When the Smart's mistakenly invites Amber, who has appeared on their doorstep, into their home as a guest the whole fabric of this rather fragile family starts to fray. By the time Eve, the mother, finally throws Amber out of the house the family relationships are changed in profound ways.

This one is heading right to the top of my favorites list. Days after reading this I am still thinking about the inventiveness of the voices and unusual ways that the author plays with words. The first few pages are a bit baffling but stick with it and you will be rewarded by the way the author ties everything together by the end of the novel.

wierd woman Amber/Alhambra (after the cinema chain) arrives and changes family of four on holiday. great great writing so glad I went back to read this, her first novel. Found it on Branwen's bookshelf in Bangkok.

most amazing 7 page description of postwar britain p205 - 211

Ok, Nick Hornby, you have redeemed yourself. I will continue reading your recommendations.

Scottish novelist Smith builds a seemingly conventional plot for such an unconventional author: A magical stranger appears at an unhappy family’s holiday retreat & lifts mom, dad, bro & sis from their doldrums. But this blithe spirit’s no Mary Poppins. She’s actually kinda an asshole. As she works her besotting charms on each family member, it’s not at all clear if her intentions are good. You can always count on Smith to be captivatingly weird. (In one chapter, English prof dad finds he can only speak in sonnets.) There are cliches & dead patches, but Smith’s inventiveness pulls us through.

‘The Accidental’ by Ali Smith:

Literary award winning style - check!
Literary award winning structure - check!
Literary award winning story - well, I don‘t know. Maybe.

The character of Amber is a classic one of the mysterious stranger who arrives and changes everything. Although she reminds me of a 1970 hippie, she is thirty years old and very educated. She sleeps in her car despite having been invited by the Smart family to stay in their home. The Smart family adults mistake her identity at first; Eve believes she is a student of her husband Michael, and Michael believes she is a reporter who has come to interview Eve. She is neither one. Amber

Spoiler

(as in red, amber, green - stop, caution, go! traffic control light)

isn’t her real name either. She may have been conceived in a movie theater (playful literary device alert!), and she is extremely knowledgeable of the plots of thousands of movies. She is very hungry and smelly when she shows up, which might clue in the reader what she is in fact. Although I related her character to the classic movie ‘High Plains Drifter’ immediately, gentle reader, her only weapon is an extremely charismatic personality mixed with a willingness to confront authority and social behavior.

The vacationing Smart family is destroyed? saved? by her presence. Certainly all is changed....

Eve Smart is a writer. She rented a Norfolk cottage for her family for the summer of 2003, hoping to use the isolation of the location to write her next book in her series of fictional biographies of people who died in World War II. Her books imagine that her ‘biographical’ subject survived the war to die of old age, extrapolating how their lives would have been lived if they had lived, given the facts and direction of their lives before they actually died. Weird, eh? Her series is crazy successful because the fake biographies are light-hearted (perhaps cozies? -I am guessing).

Dr. Michael Smart, Eve’s second husband and stepfather to her two children, is an English professor. He is also a sex addict, and he has had hundreds of sexual liaisons with student after student. He cannot remember their names, but he does a little bit better in remembering faces. These girls are mostly twenty years younger than he is, but he never considers the effect of his affairs on them or his job.

Astrid, twelve years old, is a precocious, if antisocial, child. She is the most vivid character in the novel. I found her peculiarly attractive, despite that she seems to be at that stage where she hates everything. She also is extremely curious about the world around her, wondering how things work - her parents, her brother, the sun, animals, etc. She received a video camera as a present (and the present is what completely occupies her thoughts, both meanings of ‘present’ pun intended) and is avidly recording a myriad of odd events in her day.

Magnus is seventeen years old and a computer nerd. He is seriously distressed. He took part in an online bullying of a girl at his school just before summer vacation which had serious consequences. It was his idea, but he did not think what he believed a funny joke would end up with such an awful conclusion. He feels terrible about the incident and he is scared to death someone will find out. Two other boys participated as well, so someone could talk. His own feelings of guilt are overwhelming his every thought, poisoning his life. Neither parent really stops to consider his strange behavior though.

The above plot and character information that I have summarized above is actually a little difficult to suss out because Smith is using a stream of consciousness (an argument can be started as to how ‘conscious’ some of these characters are!) style to introduce her characters and to move the plot forward. I thought she uses this now ancient and common ‘experimental’ style brilliantly, but it is a writing style to which readers have to pay close attention. The multiple points of view does confound some readers.

There is a HUGE pileup of writer playfulness in literary symbols and book structure and plot convention homages. This is a literary read on steroids. Frankly, though, the plot as far as it concerned Eve was too peculiar of a flight of fancy, over-cooked, to me, but on the other hand, I was snorting (Scottishly?) with enjoyment. Whatever. This is a novel where the reader is meant to enjoy the author’s styling and clever writing and construction, not The Grande Finale. I suspect reading it a second time will be more pleasurable than reading it only once, if how a writer writes is more fun for you than what a writer writes.

I had the lucky opportunity to read this with my 21st Century Book Club here on Goodreads, and the discussions this book generated are still ongoing.

This is one of those books that seem simple, but have depth to them ... The more you dig, the deeper they go. I will probably re-read this one at some point, and most definitely read more Ali Smith. What a ride!

hoping ali smith’s other books are not all as pretentious as this one

also think i have read one too many dysfunctional family books

For smart for sitt eget beste, eller kanskje bare for smart for mitt beste. Tidvis fantastisk skarp og morsom, men til syvende og sist bare uengasjerende. Liker fremdeles Smith dog, vet hun kan bedre.