Book Review - Autumn

5. Autumn, Ali Smith.

A fairly young woman visits very old Mr Gluck in the Home. He probably hasn’t got long. Or has he? He's got a long time to think about. The book consists of brief chapters of shifting planes of memory overlapping each other, gradually forming a whole picture. There are images of spiritually infused pasts, abstract hints of an anxious future and also snaps of a mundane present context, with Elisabeth the slightly grumpy part time lecturer going to and from the care home, pausing occasionally to Deal With Her Mother. Elisabeth quite likes her mum, but hasn't had much to do with her lately.

The big relationship is the unlikely one between Elisabeth and Daniel, her former neighbour: between her curiosity and his generosity, a mutually rewarding one. The key section seemed assured and real, the lead up and down less so. There are plenty of calmly brilliant sentences and nice character observations of the minor players. There are about half a dozen Lists. Yawn. There are tacking-ins of Brexit-induced fears and other social commentary. A micro-biography of Pauline Boty could well have been critical to Elisabeth’s perspective, but equally she (brightly burning forgotten pop art heroine) could have been an ardent project of the author who felt that she had to be given a stage, and coincidentally chose this book.

The whole thing deemed to be a bit too obviously message-ey which made me sneer a bit. However it's perhaps a question of Time. Dickens, Ovid and others (all referenced in various ways in the text) don’t induce that reaction, although they preach a lot too. It’s pretty brief, so maybe that’s also my problem: I don’t mind a bit of practical philosophy or even a sermon, but the licence to deliver those to me is more than 250 pages. I'm possibly waiting for all four of these Seasons to come together at one time, instead of a single segment.