Autumn

Book Title: Autumn

Author: Ali Smith

Date Started: August 7th 2017

Date Completed: August 12th 2017

Genres: Contemporary
Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆

This is my first novel from Ali Smith, and I enjoyed it much more than her short story collection. That's ultimately a preference thing; I prefer long form stories more on the whole. Which is interesting, because Autumn is filled tiny little fragments of short stories nudged in between the overarching plot that gradually come together to create the collage of the book.

Smith has a reputation in the literary fiction genre, so I wasn't surprised to find that her writing was indeed poetic and layered. Yet also very easy to read. There are sections of more abstract style during Daniel's coma that feel like chunks of proper prose poetry in between. But in general, there was a natural and easygoing flow that made the book a lot simpler to digest than I'd expected - which of course means that you can digest the action that's going on more thoroughly.

Autumn is a book about a quiet and normal life, and the ways in which no life is really quiet and normal in this world. It captures the little pieces of magic in everyday life, and the little tragedies too, with a proud little sense of humour. (The post office scenes were the highlights for me). This book is renowned for its grasp of politics and the everyday effect it has on people everywhere, specifically in rural Britain. The underlying commentary on Brexit was on point, and I'm astounded Smith managed to write it so quickly during and after it was all happening.

The part of the book that felt more fantastical to me, because of the way it was written and due to my ignorance on the subject, was the art history permeated throughout. Our protagonist is writing a dissertation on said subject, but it weaves its way into the stories she's told as a child, and even in her friend's unconscious imaginings. I would've loved to be more educated on the artists that were discussed, but I also loved learning about it through tinted glasses of fiction. It has a way of showing colours in a different light.

Smith understands people well, and that's really what makes this book. Looking back I think it's quite interesting that, even though we have a protagonist, a great deal of the story is about interactions with other people and how that makes individuals well... individual. Good interactions or bad ones, they build up people as we are and whether we like it or not we affect and are affected by the other humans around us (can you see the Brexit parallels yet?) so maybe we should take a little effort to be civil and kind.

Autumn is a quiet joy to read. Understated and subtle in its story, but bold and expansive in what it has to say. It's made me push up a few of the Ali Smiths on my TBR.