Autumn - A Non-Traditional Love Story of Minds

Good evening dear friends! 

Today I will be turning away from the complex, futuristic, science fiction world of China Miéville’s “Embassytown” to a literary world much more intuitively understood---that of Scotland in 2016, in Ali Smith’s novel “Autumn.” This was such an interesting read over the last two weeks and I really enjoyed it. Some of the factors that drew me in were the poetic structure of the novel, the focus on words and the power of stories throughout the book, and how the narrative was more character-driven than plot-driven. Smith’s writing style reminded me of two of my favorite books of all time, “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak and “Normal People” by Sally Rooney. The poetic structure is similar to that of “The Book Thief” with lyrical writing and lots of imagery, using inventive language and avoiding cliché metaphors. And like in “Normal People,” Smith does not use any quotation marks to indicate dialogue, which allows the words and thoughts of the characters to flow more freely and makes me feel as if I am directly in the story instead of just reading what happened previously and was recorded.  

“Autumn” focuses on a woman named Elisabeth, her mother, and Elisabeth’s friendship with her neighbor Daniel. Elisabeth’s life flashing back and forth in time from her growing up with Daniel as a much older friend and mentor, to being in her thirties visiting Daniel at his death bed where he has fallen into a coma, is set against the political backdrop of Brexit. It is never explicitly explained in “Autumn” that Brexit is happening, what its effects on the country are, and how Elisabeth feels about it, but we learn a great deal about all of these things through getting to know Elisabeth as a character and experiencing her in her changing world.  

We see the complicated bureaucratic policies being created as the United Kingdom pulls away from the European Union and begins to make their own laws and procedures; Elisabeth wrestles with these head on when she tries to get her passport renewed and has to jump through about a dozen of ridiculous hoops. When she finally gets her new passport in the mail, her mother is saddened to see that it will be one of the last Scottish passports issued with “EU” still stamped at the top. Elisabeth seems much more accepting of the changes than her mother is, but neither of them can really predict what things are going to change about their country in the future.  

Another facet of the Brexit policital tension that we see demonstrated but never explicitly talked about is the anti-immigration sentiments. In Elisabeth’s neighborhood, a house is spray-painted with the words “GO HOME.” Later on she sees that someone else has written underneath “WE ARE ALREADY HOME THANK YOU,” and added paintings of flowers and trees. The beautiful images and the stubborn words contrasted with the ugly command encapsulate the racial tensions rising during this time in the United Kingdom.  

One of my favorite parts of this novel was the relationship between Elisabeth and Daniel Gluck. They meet when she is 13 and he is 82 when he watches her for her mother one afternoon. As their friendship develops throughout her teen years, Daniel completely changes the way Elisabeth thinks about the world. He introduces her to art and music, unlocks her imagination, and shares his love for words and storytelling with her. Through witnessing these scenes as flashbacks in-between Elisabeth’s current life, we get to see the impact knowing Daniel in her youth has on her later. She goes to college to study art because of him and pursues a master’s degree, writing about the 60’s pop artist Pauline Boty because Daniel described all of her paintings to Elisabeth years before. She never truly falls in love with anyone, despite being in a number of relationships, and we eventually learn that this is because she is in love with Daniel and has been for many years.  

While some may find Elisabeth’s romantic love for a man 69 years older than her disturbing, I was actually enamored by the way Smith wrote this relationship. There is never any physical attraction present, and it is clear that Daniel has never been interested in Elisabeth. But she is in love with him, for his mind, his words, his character, and how he teaches her new ways to see the world. A moment that I feel really demonstrates this love and friendship that Elisabeth has for Daniel is in a scene when she is fourteen years old; “She looked up at him showing her how the summer was still there. Nobody spoke like Daniel. Nobody didn’t speak like Daniel” (Smith 148).  

Despite the novel being quite gray and melancholy most of the way through, it ends on a note of triumph and hope, symbolic simultaneously of Daniel waking up, of Elisabeth’s mother falling in love with Zoe, and of the country continuing to go on despite so many things being different. The last paragraph keeps replaying in my mind even though it’s been almost a week since I finished the book. It ends, “All the souls are out marauding. But there are roses, there are still roses. In the damp and the cold, on a bush that looks done, there’s a wide-open rose, still. Look at the colour of it” (Smith 260). 

Lovely readers, I hope this book awoke you and embraced you in the same way that it did to me, and I hope the end paragraph will also continue replaying in your mind. I encourage you to check out the next three books in Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet, respectively “Winter,” “Spring,” and “Summer.” Join me here again in two weeks for an introduction to Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klara and the Sun.”