The novel “Winter” from Ali Smith’s season cycle

SEven under closed regulations these days, Christmas would have been allowed to take place simultaneously in the cleavage house. Because this is where a family meets plus. Still, there can be no question of family peace. Sophia has had an argument with her sister Iris for the past few decades, and her relationship with her son Arthur is also strained. To make matters worse, his girlfriend Charlotte has just left, which is why Arthur picks up a stranger at the bus stop, Lux, who goes with her to her mother’s property for a fee and is there in Charlotte. Serves as Not only with this doppelganger game, which is only resolved in the middle of the narrative, Scottish writer Ali Smith proves to be a black romantic once again. The ghostly Sophia, a former businessman, is haunted not only by a nearby family, but also by ghosts such as the head of a disgruntled child. It is not entirely coincidental that we are in Cornwall, that the English stretch of land whose local saint is famous for raising his head from the ground when he just ran away with his hands on the head.

Ali Smith’s work has always been shaped by the bond between the living and the dead, and his novels, populated by haunted characters, are also always ghost stories. “Winter” is the name of the second part of his tetralogy of seasons, published in a new translation by Sylvia Moravet, which was originally released in 2017 and is now available in German to match the seasons. It is astonishing that the author, born in 1962 in Invertis, who now lives in England and has been nominated for the Booker Prize several times, is still an insider tip in this country. Maybe it is because his literature often feels like a domineering, instinctively, unimpressive. At the same time, these books are finely balanced literary experiments in the thinking of the present, which present big issues in a very simple way.

Time travel is possible

They discuss the inside and outside perspective of the figures. Ali Smith skillfully uses the means of experiential speech to reinforce the impression of uniformity of events and with semi-authenticity in his narrative literature. Looking back is always an attempt to understand the temporary reality on the sleeper. The central theme of the ambitious novel Quartet is already mentioned in the headlines. Since spring, summer, autumn and winter are optional to pass the current continuously, this four-part series, named after the seasons, is about the nature of time. As the narrative moves back and forth, sometimes slowing down, then accelerating again, it brings the past and present into a fascinating relationship of tension. Hundred-year-old Daniel put it in the previous volume “Autumn” like this: “Time travel is possible. We do this all the time. Moment by moment, minute by minute.”