For a few years, I’ve wanted to read Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet book series during their namesake season. I’m finally making it happen this year, starting with Spring.
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“From the Man Booker Prize Finalist comes the third novel in her Seasonal Quartet—a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2020.”
About The Book 📚
Title: Spring (Seasonal Quartet #3)
Author: Ali Smith
Publication Date: March 2019
Publisher: Pantheon
Genre: Contemporary Literary Fiction
Pages: 340
Content Warnings: For a full list visit https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/4f36d86e-b963-468c-ab8b-0431b713387a/content_warnings
About The Author
“Ali Smith is a writer, born in Inverness, Scotland, to working-class parents. She was raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a Ph.D. that was never finished. In a 2004 interview with writing magazine Mslexia, she talked briefly about the difficulty of becoming ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a year and how it forced her to give up her job as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde to focus on what she really wanted to do: writing. She has been with her partner Sarah Wood for 17 years and dedicates all her books to her.”Ali Smith is a writer, born in Inverness, Scotland, to working-class parents. She was raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a Ph.D. that was never finished. In a 2004 interview with writing magazine Mslexia, she talked briefly about the difficulty of becoming ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a year and how it forced her to give up her job as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde to focus on what she really wanted to do: writing. She has been with her partner Sarah Wood for 17 years and dedicates all her books to her.”
My Review
› The cover for Spring is stunning. I love how it looks like a painting, with beautiful blues and greens. I would love to have this up on my wall. It gave me a sense that this story was going to be a little abstract, yet it would carry a meaningful message. I’ve never read anything by Ali Smith before.
› In an attempt to wrap the words around current events, this book was quickly written and published. I live in Canada, so I don’t understand all of the tidbits about Britain or what was going on there at the time, Smith does a great job conveying that tumultuous feeling of uncertainty.
› From reading reviews, I’ve learned Smith features art in all of the Seasonal Quartet books. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that’s done something like that. In Spring, The Montafon Letter by Tacita Dean is part of the story in Spring. It portrays the beginning of an avalanche.
› First line: “Now what we don’t want is Facts. What we want is bewilderment.”
› Told in a fractured flashback style, Spring takes place between October 2018 and spring 2019. In October, Richard Lease has racing thoughts while waiting for a train. His friend of fifty years, Paddy, died two months ago. Patricia Heal née Hardiman September 20,1932 – August 11, 2018.
› Paddy was a scriptwriter and Richard is a director. Like Shakespeare’s Pericles, Richard is estranged from his daughter. He has no idea if his daughter is still alive somewhere in the world. Encouraged by Paddy to use his imagination, he travels with his imaginary daughter.
› Brittany works at a detention center for migrants. She’s unhappy and unsatisfied in her job. Richard and Brittany meet Florence, a young schoolgirl who seems to be doing impossible things.
› 30 years ago, Richard’s future wife said after she dies she’ll come back as a blossom on a tree because she loves spring. He said one of the most romantic sentences I’ve ever read in my life:
“And if you die before me, he says, I will spend all the time I’m alive and not with you negotiating the various time differences across the world so that I can spend as much time as a man possibly can on this planet in springtime, in search of you.”
› Spring is a time of growth. It’s resilient and elastic. It’s about beginnings and surprising strength. It is release and it is a leap. To me, spring is the battle between light and dark and Ali Smith uses that juxtaposition to put us into the lives of these characters and society who are facing the mountain, watching the beginning of the avalanche of change. Will it bury us? Or will we find a way around it, or through it, or over it?
› “The soldiers’ month, it takes its name from Mars, the Roman war god; in Gaelic it’s the winter-spring, and in Old Saxon the rough month, because of the roughness of its winds.”
› This story also makes us question whether fictional stories are true. What is truth? How do we know something is true?
“It’s real if you think it is.”
› In the past I have given a rating out of ten and converted that to a star rating, but I’m no longer giving a star rating here on my blog. I will continue to do that on Goodreads and The Story Graph.
› Final Thoughts
• Spring by Ali Smith is a challenging, emotional, and reflective story about hope. At times sarcastic, it is about social disharmony, climate change, social media, targeted advertising, misinformation, immigrants, entitlement, newsfeeds, and truth. It reminded me of Trust by Hernan Diaz and Study For Obedience by Sarah Bernstein. I’m looking forward to reading Summer.
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