Winter by Ali Smith: A review

"God was dead." These are the words with which Ali Smith begins the second in her seasonal fiction series, Winter. And not only was God dead; so were a lot of other things that had been taken for granted. This is the Brexit/Trump era and the world has gone wrong. The truth is turned on its head. Winter is no longer winter; it is a shortened lukewarm interlude.

The first book in this series, Autumn, was the first book that I read last year and I loved it. This book is not a sequel in the sense that it uses the same characters as vehicles to tell the story. These are entirely new characters and new relationships to explore, but the time period is still the present in England and people are still as unsettled and anxious. As one of the characters opines:

“The people in this country are in furious rages at each other after the last vote, she said, and the government we’ve got has done nothing to assuage it and instead is using people’s rage for its own political expediency. Which is a grand old fascist trick if ever I saw one, and a very dangerous game to play. And what’s happening in the United States is directly related, and probably financially related.”

Once again, in one short paragraph, Ali Smith has summed up our predicament succinctly and precisely.

The present book has four main characters: Sophia Cleves, an elderly and unhappy but wealthy woman; her son, Art, a rather woebegone n'er-do-well who blogs about Nature without having actually experienced it; a 21-year-old Croatian girl named Lux who Art hires to pretend to be his girlfriend Charlotte (who had just dumped him) and visit his mother's home with him at Christmas; and, finally, Sophia's estranged older sister, Iris, who has been a rabble-rouser all her life and still mans the barricades in old age.

These four gather at Sophia's house around Christmas-time in the year following the Brexit vote. The atmosphere of this book is somewhat more overtly political than Autumn as Sophia, who gets her opinions from the right-wing media outlets, clashes with her left-wing sister. But the books do share some elements. They both jump back and forth in time in the exposition of the characters' personalities. Both of them feature sympathetic relationships between old and young characters - here, Lux and Sophia and Iris. Lux is able to build bridges between the two warring sisters.

Also, both books consider the work of a lesser-known female English artist. In Autumn, it was painter Pauline Boty and in Winter, it is artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth. And each book features a kind of dreamy reality of at least one character along with acute observations of the world as it actually exists.

“You can’t expect to live in the world like the world’s your private myth.”

But, of course, some people do.

Even so:

“You never stop being yourself on the inside, whatever age people think you are by looking at you from the outside.”

Even though the action in Winter takes place in that season, it would be wrong to think of the book as relating to climatological seasons. Instead, they are more about seasons of the human spirit. Smith's Spring is out already and I look forward to experiencing that season soon.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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