How to be both (2015)
Who wrote it?
Ali Smith (1962- ; active 1986- ), born Inverness, Scotland to working-class parents. She studied English Language & Literature at the University of Aberdeen and then began a PhD in American and Irish modernism at Cambridge. During this time she began writing plays and so did not complete her doctorate. In the late eighties she regularly had plays performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, before focusing more attention on prose, with her first book of shorts, Free Love and Other Stories, published in 1995.
Her first novel was 1997's Like, which she followed with Hotel World in 2001. The latter was shortlisted for both the 2001 Booker (losing out to Peter Carey's slightly annoying True History of the Kelly Gang) and the same year's Women's Prize (won by the rather lovely The Idea of Perfection.) She repeated the same feat with 2005's The Accidental (this time pipped by John Banville’s surprise winner The Sea and Zadie Smith's On Beauty respectively.) How to Be Both was her seventh novel, winning the Goldsmiths Prize and Costa novel prize in 2014 before taking the 2015 Women's Prize. She has since written four seasonal 'state of the nation' works beginning with 2016's Autumn (also Booker shortlisted) which was written in the immediate aftermath of the UK's 2016 Brexit referendum.
What's it about?
How to Be Both tells two stories, one from the perspective of George, an intelligent 16-year-old girl living in modern-day Cambridge, and another from the perspective of a relatively minor Italian renaissance artist, Francesco del Cossa. How these stories come together and the book's formal innovation are worth discovering for yourself, so in the unlikely event that you're reading this before having read the novel, I'd skip to my conclusion!
The most unusual aspect of the novel is that it is - in effect - two books. It was published in two versions, one with George's story first, another with Francesco's. The version I read began with George's story. George is coping with the death of her mother, with whom she was very close, and left to cope with looking after her younger brother, Henry, with little help from her alcoholic father. She displays a kind of obsession for detail, slightly inherited from her mother, as well as other unusual obsessive cycles, particularly in the wake of her mother's death, including one with a pornographic video, the subject of which elicits sympathy and horror in her. She is briefly distracted by a strong friendship with another girl, which threatens to develop further before the other party's family move to Denmark. Her section ends with a focus on her mother's affair with a woman named Lisa Goliard, who George suspects may have been monitoring her on behalf of the security services, as well as a developing obsession with the painter Francesco, whose work her mother had taken her to see in Ferrara.
Francesco's section is set between the present day, in which he is a kind of disembodied ghost figure, seemingly sent to observe a girl (who he initially thinks is a boy) - if reading in the order I did, it's obvious fairly quickly that this character is George. This section acts to shed further light on George's story as well as flashing back to Francesco's own fascinating (and largely invented by Smith) life story. In Smith's version Francesco is born a girl, but following her mother's death is encouraged to masquerade as a boy in order to develop a career as a painter. We learn, in Francesco's fragmented but humourous voice, about the development of her career, her friendship (ultimately undone by her secret) with the aristocratic Barto, her work painting panels of the frescos at Ferrara and rivalry with former tutor Cosimo Tura, and her romantic liaisons with prostitutes.
What I liked
So much! My only previous encounter with Smith was via the hurried Brexit commentary of Autumn, which I didn’t get at the time and didn’t encourage me to read more. Thus I was hugely surprised by how much I loved this one.
George’s story is already a satisfying one on its own, so much so that I was sad that we seemed to be abandoning it half way through (before I clocked that there would still be more to learn about George in Francesco’s section!) - she’s a likeable, sympathetic character with some amusing foibles (a tendency to extreme pedantry) which are more than understandable given her circumstances. She deals admirably with her role as effective lead carer in her family, and her relationship with her brother is both funny and touching.
In the order of my reading, though, the novel switched up to an even higher gear with Francesco’s section. It’s initially somewhat disorienting, both in terms of the shift from pure realism to a narrative told by a ghost and in terms of the shift in linguistic style - now fractured, occasionally breaking down into a kind of poetry, and feeling like an odd but amusing clash of renaissance and modern-day voices. But it’s both a self-sufficiently intriguing imagined history of (in Smith’s telling) a fascinating character, and something far more interesting than just that…
I absolutely loved the way Smith handled Francesco’s perspective on the aspects of the modern world he doesn’t understand. It’s both massive imagination-fuel of the type I love, perfectly executed (not trite as these sort of time-travel-esque observations can be) and most of all supremely funny in places. From Francesco’s initial bafflement at the lack of horses (but at least there are birds) to her observation of George viewing pornography obsessively (clearly a bad thing, unless that’s your thing, in which case that’s your thing) s/he’s a wonderfully different lens on the realistic warmth of the George section.
This doesn’t stop with his modern sections either: Francesco’s repeated dissing of Cosimo and associated humblebrags (“just saying”) about her own talents are laugh out loud funny, and his relationship with ‘the pickpocket’, initially a scorned apprentice but later a kind of friend, could have come out of Blackadder.
It’s not a book that asks too much in terms of ‘meaning’ and conclusions. It explores a huge wealth of things: the purpose of art, its relationship to commerce, the mother/daughter relationship, grief, sexuality, gender norms and their subversion, etc. etc., but never feels like it’s making points. It’s a brilliantly open feeling read, with so much space for readerly interpretation.
What I didn’t like
The way I read it, practically nothing. There’s a Guardian review which suggests that the uniqueness (and sadness) of this novel is that once having read ‘our’ version, we can never experience the other version with truly fresh eyes. Part of me agrees, and thinks this is just a kind of a quirk that adds to its specialness as a novel. Another part feels slightly precious about THIS version though - I find it so difficult to imagine having met Francesco first, with only hints of George. Would it have as much power jumping from the carnivalesque fun of Francesco’s section to the subdued, slightly sad realism of George’s? I guess the only answer is that it would be different, that’s for sure. I’d love to hear from anyone who read it the other way around!
Food & drink pairings
Eggs, if the painters don’t use them all first.
Fun facts
This was Smith’s third nomination for the Prize, following Hotel World and The Accidental.
The judging panel was chaired by Shami Chakrabarti, then director of Liberty. It also featured Helen Dunmore, who won the first Women’s Prize (then the Orange Prize) in 1996 for A Spell of Winter.
Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests was the bookies’ favourite in the lead-up to the award.
Vanquished Foes
Rachel Cusk (Outline)
Laline Paull (The Bees)
Kamila Shamsie (A God in Every Stone)
Anne Tyler (A Spool of Blue Thread)
Sarah Waters (The Paying Guests)
2015’s Booker Prize went to Marlon James’ intense and brilliant A Brief History of Seven Killings, on a shortlist that also included A Spool of Blue Thread. Smith’s winner was of course featured on the previous year’s Booker shortlist, losing to the equally great The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.
Context
In 2015:
Boko Haram massacres in Baga, Nigeria kill more than 2000
Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris
ISIS demolition of ancient historic sites in Iraq including Nimrud and Hatra
Al-Shabaab mass shooting at university in Kenya kills 148
Conservatives under David Cameron form their first majority UK government in 18 years
Republic of Ireland votes in a referendum to legalise same sex marriage
Queen Elizabeth II becomes longest-reigning British monarch, surpassing Victoria
Volkswagen emissions test rigging scandal
NASA announces that liquid water has been found on Mars
Justin Trudeau becomes Canadian PM
Paris terrorist attacks at multiple sites including Stade de France and Bataclan music venue kill 130
Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman (publication of novel written c. 1955)
Jonathan Franzen, Purity
The Revenant
The Big Short
Spectre (James Bond movie)
Inside Out
Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly
Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell
Carly Rae Jepsen, E*MO*TION
Adele, 25
Life Lessons
Many and various, all very open to your interpretation
Score
9.5
A second stunner in a row, I think this one has to edge it as my favourite Women’s Prize winner in my chronological read-through so far. It’s just such an enjoyable read, alongside its stylistic innovation, thought-provoking ideas and genuine depth. I now definitely need to read more Ali Smith…
I gave 2015’s Booker Prize winner A Brief History of Seven Killings a 9.
Ranking to date:
How to be both (2015) - Ali Smith - 9.5
Property (2003) - Valerie Martin - 9.5
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing (2014) - Eimear McBride - 9.5
The Idea of Perfection (2001) - Kate Grenville - 9
Half of a Yellow Sun (2007) - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 9
The Lacuna (2010) - Barbara Kingsolver - 9
When I Lived in Modern Times (2000) - Linda Grant - 9
Larry’s Party (1998) - Carol Shields - 8.5
Bel Canto (2002) - Ann Patchett - 8.5
Small Island (2004) - Andrea Levy - 8.5
A Crime in the Neighbourhood (1999) - Suzanne Berne - 8.5
May We Be Forgiven (2013) - A. M. Homes - 8
The Tiger’s Wife (2011) - Téa Obreht - 8
On Beauty (2006) - Zadie Smith - 8
A Spell of Winter (1996) - Helen Dunmore - 8
The Road Home (2008) - Rose Tremain - 7.5
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005) - Lionel Shriver - 7.5
The Song of Achilles (2012) - Madeline Miller - 7
Home (2009) - Marilynne Robinson - 7
Fugitive Pieces (1997) - Anne Michaels - 6.5
Next up
A diversion or two before I return to the Prize with 2016’s The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney.
