On Tuesday, we discussed The Accidental by Ali Smith. Smith was born in 1962 in Inverness. She lectured in English at Strathclyde University in Glasgow until she came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and took that as a sign that instead of teaching she should be writing. So she moved to Cambridge and since then has published several novels and short story collections. Her first novel Like was published in 1997, followed by Hotel World (2001); The Accidental (2004) and Girl Meets Boy (2007). Hotel World was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Man Booker prize. The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, The Orange Prize and won the Whitbread Book of the Year in 2005.
Not everybody at the meeting had read the book, life having got in the way...moving house, looking after babies etc...we all sympathise, as we've all been there. I was lucky that Aisling was having great naps just after we got our selections last month, or I'd not have been able to read it either, as she was ill last week. It's not homework though; we shouldn't feel under pressure to finish our books, as that can take the joy out. I don't think that's the point of a reading group...you could even decide you just don't like a book, and that's why you didn't finish...I don't think a reading group should be a quest for unanimity! Speaking of unanimity...
In The Accidental a family are on holiday in Norfolk where a woman turns up at their holiday cottage one day, and due to lack of communication and to misunderstandings in general, they don't figure out straight away that she is nothing to do with them. Her arrival time is the beginning of the story for all of them, and they all see in her the cure for their own ills. From the seedy academic step-father to the writer's block-afflicted mother to the teenage son battling demons and the adolescent daughter battling adolescence, they all see in Amber, the new arrival, a sort of lever towards salvation. The thing is, her name isn't Amber. All through the novel each individual gets a glimpse that she isn't who they think she is, that she is someone in herself, but they don't even choose not to see it, they just don't see at all. For them, in my mind, she becomes almost a religion, and it's a shrewd commentary on religion when at the end the daughter wears shades of red in protest at not being able to talk about Amber, a piece of symbolism that wouldn't make any sense when related to the woman's real name; Alhambra. The tricks and tropes are really used in abundance in this novel, but I found it fun and funny even, not annoying, I think it's because, to me at least, the author doesn't seem to be in thrall to her own cleverness. I normally can't abide clever clever novels, the merest sense of a stage whisper or internal laugh being enough to send me packing.
Part of the discussion about the novel revolved around whether the author was having a laugh at our expense, something we were certainly divided on and probably what your general impression of the book hangs on; I think it depends on whether you mind reading in the dark or not. Since I never seem to know what's going on in real life, I can hardly complain if I'm in the dark in fiction as well, to be honest I quite like it!!!
It got a tangent going to the discussion, to do with how we read, for example I skim read alot of the time, and so does Susanna; Julie reads intensely and slowly like my brother does, even with a dictionary sometimes (it's that kind of perserverence that's got my brother through Ulysses several times with all the right commentaries, and I still haven't got past 'Stately plump Buck Mulligan' and the snot green sea). I would have found out how everybody else read but by then after trying to drink my coffee, Aisling was testing the integrity of the gorgeous reading wigwam in the children's section of the library. Fortunately it withstood her attentions.
Since so much of my attention was taken up by my improving child, if anyone has anything else to add, I'd love to continue the discussion on the blog. We're losing some members to work too, but if they want to continue being virtual members they're more than welcome to comment here as well...
Our next meeting is December 4th and we're reading The Bad Mother's Handbook by Kate Long. The first Tuesday in January is actually New Year's Day, so we'll meet the week after, on the 8th.
