Book Review: Winter, the second book in Ali Smith's seasonal quartet, expands on the wonderful Autumn. Winter is about family, art, Christmas, world events past and present, aging, politics, disconnected reality, and simply dealing with life as one has to and does. In both novels it's apparent that Smith is at a point in her life when she just wants to talk about her thoughts on life in the world. She wants to talk about Brexit (in Autumn), the refugee crisis (in Winter), and the nonsense in America, so she does. Her vehicle is the novel and all the characters are Smith speaking to us. They say all characters in a dream are really the dreamer; all the characters in Winter are really Ali Smith and they all have something to say. Some characters are prickly or confused, but she let's us see why by going back in time and memory to pivotal moments in their lives. The Ban the Bomb movement plays a big role. The book is choppy, mixing time and memory, history and viewpoints (with helpful road signs for the unwary reader). It can get very meta: the narrator, maybe the author, sometimes who-knows-who isn't shy about stepping into the spotlight. But it had to be written this way to work as it does.
Smith again weaves in Dickens, as A Christmas Carol is the template -- Sophia being our Scrooge du jour. Although Winter is being hyped as being better than Autumn, I don't see it. We just have more to work with now that we have two books. Winter is simpler, more accessible, more heartwarming, and has a "happier" ending. It's enough to bring a Grinch's heart up to room temperature. Winter also has more humor. A Hallmark Movie (or teen movie) device is employed as a comic subplot. We meet a too-good-to-be-true, practically-perfect-in-every-way immigrant, unsubtly named Lux, who brings light to the family. Or is she St. Lucy whose feast day was once the Solstice? She speaks perfect English, but despite spending much of her life in the Commonwealth she doesn't understand English idioms. Funny immigrants! We also meet the unloved and unlovable Art, who never knew his father, whose mother (Sophia) was too busy making money to have time for him or his father, and packed him off to boarding school asap. Since this is a book about art the characters may either be talking about art or Art. Ha! Another artist is introduced (a sculptor this time), the talented Barbara Hepworth (of Hepworth Wakefield art gallery fame). Compared to Pauline Boty in Autumn she's given short shrift. Smith also uses straight reportage to demonstrate that America's President is a pea-brained, vindictive bully, quoting his clumsy and petulant pandering efforts to reclaim "Merry Christmas," because in Winter we're talking about Christmas. This doesn't require great art, and sadly, by the time Winter hit the bookshops it was out of date because of even more heinous comments. This book seems more rushed than Autumn, simpler, more obvious, more slapdash. A tragic current event in Britain is included for no apparent reason. It's best to read Autumn before Winter -- there are a few overlaps and many similarities. Now, I can't wait for spring, erm, Spring. [4★]
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