Every time I come to write a review for Ali Smith I always find it a bit of a struggle to put into words the way her novels make me feel. It’s like they take me away to another dimension where all there is are the words on the page and the characters she’s conjuring up. My fear of experimental novels evaporates and I’m immersed in sometimes the bizarrest (yes that’s a word) of situations and I’m loving every second.
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How To Be Both is a playful (of course) examination of art, gender, time, history. How can two stories, one featuring a renaissance painter in the 1460s and one a young protagonist in the 1960s be linked so cleverly? I don’t know but Ali Smith does - let her take you on a mind-bending journey of two inexplicably but irrevocably intertwined narratives that will enchant you from the onset...
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Oh but I forgot to mention, depending on your edition, you’ll be presented with one or the other narratives first - I told you she was playful! I got George’s first, and I think it’s inevitable that you’ll prefer whichever strand of the story your edition puts first (hence the minus one star - I missed George!) but please correct me if you’ve read this and found the opposite to be true!
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As I said, I find it difficult to express what it is I love so much about Smith’s work, but I do know that she’s not for everybody. She’s worked her magic on me, all I can suggest is picking her up and seeing if her spell works on you too!