There But For The by Ali Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I appreciate Ali Smith’s attempt to take me out of my comfort zone as a reader with this meta-novel, which is a unique approach to that much-loved trope of crime fiction, the ‘locked room’ mystery. But this did not quite gel as a novel for me.
Throughout it I was too conscious of Smith’s tinkering and pulling the strings to engage fully with the characters, or to become emotionally invested in the story she was telling. (As I get older, this is becoming more and more important to me as a reader).
Still, there is much to admire here. Smith is a dazzling wordsmith, and there is a fizzy messiness to a lot of the writing to make it resemble the spontaneity and randomness of human thought and interaction.
Of course, it takes a lot of skill to emulate this. (At times I did get a sneaky feeling that Smith was a bit too enamoured with her own cleverness, as with the child character Brooke.)
When I began reading this, I noticed that, again, Smith is one of those oh-so-modern writers who eschew ordinary punctuation, such as speech marks. This is one of my pet peeves, as I honestly think writers do not realise how difficult this makes it for readers, as for me personally it throws me out of the narrative too often.
In this case though Smith uses it for a stream-of-consciousness effect; she remarks at one point about a character being too hip’ to use punctuation when texting. Indeed, there is even some phone-speak thrown in here, plus random quotations, rhymes, limericks and various bits-and-pieces to create a kind of literary logorrhea.
This is definitely one of those instances where it is, indeed, best to go with the flow. There is a lot of very topical rumination on the novel as both an art form and as a means of social activism. Smith also ponders the impact of technologies such as Internet on the function of history and the meaning of representation.
This might all sound drily academic, but Smith is way too savvy to fall into the trap of hectoring her readers: this is a sprightly and thought-provoking read that fairly bristles with the author’s formidable intellect and empathy.
A Book Lover's Discourse 