Artful

by Ali Smith

"A stimulating combination of literary criticism, essay, and fiction" (The New Yorker) from the incomparable Ali Smith

Artful is a celebration of literature's worth in and to the world-it is about the things art can do, the things art is made of, and the quicksilver nature of all artfulness. A magical hybrid that refuses to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted-literally-by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. Ali Smith's heady powers as a novelist and short story writer harmonize with her keen perceptions as a reader and critic to form a living thing that reminds us that life and art are never separate.

• ISBN10: 0143124498
• ISBN13: 9780143124498
• Publish Date: 4 February 2014 (first published 1 November 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143124498

Reviews

[brokentune]

"All of it? I say.
Lucky for you the ands are ampersands, you say.
You are calling my bluff, of course. I call yours back. I take the book to the tattoo parlour down Mill Road and come home, after several sessions, with exactly this tattoo. I choose to have it done in deep blue, the colour of your eyes. It costs me a fortune. It hurts like irony.
I see you again only when it's finished and my skin settled down.
You're unreal, you say when you see it.
You're the real unreal thing all right.
Less than a month after this we move in together and mix our books up."

I love this book.

Artful is the product of four lectures Smith gave and combines a background story of coming to terms with death with a literary exploration of themes that deal with elements of grieving, time, fragmentation, etc.

Of course, Smith delivers all of this in a discourse that is both full of wit and tenderness.

I'm not sure whether I love this book because of the way that Smith delivers the lectures or the selections of poetry and books she includes. In any case, this is one of the books that I will read again and again.