Uplifting, enlightening, funny, clever, depressing, sad and heartwarming. The mischievous ‘Autumn’ by Ali Smith is an ingenious novel, the first of the ‘Seasonal Quartet’ telling the story of the UK fragmented after the post-Brexit vote in 2016, when ugliness and prejudice rose to the surface setting brother against sister, friend against friend, dividing streets, neighbourhoods and towns, a binary split with each side convinced it is right and the other, wrong.
Daniel Gluck is 101 years old and in a nursing home, we see from his wonderful lyrical dreams that he teeters on the edge of death. Smith builds her world around Mr Gluck and Elisabeth Demand who, with her mother Wendy, lived next door to Daniel when Elisabeth was a child. Their relationship starts in 1993. Elisabeth, aged eight, must interview a neighbour for a homework project. Her mother is not keen and tries to bribe her to invent a neighbour instead. The following day Elisabeth meets Mr Gluck and, despite her mother’s misgivings (single man, dodgy, must be gay, might be unsafe etc) they become firm friends. Now he is 101 and she tells a lie to the nursing home – yes, she is his grand-daughter – in order to gain a visitor’s pass. She sits by his bed and reads Brave New World.
Smith compares and contrasts modern life with past times in the twentieth-century, we see modern life through Elisabeth’s storyline countered by Daniel’s memories and dreams, and his interpretations of books, art and song for the child Elisabeth. The story wings its way through contemporary references from television antiques programmes and passport applications to celebrity Christine Keeler, sculptor Barbara Hepworth and pop artist Pauline Boty. 
This is all very interesting but, with the lightest of hands, Smith gives a warning about the danger of nationalism, populism and the easy appeal of accepting political lies rather than asking difficult questions of the politicians and ourselves. One passage in particular underlines it all: Daniel’s younger sister Hannah is captured in Nice, France, in 1943 despite carrying papers which identify her as Adrienne Albert.
Running throughout are the themes of truth v lies [juxtaposed often, with lies often being throwaway and easy whilst truth can be awkward and difficult to say] and identity. There is a hilarious passage where Elisabeth tries to renew her passport application at the Post Office, an all-too-believable portrayal of officialdom. Some of the historical sections, particularly about Keeler and Boty, seemed rushed and I would have liked more of Daniel’s songwriting background which was mentioned fleetingly.
Short, at 272 pages, ‘Autumn’ can be read in one sitting. It is a joy to read. Next in the quartet comes ‘Winter’
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

In this book Smith tries to reflect upon the Britain of today, post-Brexit, by musing on life over the past few decades.  Elisabeth and Daniel meet when she becomes his neighbour and their inter-generational friendship continues despite disapproval.  There is some terrific writing in the book, I especially loved the scene in the Post Office in which officiousness and depression seem to sum up our prescribed lives.

Autumn is the first in four planned seasonal books by Ali Smith. It’s a gorgeous look at the relationship between a young girl (and then woman) and an old man, set against the back drop of Brexit Britain.

We meet Elisabeth as a young girl (around 8, I think). Her and her mother move into a house next to an old man, Daniel Gluck. He is used as a free babysitter by Elisabeth’s mum. The old man and the young girl go on walks where they talk about language, and art, and life. These walks continue until Elisabeth is 15 or 16, by which time her mother has become worried about their friendship and had forbidden Elisabeth to continue this friendship, which she disregards. From early on in their friendship:

"She saw through a crack in the curtains Daniel coming up the front path. She opened the door even though she’d decided she wasn’t going to. Hello, he said. What you reading? Elisabeth showed him her empty hands. Does it look like I’m reading anything? she said. Always be reading something, he said. Even when we’re not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant. A constant what? Elisabeth said. A constant constancy, Daniel said."

By the end of the timeline of the story, he is 101, and Elisabeth is around 30. He is at the end of his life in a nursing home – trapped in a deep sleep, and she visits, reads to him and ponders the state of Britain after the EU referendum, and reflects on Daniel’s life and the profound effect his friendship has had on her.

Added to this, we get some dream like sequences from Daniel’s mind (in fact, this is how the novel opens with a dream sequence that takes us to the migrant crisis in Europe and to tourists trying to holiday on beaches with dead people washing up on the shore). We also learn more about Elisabeth’s mother and her activism in response to an immigrant detention centre being built near her home. There’s also a lot about the pop artist Pauline Boty and about the Keeler affair. It’s all quite disjointed, but it works well during the book.

The plot doesn’t run in a linear way, rather we get memories of different times throughout the present day story. The parts on art reminded me of How To Be Both – the only other Ali Smith I’ve read (review).

The post Brexit descriptions are stark and horrifying in the same way my mind is still horrified by the outcome of the referendum vote. It feels very current and accurately shows the tangle of thoughts that different people must be having over the same issues. It’s hard to describe, but some passages just broke my heart. This rant from late on in the book sums it up quite well:

"Her mother sits down on the churned-up ground near the fence. I’m tired, she says. It’s only two miles, Elisabeth says. That’s not what I mean, she says. I’m tired of the news. I’m tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren’t, and deals so simplistically with what’s truly appalling. I’m tired of the vitriol. I’m tired of the anger. I’m tired of the meanness. I’m tired of the selfishness. I’m tired of how we’re doing nothing to stop it. I’m tired of how we’re encouraging it. I’m tired of the violence there is and I’m tired of the violence that’s on it’s way, that’s coming, that hasn’t happened yet. I’m tired of liars. I’m tired of sanctified liars. I’m tired of how these liars have let this happen. I’m tired of having to wonder whether they did it out of stupidity or did it on purpose. I’m tired of lying governments. I’m tired of people not caring whether they’re being lied to anymore. I’m tired of being made to feel this fearful. I’m tired of animosity. I’m tired of pusillanimosity. I don’t think that’s actually a word, Elisabeth says. I’m tired of not knowing the right words, her mother says."

Finally, the relationship between Daniel and Elisabeth is very touching, and a bit of a spoiler, but it remains innocent. I was so glad it didn’t take a different turn. From when they first meet:

"Very pleased to meet you… Finally. How do you mean finally? Elisabeth said. We only moved here six weeks ago. The lifelong friends, he said. We sometimes wait a lifetime for them."

I can’t wait to read the next books in this series.

The excellent Ali Smith never disappoints with her beautifully crafted prose that bends meanings to deliver clever constructs. The first installment in a season-based cycle, "Autumn" is no exception, showcasing her unique voice on every page. Set at the hospital bedside of centenarian Daniel Gluck, it sees his former neighbour 30-something Elisabeth, visiting him to read to him and reminisce about her childhood. He was her unlikely babysitter-come-mentor, who seeded in her her passion for art, leading to her career as an art lecturer, with a particular passion for the life and works of Pauline Boty.
This is the first post-Brexit referendum novel I've read, and Ali draws on the division and isolation that it has caused in the country. As Daniel lies on his deathbed, Britain could be seen to be in the same position as it prepares itself for the cold inevitability and loneliness of it's exit from Europe. Winter is coming, it remains to be seen who will survive and to what degree... 
A thoughtful, elegiac, mournful piece of writing, that provides a pitch perfect accompaniment to its titular season. I look forward to the next three installments. Smith really is quite an extraordinary talent.

A worthy addition to the 2017 Booker Shortlist, it takes a little while to get into the story as the narrative voice changes frequently but once I was underway I found the book a pagetuner.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, Autumn is set against the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, with a fractured society turning upon itself. Daniel Gluck is close to death, living in a world of his own imagination, happily exploring a surreal landscape, remembering what it was to be a young man and inspired by the work of an artist he once knew. A young woman, Elisabeth Demand, who was Daniel’s neighbour when she was a child, visits him in his nursing home as he lives in this in-between world, bringing back memories of the past that they shared. Elisabeth is witnessing the dark turn the real world has taken as neighbour turns against neighbour while Daniel escapes this but they are tied together by their friendship. 
Autumn is a hugely imaginative and fluid work – moving from dream to reality, from present to past with great lyricism.

It's very hard for me to review Ali Smith's novels. There's no doubt she can write and she does it like nobody else. Her voice is completely unique and she is beyond clever and observant, which all comes through in her writing and her novels. 
However, I missed the point of this. She makes some wonderful remarks throughoit and as a series of singular thoughts and observations, this is brilliant. But as a whole this went completely over my head. I can discern what she was trying to do a bit, based on other people's reviews and what I know, but I really didn't understand any of it by myself. But this is still a three star read, just because I enjoyed, even though I did not really understand it. I still vastly prefer How to Be Both (the only other book of hers I read), but I can definitely see the value of this book as well.

I’m not an intelligent-sounding book reviewer and I’m sure I can’t even begin to grasp half of the ideas that are presented especially in contemporary fiction, however it doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy it at my own level. Autumn being a case in point. Like Elisabeth, I became emotionally attached to Daniel and was eager to hear nuggets of his history being divulged slowly throughout the novel. The excellent writing perfectly captures the zeitgeist of Britain post-Brexit referendum and is worthy of inclusion in the Booker Shortlist – in my humble opinion.

Shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize, this novel is widely regarded to be the first post-Brexit novel, published less than 4 months after the EU referendum. 
While mainly focussing on the relationship between the main character Elisabeth Demand, and her 101 year old former neighbour, Daniel Gluck, the book also touches upon Elisabeth's strained relationship with her mother. There is also considerable mention of Pauline Boty, who was considered the UK's only female pop artist. 
This was my first Ali Smith book, and while it initially took me awhile to understand what was going on (the book opens with a dream sequence), I enjoyed her writing and how relevant and current this book is to Brexit. However, I didn't enjoy all the Pauline Boty information, and didn't think this added much to the novel. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I have always wanted to read ali smith but never done so for reasons i cant quite resolve .

This is short , sharp , lyrical , funny and relevant .

Smith burns through ideas , concepts and the world and i enjoyed the bonfire . 

There are moments when especially the post office the humour is tempered by a sense of we have all been there . This is a book to devour

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2017

 
As ever, Ali Smith shows off her prodigious talent for challenging the novel form. In Autumn, she focuses on themes readers will be familiar with from previous novels: the vital importance of reading and art, relationships that don’t meet conventional expectations, the gaze, and the mutability of time. Set shortly after the Brexit referendum, she moves between characters, and jumps forwards and backwards across years and decades to create a flickering world where time stretches and contracts. ‘Time travel is real…We do it all the time. Moment to moment, minute to minute.’ At the heart of the novel is the unconventional relationship between Elisabeth and Daniel who met when she interviewed him for a school project about neighbours; she was a child and he already middle aged, but it was a meeting of minds that gradually turned into love.

When the novel begins Daniel is in a nursing home dreaming, in the ‘increased sleep period’ that happens when people are ‘close to death’ and Elisabeth is an adult. In a faintly menacing scene the box-ticking mentality of many contemporary jobs is sent up as Elisabeth attempts to renew her new passport. ‘This isn’t fiction, the man says. This is the Post Office.’ Since the vote to leave the E U everyone is in a ‘sullen state’, neighbour against neighbour and ‘All across the country there was misery and rejoicing.’ The shocking death of the M P Jo Cox hardly registers because news is changing so rapidly ‘like a flock of speeded-up sheep running off the side of a cliff.’ As well as the refugee crisis, zero hours jobs, student debt and Brexit there is also the ominous ‘wedge’ of lies between people, and the ‘end of dialogue’ and trust – the insidious ‘fake news’ under Trump. Everywhere there are fences, both literal and metaphorical. 

When Elisabeth finds out that Daniel, who she’s not seen for several years, is gravely ill, she goes to sit by his bedside and waits for him to wake up, with his usual playful greeting: ‘What you reading?’ Hope comes from reading and from art. ‘Always be reading something,’ Daniel tells Elisabeth ‘Even when we’re not physically reading. How else will be read the world?’ I was fascinated to discover the pop artist Pauline Boty and to see how, as so often happens with women, she was largely forgotten after her early death, despite her ground breaking work. It is Boty’s art, made by ‘a woman full of joy’, that Ali Smith holds up as a protest against the darkness. She wanted to be ‘accepted as a human being, a person with a mind,’ who ‘really liked making people happy’. A hugely important message for these troubled times. Ultimately Autumn is about hope – we are in dire and quickly changing political times, but love and art can still triumph over transience.

DNF at 40%, so I did give it a chance - unfortunately, the editor gave it far too much of a chance and let this dross pass as finished, or in any way meaningful.

3.5 stars.  I wasn't blown away by this novella.  No pun intended (autumnal theme and all that).  It took me a while to get into the rhythm of the writing, if there is a rhythm.  Once I did, I was faintly amused by the characters, particularly Elisabeth who is just too curmudgeonly for her age.  It was charming in its own way but I really felt quite discombobulated by the style which often felt like a literary version of a rap remix.  No doubt all its fans will think I'm missing something and perhaps I am.  Such is life.

I had been circling this book for a while, unsure whether it was for me, but the inclusion of Ali Smith's Autumn in this year's longlist for the Man Booker Prize forced my hand - and I'm glad it did as it is a surprising book. It may not be a modern classic but there's much to enjoy in this short book centred around the long-lasting friendship between a young woman and her elderly neighbour.

When this book was first published last year, it was heralded as a 'Brexit novel', a state-of-the-nation work, the first in a series, which promised to examine who we are, what we've become and the state of play in the UK as it plunges into the unknown that is Brexit, and what the process has revealed about our country.

It all sounded very worthy but, in fact, this description put me off as I feared it would be an onerous tome - weighty and heavy going. Well, what a surprise because this is a light, affecting, touching book that has remarkably little to do with Brexit. in fact, that's barely even a plot point in this story.

So what is Autumn about then? Well, it is an interestingly fragmented, abstract retelling of this long friendship. The chapters work like shards - fragments of memory and scenes of moments from this friendship over twenty-five years, from the times when Elisabeth, then a young girl, was often lumped with her elderly neighbour, Daniel, when her often errant mother would disappear for hours and days.

Not retold in any linear way, we instead see glimpses of how this friendship develops, how Daniel cultivates an interest in art in he young girl who then goes on to become, in the Brexit present, an arts lecturer.

The writing is pleasant and light - almost like a summer breeze - and i cant help feel this is more an examination of the temporariness of life, of its transitionary nature. How we have just moments - but how these moments and memories can last a lifetime.

Autumn is a short book and though the writing is elegant, we don't have complicated characters to follow - Daniel is a Yoda-like wise figure who comes up with great one-liners but offers little more. And Elisabeth is a flimsy character who isn't particularly memorable.

Lovely but not exactly earth-shattering.

Stunning, thought-provoking, ethereal and life-changing. Ali Smith remains unmatched in her explorations of complex characters

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Elusive, beautiful, both earthly and poetic - a fabulous read.

Autumn. An intriguing title, that wasn't giving much away. Something to do with dying, perhaps? Or fading into nothing? Or a celebration of the season of mist and mellow fruitfulness (or whatever the line is...)?

Well, it was sort of all of those things, and none. The story follows two characters; the aged Daniel Gluck (who starts the book dead, or sort of, at least) and his much younger neighbour / friend, Elisabeth. 

Throughout, we learn more about Daniel Gluck and just how extraordinary a man he is / was. We also learn the same about Elisabeth, though her amazingness is rather more practical and pragmatic (the scenes with passport application frustration were genuinely relateable, not to mention hilarious). It's a book about dying, but also about learning to live, even when things seem bleak - and bear in mind, this is a novel set against the backdrop of Brexit. 

There may have been an even deeper meaning to this book (it wouldn't surprise me) and I was just too dim to grasp it, but in spite of that, it was stil completely immersive. I highly recommend.

Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Stars

This is my first novel from Ali Smith, and I enjoyed it much more than her short story collection. That's ultimately a preference thing; I prefer long form stories more on the whole. Which is interesting, because Autumn is filled tiny little fragments of short stories nudged in between the overarching plot that gradually come together to create the collage of the book.

Smith has a reputation in the literary fiction genre, so I wasn't surprised to find that her writing was indeed poetic and layered. Yet also very easy to read. There are sections of more abstract style during Daniel's coma that feel like chunks of proper prose poetry in between. But in general, there was a natural and easygoing flow that made the book a lot simpler to digest than I'd expected - which of course means that you can digest the action that's going on more thoroughly.

Autumn is a book about a quiet and normal life, and the ways in which no life is really quiet and normal in this world. It captures the little pieces of magic in everyday life, and the little tragedies too, with a proud little sense of humour. (The post office scenes were the highlights for me). This book is renowned for its grasp of politics and the everyday effect it has on people everywhere, specifically in rural Britain. The underlying commentary on Brexit was on point, and I'm astounded Smith managed to write it so quickly during and after it was all happening.
The part of the book that felt more fantastical to me, because of the way it was written and due to my ignorance on the subject, was the art history permeated throughout. Our protagonist is writing a dissertation on said subject, but it weaves its way into the stories she's told as a child, and even in her friend's unconscious imaginings. I would've loved to be more educated on the artists that were discussed, but I also loved learning about it through tinted glasses of fiction. It has a way of showing colours in a different light.

Smith understands people well, and that's really what makes this book. Looking back I think it's quite interesting that, even though we have a protagonist, a great deal of the story is about interactions with other people and how that makes individuals well... individual. Good interactions or bad ones, they build up people as we are and whether we like it or not we affect and are affected by the other humans around us (can you see the Brexit parallels yet?) so maybe we should take a little effort to be civil and kind.

Autumn is a quiet joy to read. Understated and subtle in its story, but bold and expansive in what it has to say. It's made me push up a few of the Ali Smiths on my TBR.

Thank you so much for allowing me to review this fantastic title. I have reviewed it as part of a Monthly Reading Wrap Up on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB8KZ2pg2Ro&t

Once upon a time, Ali Smith and I were besties. I loved her books, she loved my reviews of them and we smiled at each other at book festivals. Those were the days.

Then, Ali Smith wrote The Accidental. This had a rollicking riff of an opening chapter-ette. It was like the Trainspotting Choose Life riff. It rocked. And somebody said to Ali Smith - you are a fantastic writer and you should do more of that. So she did.

Now someone needs to tell her that she is good, but not that good. Her writing is not strong enough to carry a plotless book, despite more than one attempt at it. First and foremost, she is a storyteller. 

So in Autumn, we have a short collection of ideas; a girl who befriends her neighbour, then she visits the neighbour as he grows old and she finds him a bit of an embarrassment. There are references to Brexit - so perhaps we see Mr Gluck, the neighbour, as a bit like Europe. Basically good but people just want to move on. Hmmm. And once this metaphor lodges, you can't shift it. There's no story, no character development. Just a lot of lists and riffs. As the end approaches, very slowly for a book with so few pages, it starts to dawn on the reader that there is no big idea that is going to tie it all together. It just ends, as suddenly and pointlessly as it began. 

There are plenty of cultural references along the way - a TV show that is Bargain Hunt in all but name, the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop phone number, Jo Cox getting murdered, but none of it seems to be taking us anywhere. I know some people have raved about this book but I really cannot see it myself. I see Ali Smith's next novel is called Winter. Maybe it offers even slimmer pickings than Autumn.