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A review by lauraborkpower
There but for the by Ali Smith
5.0
The fact is, I loved this book.
I don't feel like I can write a very good review of it, though, since I finished it just a few minutes ago (and then immediately re-read a few bits of it) and will probably be thinking about it for hours and days to come. But I'll try to write something small.
Smith has written a book about memory and time that is beautiful, sad, and silly, frequently all at the same time. The characters she focuses on in the four sections--Anna, Mark, May, and Brooke--are perfectly drawn and honest. Smith writes their experiences in a way that allows the reader to feel them immediately: their "present" experiences, including dialogue done without quotation marks to be read quickly and personally, internally (I felt as though I were remembering these things being said, as though I were hearing them in my own head) as well as the "past" experiences, the remembrances, which come back in rushes while the characters are just sitting or talking or walking, or doing anything other than trying to remember. This is so frequently the way memories come back and Smith's handle on this pacing and the weaving of language and story is impeccable.
In some ways this book reminded me of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: the way the characters are explored that have a sometimes only tangential relationship to Miles and the main plot, the history and focus on Greenwich and time, and the oddball playfulness merging into melancholy, and then back again. Smith could have easily made this three times as long and I'd have been thrilled. Yet I don't feel short-changed or lacking in anything, so maybe it's better that she didn't. No matter what, the fact is that I'll be reading everything else she's written.
And thanks to Candace and book club for suggesting this.
What did one Cajun say to the other?
How's bayou?
I don't feel like I can write a very good review of it, though, since I finished it just a few minutes ago (and then immediately re-read a few bits of it) and will probably be thinking about it for hours and days to come. But I'll try to write something small.
Smith has written a book about memory and time that is beautiful, sad, and silly, frequently all at the same time. The characters she focuses on in the four sections--Anna, Mark, May, and Brooke--are perfectly drawn and honest. Smith writes their experiences in a way that allows the reader to feel them immediately: their "present" experiences, including dialogue done without quotation marks to be read quickly and personally, internally (I felt as though I were remembering these things being said, as though I were hearing them in my own head) as well as the "past" experiences, the remembrances, which come back in rushes while the characters are just sitting or talking or walking, or doing anything other than trying to remember. This is so frequently the way memories come back and Smith's handle on this pacing and the weaving of language and story is impeccable.
In some ways this book reminded me of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: the way the characters are explored that have a sometimes only tangential relationship to Miles and the main plot, the history and focus on Greenwich and time, and the oddball playfulness merging into melancholy, and then back again. Smith could have easily made this three times as long and I'd have been thrilled. Yet I don't feel short-changed or lacking in anything, so maybe it's better that she didn't. No matter what, the fact is that I'll be reading everything else she's written.
And thanks to Candace and book club for suggesting this.
What did one Cajun say to the other?
How's bayou?