Book #8: Companion Piece by Ali Smith
Companion Piece by Ali Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book comes as a sort of final book to Ali Smith's "Seasonal Quartet". I think the main character, the artist Sandy, was mentioned in the previous books, but I'd have to read them again to find out. At the start, Sandy is contacted by an old school friend out of the blue, but the friend's twin daughters (one of whom is non-binary) seem to think there is more to their friendship than meets the eye. There's another subplot too about Sandy's father being ill.
The novel is set during the Coronavirus pandemic, so Sandy spends much of her time in her own home, speaking to her friend via Skype. The novel portrays two different extreme views about the situation. When the twins show up to confront her at her home, she complains about them not wearing masks while they insist the pandemic is over. Sandy's attitude towards the pandemic reminds me of my own in ways, at least in that she shares the reluctance I had back then to even to speak to others when I went outside, as I was too unsure about the new rules.
Ali Smith's writing style is very unconventional, and its one that the reader has to get used to. In this book, she jumps into flashbacks occasionally. One chapter keeps flashing back further and further in time, through to Sandy's childhood, and her relationship with her father.
This is one of those books that I had to sit down and think about afterwards, and almost dropped the rating to 3 stars after one segment about an unnamed girl who trained to be a blacksmith (this seemed to be a story Sandy's father was telling). I'm used to Ali Smith's books going off on tangents that seem unrelated (usually when the narrative switches to new characters), but I was unsure as to why this had been inserted. My first reaction to the ending was that I was confused, but thinking about it, it made sense. It seems to be a book about opening up our lives to others, and moving on from the worries bought about by Coronavirus. As I thought about it, I realised that the final scene made perfect sense, and that was what earned it the extra star.
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