'Artful' by Ali Smith

My first read from Ali Smith. An interesting book to read by an author one has never read before. It is not really a book, but a collection of lectures given by the author at the University of Oxford in 2012. But they do not read like lectures. They are woven into a beautiful fictional story and the poems and thoughts of other people make the point that the protagonists wish to make.

I find the book romantic, wistful, sad, surreal, absurd, yet beautiful. Artful. Talking of people in love. Not new young love. But old love. Not when you are still discovering the other person. But when you get to know them well. 

Take this sentence, a note that the author comes across from her lover. (The book is, in some sense, living in the past, with the shadow of the person who is no more, the lectures sort of imagined conversations or notes from the lover who is no more). The now deceased partner writes:

"...I thought of you when I was writing about Freud's flowers. And there was a quote from a Michael Ondaatje novel I wrote down and was keeping for this talk and haven't used, but it really makes me think of us, well, makes me think of you. 'She had an eager spirit. One mentioned a possibility and she met it, like the next line of a song.'  

Wherever you are all the trees above your heads are flowering."

The Michael Ondaatje novel referred is The Cat's Table (2011). And then this sentence by the author when she is reflecting on this letter,

"To be known by someone is an unimaginable gift. But to be imagined so well by someone is even better."

Not sure that it was intended as a love story: but to me it is. 

And then, as one reflects, one feels silly for getting all sentimental about the book. It is framework to discuss and talk about time, form, edge and offer/ reflection and their role in prose and verse and art and what authors wish to say and what readers understand. It is coming to terms story told through beautiful poems and lots of references to other artists and writers. There is the narrative of the author trying to read Oliver Twist through the book, and hence the title Artful (Dodger). There is the Greek actress Aliki Vougiouklaki. There is Henry James and Golden Bowl. And so many other references. 

The lectures are a good way to get educated about the role of time, form, edge, offer and reflection in art. And for someone like me, who is yet to read so many of the classics and reads in a rather spontaneous, haphazard way, an intro to a lot many authors, and quotes on those authors by other authors.  I came out with a long list of things to read, watch, look at and reflect on. There was a bit of paranoia that came about, as thoughts wandered off to fragility of life, but momentary paranoia, enough to push me back to the value of the moments I do have. 

I like the author's language and writing. Maybe I read translations too much. But it is very few authors I've read have that racing, flowing prose that takes you from one page to next seemingly without an effort, and you keep making mental notes to re-read bits because they are so beautiful and you want to spend more time with the author but here you are, flying through the pages. The only solution is to revisit and look at the text again, the sentences, the mechanics, what makes it all so beautiful. Take this sentence: 

"We make form and form makes us. Form can gladden us, teasen us, worry and madden us." 

It is a beautiful read. One of those books I was very glad I stumbled on. Come to think of it, that way, this Christmas season has been awesome in terms of discovering and enjoying never before read authors (to add).       

Here before I close the post, I'll quote Ali Smith quoting Ciaran Carson from Fishing for Amber (1999) on the art of storytellling:

"Or sometimes, plagued by his children for yet another story, my father would appear to yield, and begin, It was a stormy night in the bay of Biscay, and the Captain and his sailors were seated around the fire. Suddenly, one of the sailors said, Tell us a story, Captain. And the Captain began, It was a stormy night in the bay of Biscay, and the Captain and his sailors were seated around the fire. Suddenly, one of the sailors said, Tell us a story, Captain. And the Captain began, It was a stormy night in the bay of Biscay, and the Captain and his sailors were seated around the fire. Suddenly, one of the sailors said -"

And here is Ali Smith quoting Wislawa Szymborska's six-line poem (translated by Cavangh and Baranczak), called, Vermeer:

So long as that woman from the Rijkmuseum
in painted quiet and concenteration
keeps pouring milk day after day
from the pitcher to the bowl
the World hasn't earned
the world's end.

And then, while writing about 'On Edge', Ali Smith quotes William Carlos Williams, "The rose is obsolete...". I am quoting a little bit more than what is in the book. The whole poem is worth reading, and re-reading. Here, part of it:

It is at the edge of the
petal that love waits

Crisp, worked to defeat
laboredness--fragile
plucked, moist, half-raised
cold, precise, touching

What 

The place between the petal's
edge and the 

From the petal's edge a line starts
that being of steel
infinitely fine, infinitely
rigid penetrates
the Milky Way
without contact--lifting
from it--neither hanging
nor pushing-- 

The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space