How to Be Both - Ali Smith

Forester and Flower, 7th May 2015

This was arguably a Marmite book - though it could be said that in order for anything to be true marmite, there should be a real split between love and hate. We managed a one love and three hate split with a further three being in the 'quite liked it' category whilst one person (Mark W) was left with feelings ranging from one extreme to another.

The fundamental divide came down to a question of writing style and the connected question of what we therefore understood the book to be about. What some saw as writing that was 'irritating, disjointed and pointless' (Chris W.), along with other complaints about poor use of words that could not be justified by attempts to pretend they were in period (Rob), others saw as being 'like a painter throwing paint at a wall' (Neil) and 'trying things out - and why shouldn't she'? (Steve). What this meant was that the majority of us, even those who ended up feeling reasonably positive about the book, found it very hard work. Most people, including most of those who disliked, found parts that we liked - such as the understanding it created of the male dominated artistic world (in the earlier story), or the developing sexuality (in both but particularly the later one) and the general (probable) themes about loss and relationships.  One consequence of this was a difficulty experienced by almost all in understanding the whole thing. "I don't pretend to understand the book" (Steve) and "It's not a story - what is it trying to say apart from being clever" (Chris B) summed up much of the discussion at the meeting. Not all of us realised in advance that different versions of the book had the two stories in a different order, and we explored (without conclusion) whether that might have made a difference to both understanding and enjoyment. For example, who was Francesco's ghost watching (two of us completely missed that even being there) and was Francesco actually an (undeveloped) boy?

The exception to this that must be noted came in the form of later comments from the absent Richard who found it a 'wonderful, delightful book' (which we are sure was a view in no way influenced by him reading a free copy given to him by the author after discussing it with her over a glass or three of red wine!) He enjoyed some of the small touches about how children behaved differently in Italy to England as well as the over-arching feeling of 'the human warmth that ran through the book, which reminded me of the author herself".

At the end of the day, with scores ranging from 1 to 9, it certainly drew out varying reactions, but cannot be described as one of the resounding successes in our collective desire to find and enjoy new literature - achieving an average of 5.33 (the lowest for some time).