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A review by jaymoran
Spring by Ali Smith
4.0
The girl felt real strength go through her like god-breath.
Real strength was a matter of sensing something alive in you bigger than just your own breathing.
Then the 300 year-old-woman stepped forward. She’d know how to deal with this.
Tell us a bit about yourself, dearie, she said in her ancient voice.
But the girl just laughed.
As you well know, old lady, that’d be the first step towards me vanishing altogether, she said. Because as soon as you all hear me say anything about myself, I’ll stop meaning me. I’ll start meaning you.
A murmur went through the crowd.
My mother told me, they’ll want you to tell them your story,the girl said. My mother said, don’t. You are not anyone’s story.
There were parts of Spring that really spoke to me - and others that felt a little too on the nose. Ali Smith has a gift for writing relationships - platonic, familial, romantic, and plain complicated - and this particular aspect is what struck me the most in this instalment.
At the beginning of the book, we meet Richard who is left unmoored by the death of his dearest friend, Paddy, and, it is through this outpouring of grief, that he meets Brit, a woman that works at an Immigration Removal Centre, and Florence, a young girl who is desperate to get to Scotland. As valuable as the moments with Brit and Florence are, discussing important topics such as immigration and the appalling way in which people are treated, they were possibly my least favourite aspect of the novel...which feels like a horrible thing to say. Personally, it lacked something that the technically less important scenes with Richard and Paddy had. There was an honesty with those moments, something that resonated with me, and truly moved me. They were subtle and muted, and that's the kind of thing I prefer to read, whereas the scenes with Brit and Florence, while great, felt crammed and heavy handed at times.
Like all of her novels, there's so much to unpack in Spring, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent reading it...it's just that some aspects of the book stood out more to me than others.
Real strength was a matter of sensing something alive in you bigger than just your own breathing.
Then the 300 year-old-woman stepped forward. She’d know how to deal with this.
Tell us a bit about yourself, dearie, she said in her ancient voice.
But the girl just laughed.
As you well know, old lady, that’d be the first step towards me vanishing altogether, she said. Because as soon as you all hear me say anything about myself, I’ll stop meaning me. I’ll start meaning you.
A murmur went through the crowd.
My mother told me, they’ll want you to tell them your story,the girl said. My mother said, don’t. You are not anyone’s story.
There were parts of Spring that really spoke to me - and others that felt a little too on the nose. Ali Smith has a gift for writing relationships - platonic, familial, romantic, and plain complicated - and this particular aspect is what struck me the most in this instalment.
At the beginning of the book, we meet Richard who is left unmoored by the death of his dearest friend, Paddy, and, it is through this outpouring of grief, that he meets Brit, a woman that works at an Immigration Removal Centre, and Florence, a young girl who is desperate to get to Scotland. As valuable as the moments with Brit and Florence are, discussing important topics such as immigration and the appalling way in which people are treated, they were possibly my least favourite aspect of the novel...which feels like a horrible thing to say. Personally, it lacked something that the technically less important scenes with Richard and Paddy had. There was an honesty with those moments, something that resonated with me, and truly moved me. They were subtle and muted, and that's the kind of thing I prefer to read, whereas the scenes with Brit and Florence, while great, felt crammed and heavy handed at times.
Like all of her novels, there's so much to unpack in Spring, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent reading it...it's just that some aspects of the book stood out more to me than others.