in and then, BOOM, the "for" section drops you out of place again as a reader. Who is this elderly woman?!! What is her relation to the story and the other characters. Tried taking this book with me to the grocery store to steal a few more pages either at stop lights on the road or in line waiting, but the windows of opportunity were too brief and this book is best enjoyed at least 5 to 10 pages at a time if not in whole sections (the entire book is only 230 pages; I'd probably have finished it 4 days ago if not for all this note-taking and book diary bruhaha). [Pro Tip: If you hate waiting, bring a book with you wherever it is you're forced to wait. Instead, you'll be pissed that lines aren't longer, traffic lights change too quickly, etc. as they interfere with your attempts to read.]
There's this one passage during the dinner party where Mark relays a tale about a German boy during WWII who fights back against the Nazis and is ultimately beheaded. Another dinner guest uses the tale as a segue back to a former topic and turns it into a joke. "Mark, shaken, realizes he has just made the terrible mistake of not just seeming to be but actually being sincere." Smith seems to be extensively illustrating the kind of isolation that technology and today's culture have created even when we're in-person interacting with one another. Serious topics are verboten socially. Online or in reality, we're afloat in "a great sea of hidden shallow." The appearance is that we're connecting--and we certainly have countless resources for communicating--but it's all a great big mirage. And even our speech begins to mimic the kind of zingers, ownings, and take-downs used on social media. I'm suddenly picturing a future of assisted suicide by drone... Smart companies will offer a whole package service that includes clean-up/funeral prep. Click. Done. I'm out.
----------------------------------------
July 11: I'm always amazed in the GR group book discussions that none of us (myself included) ever really draw parallels between fiction and our personal lives or talk about how books change our perspective. I don't know if that's because that makes things too personal or what, but surely, the most memorable books are the ones that you connect with on a very personal level, no? While I found the "for" section a little confusing/baffling, I still ended up growing quite fond of this new character and the "the" section returned to the precocious and delightful Brooke. She writes a story of her own, and, in a fashion, writes our story into history by weaving the present with the past, as well as adding a few imaginative elements. Part of me feels like there are a number of threads/concepts at work in this ending that could possibly be tied together or forced into some type of closure, but more of me feels like one of the themes is not knowing, not having the whole story, but being okay with that. What exactly is Miles's relationship with May? Can I rhyme ever truly be harmless? Will the knock-knock joke ever achieve high art status? History is alive and growing. It incorporates the unseen and it most certainly cannot be captured and understood by technology or surveillance.
The fact is, imagine you are part of a story that depends on making real human connections, of being open to possibility, and not letting technology/the market commodify and package your experiences. There but for the grace go you. Knock, knock. Who's there. You. You who? No, you, too.
---------------------------------------------
WORDS/PHRASES I LOOKED UP AFTER READING THIS BOOK
caul | purdah | Halifax Gibbet
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July 2: Took the book off my shelf and put it near my bag for work. Had every intention of starting it, but was too tired from getting up way too early, bike commuting, etc. Feeling old. Did lovingly turn the book over in my hands several times, admire the cover design, and peel off the used price sticker.
----------------------------------------
July 3: Started this on the 40 min. train ride to work. Smitten at once. From the intro quotes to the brief, odd opening section (let's call it Before There; would that be Now? Here?). "Fact is, imagine... " Reality sprung from the mind. In just a few pages, Smith take two flat images (the idea of a censored face/person usually seen in a photo or video; the flat piece of paper) and gives them dimension/life (image become "real" fiction character; paper becomes folded airplane with dimension, perceived "weight," and motion). Feels like a metaphor for writing/storytelling to frame what may follow. Only 15 pgs in but already dog-earing page corners, underlining passages, and making little pencil notes to myself. Brain off on flights of fancy. Single lines and paragraphs operating on multiple levels with Smith.
----------------------------------------
July 4: Read some more on the train ride home. Finding the characters quite funny. I think I actually laughed aloud with the young girl Brooke piping back into the conversation, hidden behind the couch when she was supposed to have gone "elsewhere" (is that the same as "over there?"). Find myself ruminating on the word "There" and how it's quite specific for such a word that is vague without context (especially when talking about location). E.g., When we were there, Over there, There by the... It can function as multiple parts of speech, but is almost always serving as a substitution or vague modifier. A stand-in. A substitute. A sign of a sign a few steps removed from the signifier. (My internal editor screams for someone to step in and stop me from these type of ramblings... a this, a that, another this... how my wife lives with me is beyond my comprehension but not my gratitude.)
Last night I really wanted to read some more, but fatigue, the Internet, and the U.S. vs Jamaica Gold Cup game distracted me. I've begun to see so many things as a trade-off: If I do X, then I will have 35 minutes less reading time. Part of me wants to maximize time efficiently and part of me yells in McCoy's voice from Star Trek: "Dammit, Marc, you're a human, not a reading machine!" But am I... ?
Ahem... back to the book. Loving the word play. Smith seems to have this genius way of integrating important points about technology/contemporary life so seamlessly into the narrative that you almost miss these huge revelations. Right now, I can't think of a better writer I've read who is able to transmit and leverage the play/confusion/dynamic at work among writing, reading, and speech. Thinking here of three specific instances: 1) communicating subtly to the reader that Brooke is black with one word ("But it was a white woman... who came to the door" letting the reader know the child's initial appearance made Anna expect a non-white adult to come greet her; Gen, the white woman, later drops a line about Brooke's parents not actually coming from Africa--again, there's a leap here that the writer is invited to take on--this assumption that one would have expected the parents to have come from Africa; both these convey more about how these characters judge and interpret the world and race than they do anything about Brooke; 2) the way a person talks about stereotypes with Gen making some sort of general stereotype comment---positive and negative---about "gays" every time she makes reference to the dinner guest, Mark; and, 3) how we try to interpret, or how we misinterpret, what we hear: Gen is trying to share what she thinks is a very witty acronym, "O--U--T," but Anna hears "oh you tea" and so does the reader because that's how it is written to put us into Anna's perspective. All these things are minute, tiny details, but they all work to great measure in Smith's writing. It would be a great disservice to Smith were I not to point out that in addition to all these details and technical wizardry, her writing is fun and enjoyable. Technique and concept without skimping on the performance!
----------------------------------------
July 5:Surprised to find how endearing I'm finding Miles's character. Because he's first presented to the reader by Gen and seems to upset everyone's life by locking himself upstairs, which then also interrupts Anna's life, I disliked him without ever realizing it. That is, until we start to get a little of his backstory and then I found myself surprised at his charm and wit, as well as that he genuinely seems like a "good guy."
I don't particularly like to break the reading flow of fiction by looking stuff up as I'm reading. The downside of this is sometimes forging on without context or knowledge that I'm lacking (e.g., what a certain word means, what a reference to history/art/another book might mean, etc.). I normally, mark such words or passages for later reference/research. Sometimes I go back, sometimes I don't. In this case, Gen ignores Anna's last name (Hardie) and refers to her as Anna K. Smith makes explicit the Kafka reference but it also invokes Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and, possibly the more contemporary Anna Ks (neither of which I was aware of, but both of which came up as top Google hits: Anna K the Ukranian designer and Anna K the Czech singer). Do these have any relevance? Peripherally, maybe.
There's just a brief line in the "There" chapter when Brooke skips across the street where Anna seems to imply that she was once responsible for a child or something bad happening to one... ? It's vague and brief, but I'll be curious to see if this comes up again. Smith seems like too detailed a writer to not have a purpose for almost every word she uses.
The absurdity at the heart of all this (that you would just let a strange guy stay locked in your house and continue to feed him) is just barely believable because of Gen's obsession with her house/architecture (no way to get Miles out without damaging the historic door) and her social standing. I'm not sure a lesser writer could pull this off. I'm also not sure Smith can pull it off, but for now, I'm buying it.
----------------------------------------
July 6: Got news yesterday that a family member's chemo is not working. Tumors still growing. Makes reading feel like an indulgence. Like there should be some sort of moratorium on personal enjoyment of any kind, much less exploring fiction. And yet I think in reading we are often exploring life at a deeper more emotional and intellectual level than we do during most of our day-to-day existence. Especially because fiction puts you inside of another's head in a way that is impossible in real life. You simply cannot peer into another person's thoughts and feelings the way writing allows. Which makes me think, thus far (I'm about halfway through the "But" chapter), this novel has suppressed a lot of the emotion with humor and wordplay. There's obviously a kind of ennui or spiritual dissatisfaction at work here with the modern age, with the jobs these characters have, with their relationships, etc. But for now, this sort of hovers above or below actual events and dialogue without really being explored. I sort of suppose that's where general dissatisfaction sits most of the time in real life, too.
I found the transition to the "But" chapter rather abrupt, almost like I was starting over reading a whole new book, despite that it's just a different perspective. I was so fond of the dynamic between Brooke and Anna, that I found myself almost disappointed... missing them. So it took me a bit to switch gears and sort of adjust to the new rhythm (like I had been playing double dutch and everybody left and instead of picking up a single jump rope and swinging it myself, I was still waiting for the two ropes to start swinging again; you know, the normal double dutch memories you have while reading, right? what?!! not sure where that reference came from... ). The dinner party interactions are hilarious. More play on speech/expectations with even Gen's name being spelled differently (Jan, Jen) depending on which character's perspective is presented. Lots of awkward race issues/references just prancing around the table.
----------------------------------------
July 7:Not too much reading today... maybe 20 pages. Thrilled by the U.S. women's World Cup victory (a brief bask in the escapist fantasy sport provided where merit rules, justice is mostly immediate and fair, and women got to own the day). Still loving the ping-ponging dinner table dialogue as the topics and puns reveal more about each character and the increasing inebriation levels ratchet up the tension. Here I was commenting on the suppressed emotional aspect of this novel and we find Mark's mother committed suicide. After using the restroom, he overhears the other guests talking quietly about this and him---it takes him back to when it happened when he was 13 and the other children whispered behind his back. I needed to take a break right around here as it took me back to when I was 8 and my mom died (kidney disease complications, not suicide). Makes me wonder whether Smith lost a parent or sibling at a young age given how well she captures the alienation this creates for an adolescent. Maybe she's just that amazing of a writer. It causes a kind of split like one is now marked. Before there was everyone and that included you. After, there is everyone and then you. Like you're in the same room with everyone else, but there's a sheet of see-through glass between you and them. Thirty-five years scar tissues over the pain and grief, but I'm not sure the divider has ever disappeared. Mostly, it's in one's head, but the disclosure also changes how other's see you. In Mark's case, the suicide makes it a much bigger deal/divider.
That Richard... Man, he's a dick.
----------------------------------------
July 10: I'm finding that just as I'm getting attached to a character or sort of settling into the current storyline, Smith switches gears on me. Mark's section (the "but" section... ) eventually roped me in and then, BOOM, the "for" section drops you out of place again as a reader. Who is this elderly woman?!! What is her relation to the story and the other characters. Tried taking this book with me to the grocery store to steal a few more pages either at stop lights on the road or in line waiting, but the windows of opportunity were too brief and this book is best enjoyed at least 5 to 10 pages at a time if not in whole sections (the entire book is only 230 pages; I'd probably have finished it 4 days ago if not for all this note-taking and book diary bruhaha). [Pro Tip: If you hate waiting, bring a book with you wherever it is you're forced to wait. Instead, you'll be pissed that lines aren't longer, traffic lights change too quickly, etc. as they interfere with your attempts to read.]
There's this one passage during the dinner party where Mark relays a tale about a German boy during WWII who fights back against the Nazis and is ultimately beheaded. Another dinner guest uses the tale as a segue back to a former topic and turns it into a joke. "Mark, shaken, realizes he has just made the terrible mistake of not just seeming to be but actually being sincere." Smith seems to be extensively illustrating the kind of isolation that technology and today's culture have created even when we're in-person interacting with one another. Serious topics are verboten socially. Online or in reality, we're afloat in "a great sea of hidden shallow." The appearance is that we're connecting--and we certainly have countless resources for communicating--but it's all a great big mirage. And even our speech begins to mimic the kind of zingers, ownings, and take-downs used on social media. I'm suddenly picturing a future of assisted suicide by drone... Smart companies will offer a whole package service that includes clean-up/funeral prep. Click. Done. I'm out.
----------------------------------------
July 11: I'm always amazed in the GR group book discussions that none of us (myself included) ever really draw parallels between fiction and our personal lives or talk about how books change our perspective. I don't know if that's because that makes things too personal or what, but surely, the most memorable books are the ones that you connect with on a very personal level, no? While I found the "for" section a little confusing/baffling, I still ended up growing quite fond of this new character and the "the" section returned to the precocious and delightful Brooke. She writes a story of her own, and, in a fashion, writes our story into history by weaving the present with the past, as well as adding a few imaginative elements. Part of me feels like there are a number of threads/concepts at work in this ending that could possibly be tied together or forced into some type of closure, but more of me feels like one of the themes is not knowing, not having the whole story, but being okay with that. What exactly is Miles's relationship with May? Can I rhyme ever truly be harmless? Will the knock-knock joke ever achieve high art status? History is alive and growing. It incorporates the unseen and it most certainly cannot be captured and understood by technology or surveillance.
The fact is, imagine you are part of a story that depends on making real human connections, of being open to possibility, and not letting technology/the market commodify and package your experiences. There but for the grace go you. Knock, knock. Who's there. You. You who? No, you, too.
---------------------------------------------
WORDS/PHRASES I LOOKED UP AFTER READING THIS BOOK
caul | purdah | Halifax Gibbet