≡ [PDF] Gratis Autumn Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 Seasonal Samantha compiled by Younger 9780241207000 Books

Autumn Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 Seasonal Samantha compiled by Younger 9780241207000 Books

Download As PDF : Autumn Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 Seasonal Samantha compiled by Younger 9780241207000 Books

Autumn Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 Seasonal Samantha compiled by Younger 9780241207000 Books

Reviewers have described Smith's novel both as a meditation and as a prose poem and both are fully apt. The novel is set in England, after the Brexit vote and this gives the novel an interesting and important immediacy. Smith's nontraditional style is evident in a short chapter devoted to a description of England in its present state: "All across the country, people felt sick. All across the country, people felt history at their shoulder. All across the country, people felt history meant nothing. All across the country, p, teople felt like they counted for nothing. . . .All across the country, the country was divided, a fence there, a wall there, a line drawn here, a line crossed there , , ," This continues in this vein for three full pages.

The novel concerns the relationship between Elisabeth and Daniel Gluck. Elisabeth, who has a tenuous relationship with her mother, meets her neighbor, Daniel Gluck, when she is eight years old and he is already in his 80s. Daniel plays an important role in Elisabeth's life, inspiring her to become an art historian. From the beginning, Elisabeth, who seems to exhibit more maturity than her own mother, enjoys conversations with Daniel that are fully articulate, spirited, imaginative and witty. The novel see-saws back and forth between past and present and Elisabeth has not seen Daniel for ten years when she learns that he is dying and she returns to sit by his deathbed.

The unusual style of the novel is evident from the very first page when the reader is told that "an old man washes up on a shore. . . The sea's been rough. It has taken the shirt off his back; . . .What's that in his mouth, grit? it's sand, it's under his tongue, he can feel it, he can hear it grinding when his teeth move against each other, singing its sand-song." The dead body is awakened in the form of his younger self but he is naked and he slips into a copse of trees where he magically sews leaves together to clothe himself. He recalls a postcard he purchased in Paris in the 1980s of a little girl in a park The reader is told: "She looked like she was dressed In dead leaves black and white photo dated not long after the war ended . . . Something about the child plus the dead leaves, terrible anomaly, a bit like she was wearing rags. Then again, rags weren't rags. . . . But then again again, a picture taken not long after, in a time when a child just playing in leaves could look, for the first time to the casual eye, like a rounded-up and offed child (it hurst to think of it) . . . or maybe also a nuclear-after child, the leaves hanging off her looked like skin become rags, . . .":This continues, in this vein for 11 full pages. I mention this because if the reader is not comfortable with this very nontraditional style of expression, then this is definitely not the novel for you.

The reference to trees continues throughout the novel. As Daniel remains in a comatose state, the reader is told that, "He seems to be shut inside something remarkably like the trunk of a Scot's pine. . . . There are worst tastes to have in a mouth though, truth be told, and the trunks of Scots pines do tend to be narrow. Straight and tall, because this is the kind of tree good for telegraph poles, for the props that it builders used. . . . Daniel in the bed, inside the tree, isn't panicking. . . ."

By the end of the novel, I am ashamed to admit that I started tiring of the stream-of-consciousness writing and I found myself skipping whole pages just to get to the end. In some ways, I felt like I often do when I am in front of a world-famous modern art painting and I am struggling to understand what it is, exactly, that I am supposed to be loving about this painting. I wanted to love this novel, but I tired of the word play and I tired of seemingly disconnected thoughts that would seem to continue endlessly page after page after page.

I can not wholeheartedly and authentically tell you to rush out to read this novel. I read it in one sitting because I wanted to get to the end of it and be done with it. I do not say that with any kind of pride because I am left with the nagging feeling that I must have missed something or maybe I should have been more patient to fully appreciate the nontraditional style of the novel.

If you are a very patient reader and if you love poetry and if you revel in reading texts that follow a very nontraditional form, then you may fully appreciate this novel.


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Autumn Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 Seasonal Samantha compiled by Younger 9780241207000 Books Reviews

I have been reading all the Man Booker Long List nominees for fun this summer. If it were not for that list, I would have overlooked this book. It has a simple cover, the description is kind of bland, but this is an incredible book about the end of life and lifelong friendship between an older man and a younger woman.

The book is told from two perspectives- Elisabeth, who is the main narrator with most of the story following her life. Daniel, who is a century year old and dying. His narrative is told from within his dreams as he lies within a nursing home. It is the story of both of these friends and their lives together and apart. Elisabeth struggles with love as she loves Daniel, without it being an eros type love, so she struggles with people who don't care for her the way Daniel does.

The story is told within a back and forth nature dropping the reader within the moment without letting the reader know the narrator, nor what time period it is. This is a little off-putting at first, but once you get into the groove, it just flows.

The writing is the main draw of the story too. It is as if it were poetic, freeform, and flow of consciousness. Ideas that start within one chapter appear in another chapter. A passport picture follows Elisabeth throughout the book and adds a bit of comedy throughout the book.

The book's background within the present portions follow the Brexit vote. Half of one town hates the other and things have become complicated. Elisabeth struggles with this as well.

When I finished the book, I could absolutely see why this was nominated. This is a beautiful book and contemporary, yet dealing with issues that flow through time. I am wondering if it has a chance of winning, but don't pass on this one.

I gave this one 4.5 stars.
I’ve long loved Irish writer Ali Smith’s Girl Meet Boy, a gorgeous gender bending contemporary love story told through myth. So I was excited to see her latest, Autumn make it to the Booker Prize short list. Until I read it. Autumn is apparently part of a seasonal quartet of books, and certainly, Smith loads up with every autumn image and reference and stage of life one can think of.

The central story revolves around a friendship between an old man and a young girl who are neighbours. Their relationship is lovely and intellectual and deep and I was very moved by it. But all the other stories that are tied with this narrative, about a long forgotten British pop painter, about Brexit, about bureaucracy, about mother-daughter relationships, about a failing economy, they felt extraneous, uncompelling.

For example, even if the main characters seemed sympathetic to the racist and xenophobic atmosphere fanned by Brexit, the incidents and instances are left general and thus without the force that comes with particularity, from reading about a particular incident happening to a particular person. This distanced perspective comes off privileged, because it seems as if only the native born, the whites, are the ones who can feel pity or sympathy for the others, are the ones at the center of the story, are ones we get to read about.

I was also put off by the egregious punniness and proud-of-itself language. For example

“…he’s nothing but a torn leaf scrap on the surface of a running brook, green veins and leaf-stuff, water and current, Daniel Gluck taking leaf of his senses at last, his tongue a broad green leaf, leaves growing through the sockets of his eyes, leaves thrustling (very good word for it) out of his ears, leaves tenderizing down through the caves of his nostrils and out and round til he’s swathed in foliage, leafskin, relief.”

I expected better, more beautiful, from the author of Girl Meets Boy whose lines I still quote years after reading it.

Still, Autumn isn’t difficult to read, and its main characters are charming and thoughtful. But I’m not likely to pick up the rest of the seasons when they come.
Reviewers have described Smith's novel both as a meditation and as a prose poem and both are fully apt. The novel is set in England, after the Brexit vote and this gives the novel an interesting and important immediacy. Smith's nontraditional style is evident in a short chapter devoted to a description of England in its present state "All across the country, people felt sick. All across the country, people felt history at their shoulder. All across the country, people felt history meant nothing. All across the country, p, teople felt like they counted for nothing. . . .All across the country, the country was divided, a fence there, a wall there, a line drawn here, a line crossed there , , ," This continues in this vein for three full pages.

The novel concerns the relationship between Elisabeth and Daniel Gluck. Elisabeth, who has a tenuous relationship with her mother, meets her neighbor, Daniel Gluck, when she is eight years old and he is already in his 80s. Daniel plays an important role in Elisabeth's life, inspiring her to become an art historian. From the beginning, Elisabeth, who seems to exhibit more maturity than her own mother, enjoys conversations with Daniel that are fully articulate, spirited, imaginative and witty. The novel see-saws back and forth between past and present and Elisabeth has not seen Daniel for ten years when she learns that he is dying and she returns to sit by his deathbed.

The unusual style of the novel is evident from the very first page when the reader is told that "an old man washes up on a shore. . . The sea's been rough. It has taken the shirt off his back; . . .What's that in his mouth, grit? it's sand, it's under his tongue, he can feel it, he can hear it grinding when his teeth move against each other, singing its sand-song." The dead body is awakened in the form of his younger self but he is naked and he slips into a copse of trees where he magically sews leaves together to clothe himself. He recalls a postcard he purchased in Paris in the 1980s of a little girl in a park The reader is told "She looked like she was dressed In dead leaves black and white photo dated not long after the war ended . . . Something about the child plus the dead leaves, terrible anomaly, a bit like she was wearing rags. Then again, rags weren't rags. . . . But then again again, a picture taken not long after, in a time when a child just playing in leaves could look, for the first time to the casual eye, like a rounded-up and offed child (it hurst to think of it) . . . or maybe also a nuclear-after child, the leaves hanging off her looked like skin become rags, . . ."This continues, in this vein for 11 full pages. I mention this because if the reader is not comfortable with this very nontraditional style of expression, then this is definitely not the novel for you.

The reference to trees continues throughout the novel. As Daniel remains in a comatose state, the reader is told that, "He seems to be shut inside something remarkably like the trunk of a Scot's pine. . . . There are worst tastes to have in a mouth though, truth be told, and the trunks of Scots pines do tend to be narrow. Straight and tall, because this is the kind of tree good for telegraph poles, for the props that it builders used. . . . Daniel in the bed, inside the tree, isn't panicking. . . ."

By the end of the novel, I am ashamed to admit that I started tiring of the stream-of-consciousness writing and I found myself skipping whole pages just to get to the end. In some ways, I felt like I often do when I am in front of a world-famous modern art painting and I am struggling to understand what it is, exactly, that I am supposed to be loving about this painting. I wanted to love this novel, but I tired of the word play and I tired of seemingly disconnected thoughts that would seem to continue endlessly page after page after page.

I can not wholeheartedly and authentically tell you to rush out to read this novel. I read it in one sitting because I wanted to get to the end of it and be done with it. I do not say that with any kind of pride because I am left with the nagging feeling that I must have missed something or maybe I should have been more patient to fully appreciate the nontraditional style of the novel.

If you are a very patient reader and if you love poetry and if you revel in reading texts that follow a very nontraditional form, then you may fully appreciate this novel.