A review by misspalah
A State of Change by Penelope Gilliatt, Ali Smith

challenging reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

America's submerged in the present but that isn't the point. The essence is that neither of you have got a sense of the future. All the hankering after the past here is a metaphor for something else - for having no vision of a future that is at all exciting to anyone. A whole dimension of historical consciousness in people has simply been cut off. There's no Utopia any longer. The future is something that just happens here. It hasn't been imagined. England and America know that they've had revolutions but no one feels that there have been any revolutionists. That's the most painful humiliation in social history. We're living in highly educated idealistic societies that haven't thought or planned or dreamed of anything that's happening to them. Why do you think everyone hates technology except technologists? Because they didn't conceive of it. It never took place in their imaginations. This is something special to you. Victorians lived in the future all the time. So do people in Communist countries now. Of course. Because there's nothing else for Communists to do. Everything in the present is too disappointing to think about. And oh, how monstrously those pipe dreams are going to be betrayed? Probably. But you would be right to bear these people in mind. They do exist. Millions of people whose imaginative life is as different from yours as an Elizabethan's would be. They are at least an assertion that a sense of creating one's own future is still possible.

• A state of change by Penelope Gilliatt

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Wow, i have no idea how to review this book actually. I tried to make sense of ‘Kakia’ the main character - but the story was not doing her justice. She sounds complex but the storyline was brief, barely able to hold on to its plot and to top it off, some of the side characters in the book was jerks and judgmental as fuck (*cough Harry, *cough Don) that i literally went huh? how the fuck did Kakia put up with it. Dont get me wrong, Kakia was not exactly likeable - the way she mumbled jumbled about communism, how the situation back then like in Poland sounded like those privileged rich girls that managed

to escape the war happened in their country because of their family connection and money. A year later, they are the one who’ve published the memoir claiming and narrating the whole events like they were the one who were left behind. I am not sure whether other readers will agree but that’s how i viewed her based o. how she was written in the book. Originally, i did want to rate this 3 stars but towards the end, the book totally lost me in the process and i am somewhat disconnected to it. One can say that its about woman finding and discovering her selfhood while migrating to the other country and try to make a living while at it. I can see why synopsis insinuating the story to be structured in that manner but i really disagree. This book was like a fever dream. Overall, read it at your own risk. Its not for me but i believe probably there are others that enjoy her writing style.