Ali Smith
Winter by Ali Smith, the second volume in her seasonal quartet, shares many of the characteristics of its predecessor, Autumn (see June 18 review). Swirling within the politics of the day with references to Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, the anti-immigrant environment, and Brexit are narrative leaps in time alternating between decades in the past, to the more recent past, to the present; multiple flashbacks and flash forwards; intelligent characters frequently talking at each other instead of to each other; and a plethora of word plays and puns.
The narrative unfolds through the perspective of the elderly Sophie and her adult son, Art. Visiting his mother for the Christmas holiday, Art has hired Lux, a young Croatian woman, to pretend to be his recently estranged girlfriend, Charlotte. Meanwhile, Sophie has her own problems. We first meet her as she interacts with a disembodied head of a child as it bounces around in her house. She no longer has any desire to eat and she exhibits such strange behavior that Lux convinces Art to contact his mother’s estranged older sister, Iris, to spend Christmas with them. The sisters, who have not spoken to each other for years, resume the same squabbles of the past—Sophie as the pragmatist espousing conservative views and Iris as the life-long hippie and political activist whose energy has not diminished with age.
Smith adds substance to this skeletal framework by ricocheting multiple threads off each other: flashbacks to the siblings’ childhood; Iris’ political activism, including her involvement in the Greenham Common protest; Sophie’s successful business; the siblings’ relationship with their father; Art’s dysfunctional relationship with his mother and failing relationship with Charlotte; his inability to feel, act, or connect with real people and/or to the environment even though he writes a blog on nature; Lux as the compassionate and perceptive outsider who penetrates Sophie’s defense mechanisms; Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures; and a character linking this volume with its predecessor.
Add to this expansive scenario is Smith’s virtuoso treatment of time in which the different layers of time coalesce to depict its movement as a widening gyre with each circle connecting to what is above and what is below, what is happening now with what happened then. The past constantly intrudes on the present; the present flashes back to the past. The anti-nuclear and environmental protests at Greenham Common metamorphose into the pro-immigrant and climate change activism of the present.
The novel ends on a positive note. Art questions the emptiness of living in a virtual world. His aloofness to the real world thaws as he searches for Lux in the streets of London. The siblings experience a glimmer of reconciliation. And it is Christmas, after all—a time for new beginnings.
A multi-layered, complex novel that weaves together multiple threads and moves at an energetic pace. Another Ali Smith memorable achievement.
Highly recommended.