Autumn
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3.1 • 9 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE
A NEW YORK TIMES AND GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2017
From the 2015 Baileys Prize-winning author of How to Be Both: An unconventional love story playing across the boundaries of time and history. . .
The first of four novels in a shape-shifting series, wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories. Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy and the colour-hit of Pop Art—via a bit of very contemporary skulduggery and skull-diggery—Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture, and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means. Autumn is part of the quartet Seasonal: four stand-alone novels, separate yet interconnected and cyclical (as the seasons are), exploring what time is, how we experience it, and the recurring markers in the shapes our lives take and in our ways with narrative.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This splendid free-form novel the first in a seasonally themed tetralogy chronicles the last days of a lifelong friendship between Elisabeth, a British university lecturer in London, and her former neighbor, a centenarian named Daniel. Opening with an oblique, dreamy prologue about mortality, the novel proper sets itself against this past summer's historic Brexit vote, intermittently flashing back to the early years of Elisabeth and Daniel's relationship. Though there are a few relevant subplots, including Elisabeth's nightmarish attempt to procure a new passport, as well as her fascination with the painter Pauline Boty, the general plot is appropriately shapeless, reflecting the character's discombobulated psyche. Smith (How to Be Both) deftly juxtaposes her protagonists' physical and emotional states in the past and present, tracking Elisabeth's path from precocity to disillusionment. Eschewing traditional structure and punctuation, the novel charts a wild course through uncertain terrain, an approach that excites and surprises in equal turn. Seen through Elisabeth's eyes, Daniel's deterioration is particularly affecting. Smith, always one to take risks, sees all of them pay off yet again.
Customer Reviews
Boring and hard to follow
Started reading this for book club. I’m currently around 60% done and it’s still a struggle. I’m not really sure what the plot is. There’s no arc to the characters and the writing feels choppy. Skip it.