Autumn
A Novel
by Ali Smith
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Pub Date Feb 07 2017 | Archive Date Oct 31 2017
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | Pantheon
Description
A Washington Post Notable Book and One of the 10 Best Books of the Year from The New York Times
Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Two old friends—Daniel, a centenarian, and Elisabeth, born in 1984—look to both the future and the past as the United Kingdom stands divided by a historic, once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand-in-hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.
A luminous meditation on the meaning of richness and harvest and worth, Autumn is the first installment of Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet, and it casts an eye over our own time: Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearean jeu d’esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s pop art. Autumn is wide-ranging in time-scale and light-footed through histories.
Advance Praise
"This is the place to come out and say it: Ali Smith has a beautiful mind. I found this book to be unbearably moving in its playful, strange, soulful assessment of what it means to be alive at a somber time. She is speaking about sand, but she might be talking about Western civilization when she praises the “array of colors of even the pulverized world." —The New York Times
“Smith, in reckoning with the catastrophe and wreckage of a fraught historical moment, picks through it just as precisely to reveal the beauty and the humanity buried deep below the surface.” —The Atlantic
“AUTUMN is clever and invigorating. The promise of three more books to come is something to be savored.” —The Washington Times
“AUTUMN shimmers with wit, melancholy, grief, joy, wisdom, small acts of love and, always, wonder at the seasons.” —The Boston Globe
“AUTUMN works convincingly as an aesthetic marker of political darkness and its repudiation.”
—Chicago Review of Books
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781101870730 |
| PRICE | $24.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 272 |
Featured Reviews
Dave O, Bookseller
This one first caught my attention when it was towards the top of the millions most anticipated, next I noticed it was Man Booker long listed, so I decided I had to read it. I am not disappointed in this first of the projected seasonal quartet.
Autumn is the season that represents decay to me. I believe that was the overriding theme of this novel that deals with Brexit, 60's pop art, and a friendship between Elisabeth and her neighbor Mr Gluck (Daniel).
I would definitely recommend this for anyone interested in the craft of writing.
Educator 144982
I really enjoyed this book. Smith's style is experimental and humanist at the same time--she is a writer with skill and a sharp and wise perspective on people's foibles. Highly recommended.
Joshua J, Book Trade Professional
Ali Smith is a goddess with words and tone, and her latest is sensational. Concise and genius, and certainly the first to talk about a post Brexit world. The images, the swirling of nature, the relationship between Daniel and Elisabeth- human and fantastic, Here's hoping she gets that Booker Prize.
Reviewer 47558
I found this to be quite moving. Looking forward to Winter, Spring and Summer
Cheri S, Reviewer
"April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June she'll change her tune
In restless walks she'll prowl the night"
--“April Come She Will” lyrics by Paul Simon
"It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times."
Traveling back and forth through time, the past to the present, from Elisabeth’s childhood and meeting her new neighbor Daniel Gluck, to the brink of the political climate that began with Brexit, this story covers a lot of territory in a rather fluid way, dealing with aging, love in its many shapes and forms, friendship, art and artists, books and the telling of stories, the concept of time, music, identity, the culture of television, politics, sexual inequality, division of people, division of countries, and global warming.
When first they meet, Elisabeth pretends to be her (non-existent) twin sister, and after a bit of a chat, Daniel says:
”’Very pleased to meet you both. Finally.’
‘How do you mean, finally?’ Elisabeth said. ‘We only moved here six weeks ago.’
‘The lifelong friends, he said. We sometimes wait a lifetime for them.’”
And lifelong friends is exactly what they will become, the almost-beginning of her life until his becomes dust in the wind, and somehow beyond then. He will always be a part of her, a part of how she sees the world.
They play games; he describes a picture, a collage, to her, as she closes her eyes and listens and her imagination follows every detail of his description, occasionally asking questions. A moment, an image captured so clearly in her mind that it becomes a part of her, of how she sees art, how she sees herself, how she sees the world.
Invariably, his first question when he sees her is what is she reading.
“'Always be reading something,' he said. ‘Even when we’re not physically reading. How else will we read the world?’”
The topics of politics, Brexit and beyond, flows in and out throughout this novel, although there is much to balance that out, and it is not Smith’s sole focus. Rather, it seems to weave in and out of the other topics, lending a time and place to this story. The fleeting nature of these things that occupy of minds and hearts, that our fears take root in, the lack of comfort in knowing that they will be replaced. As shall we.
The elusive nature of time, how slow it seems to pass for children, for those awaiting something wonderful, how quickly it passes the older we get, how quickly a life passes. The seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, how quickly they pass, merge one into another. The seasons of life, how quickly they pass.
”We have to hope, Daniel was saying, that the people who love us and who know us a little bit will in the end have seen us truly. In the end, not much else matters.”
”July she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September I remember
A love once new has now grown old”
-- “April Come She Will” lyrics by Paul Simon
Published 07 Feb 2017
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group / Pantheon
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