Carregue numa fotografia para ir para os Livros Google.
A carregar... Spring: 'A dazzling hymn to hope’ Observer (Seasonal Quartet) (original 2019; edição 2020)por Ali Smith (Autor)
Informação Sobre a ObraSpring por Ali Smith (2019)
A carregar...
Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. A soft four stars. I think I don't love Spring as much as I love the two previous novels in Smith's quartet, Autumn and Winter but nevertheless the author's passionate, witty, deeply angry intellect is on grand display here. I wonder how these books will read in 30 years, when I think we as humans will look back on this time with a great deal of despair and regret. Regardless, these books are a time capsule of an upset Western world, drawing together art and politics, history and the present, naturalism and mythology, into a compelling literary strand. Spring, Ali Smith's third installment in her seasons quartet, begins with Richard, an aging director who is deeply unhappy with the direction of the project he was working on. He ends up standing on a platform at a train station in the north of Scotland. Meanwhile, Brit is working as a guard at a detention center for refugees. There is a story floating around about a girl who can move around without being stopped and when Brit sees her, she feels compelled to join the girl, Florence, on a train journey to a small station in the north of Scotland. Spring makes the same references to the arts as the previous two novels, moving between the main story and one about [[Katherine Mansfield]] and [[Rainer Maria Rilke]] in a hotel in the Swiss Alps, as well as the photographer Tacita Dean who, like Pauline Boty from [Autumn], was new to me. Smith is a talented author, writing at the peak of her abilities and yet this book feels like the weakest in the quartet so far. It is just a little too blunt in its execution to match the subtler approach of the first two books. Her anger is apparent and utterly justifiable; the way asylum seekers and refugees are treated by the wealthiest and allegedly Christian nations is abominable. A less heavy-handed approach might have been more effective. No one enjoys a sermon, even when one agrees with every word.
Like its two predecessors this dynamic novel captures the many turmoils of life in the contemporary U.K. through ecstatic language and indirect narrative collisions. The first third, set mostly on a Scottish train platform, concerns Richard Lease, an over-the-hill TV and film director mourning his recently deceased collaborator, Paddy. Rife with nuanced reflections on the nature of art and mourning, Richard's ruminative section is the book's most immediate and engaging. After Richard lowers himself into the path of an oncoming train, readers meet his would-be rescuer, Brit, a security guard at a migrant detention facility. Brit has been lured into an impromptu journey by Florence, a pseudo-messianic young girl seemingly capable of inspiring empathy in even the darkest of hearts. The three mismatched characters are soon traveling together, on their way to an old battlefield where the violences of yesteryear and the present day will converge. As was the case with Autumn and Winter, the novel's setting is its foremost strength and increasingly enervating flaw, leading to writing that alternately astounds and exasperates. About three-quarters of the way through the third quarter of this series, the book's most memorable character, Richard, provides a relevant description of the whole enterprise, a response for every season: Gimmicky, but impressive all the same. This is a novel that contains multitudes, and the wonder is that Smith folds so much in, from visionary nature writing to Twitter obscenities, in prose that is so deceptively relaxed. Pertence a SérieSeasonal (3) Tem como suplementoPrémiosDistinctions
What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over time and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tell the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown, Smith opens the door. The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story? Hope springs eternal.-- Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
Current DiscussionsNenhum(a)Capas populares
Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
É você?Torne-se num Autor LibraryThing. |
I did enjoy the portrayal of the relationship between Richard, the aging film director and his longtime friendship with Paddy his scriptwriter, who was dying of cancer.
Spring is the time for hope and new beginnings and following Paddy's death, Richard walks away from his life and catches a train North. When he gets off at a random station and plans to end his life, a 13year old girl, Florence, intervenes and he becomes involved in an escapade with her and her companion Brit. Brit works as a Detention Officer at a camp for refugees. Here we learn of the unfair treatment that is being meted out to the detainees by Britain.
There is also an element of surrealism especially around the child Florence. At times I felt I didn't understand what was happening. It did manage to end on a lighter note with Richard contemplating making contact with his estranged adult daughter. ( )