There but for the

by Ali Smith

A sparkling satire from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet

'Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting' Guardian

'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . .'

As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they first appear...

*****

'Adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read' Literary Review

'Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today' Daily Telegraph

• ISBN10: 0141025190
• ISBN13: 9780141025193
• Publish Date: 5 July 2012 (first published 2 June 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

"But the fact is, how do you know anything is true? Duh, obviously, records and so on, but how do you know that the records are true? Things are not just true because the internet says they are. Really the phrase should be, not the fact is, but the fact seems to be."

It is incredibly difficult to write about Ali Smith's books. I mean where do you start? Plots are not what they seem. Plots are merely vehicles to convey sub-plots, ideas, sentiments, and impressions of the world around us.

So writing about how There But For The tells about the story of a man who is invited to a dinner party, gets up, and locks himself into a room in his host's house for months is an inadequate description.

Even going on to say that the book also tells the stories of the people around the mysterious hermit guest will not do. Instead, I am going to say that There But For The is a story about underdogs with at least three main characters - my favourite of which is Brooke.

Brooke is a highly intelligent, sensitive child who is bullied by a teacher. She starts to withdraw from her peers and her family and find solace in learning about history.

"So people in authority should be more careful because having your head on a coin doesn’t mean you are immune to history like people are immune to things they have been inoculated against by a doctor. Just because someone is in authority, for example in charge of you, and can get you by the arm when no one will know so that your arm afterwards really hurts, and shout in your ear, so loud so that it feels like a slap and your ear can feel the words in it for quite some time after, it doesn’t mean history won’t happen back to them."

But Brooke is not set on revenge. She is compassionate, inquisitive, and caring - traits she shares with the other heroes in Smith's story.

"What I am feeling is irrelevant, Brooke said, but if you are feeling for all those people, that is an astronomical amount of feeling.
It is an Alps of feeling, her mother said, and what you are feeling is never irrelevant, and I feel an Alps of feeling about that too."


And, yet, even with all those layers of characters and story lines and observing the subtleties of life yet, there is always more to an Ali Smith story than the story it self.
There is always the writing. I love Smith's ability to use words, to play with sounds and meanings and, best of all, to conjure up images which correspond with my sense of quirky humor.

"Now the Queen is sitting in front of a screen. There are a lot of courtiers asking her things and she is ignoring them because she is in the middle of playing Call Of Duty."

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

A dinner party in a posh home in Greenwich took a sudden turn when Miles, one of the guests, leaves the table mid meal and locks himself in an upstairs room. He refuses leave and the diverse group of neighbours tell their story of the events trying to make sense of Miles motivations. There But For The is told in four points of view: Anna, who is in her forties; Mark, a man in his sixties; May, a woman in her eighties and ten year old Brooke.

Genevieve Lee sets out to host an elaborate dinner in her elegant Greenwich home; her husband Eric has planned to serve scallops and chorizo. However these people are a little different to the people that normally run in the couple’s social circles. The story revolves around Miles Garth who is now an unwanted guest of the Lee’s, after he locked himself away in an upstairs bedroom. However the book really looks at the four narrators and their connection between everyone else.

There tells a story of Anna, a social worker, who knew Miles thirty years ago. Genevieve found her email address in Miles phone and invited her in the hope of persuading him to leave. But follows Mark who is a photo-researcher, who invited Miles to the dinner party. Mark is mourning his old love and, at times, his dead mother speaks to him in rhymes. For is set entirely in the mind of eighty year old May. She is suffering from dementia but also has regular contact with Miles. The revolves around ten year old Brooke, who is the daughter of two of the party guests and the only one that has made contact with Miles since he locked himself in the room.

Where this book shines is in the writing; it is full of what has been now considered Ali Smith’s trademark wit and puns. It is an exploration into humanity, centred on a whimsical yet devastating dinner party. The stand out for me is the way that Smith masterfully used identity shifts and language gaps to explore language in what is essentially a locked-room mystery. This writing style may cause issues for some people but I was just in awe of just how clever If For But The really was.

As this is the first Ali Smith novel that I have read, I am unsure what to say about her as a writer. If all books are anything like If For But The then I would have to call her a master at puns, wordplays, metaphors and pretty much linguistics in general. There is plenty of buzz around her latest book How to Be Both, so I will save my opinion until I have read at least that novel. I am very confident I will be a new fan of Ali Smith but as I say, I have to experience more of her writing.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/literature/book-reviews/genre/literary-fiction/there-but-for-the-by-ali-smith/