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There but for the

3.22 of 5 stars 3.22 · rating details · 2,529 ratings · 534 reviews

From the award-winning author of Hotel World and The Accidental, a dazzling, funny, and wonderfully exhilarating new novel.

At a dinner party in the posh London suburb of Greenwich, Miles Garth suddenly leaves the table midway through the meal, locks himself in an upstairs room, and refuses to leave. An eclectic group of neighbors and friends slowly gathers around the house

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Published (first published June 2nd 2011)

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Apr 13, 2013 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*floating this to irritate the person who irritated me with her comment.*

i did this book a great disservice.

at first, i plowed through it like a maniac, loving every minute of it. then, i put it down for about two days and totally lost my momentum, and when i returned, the shine was off the apple.

completely my fault.

it has been nearly a week since i have written a book review, and this feels like a less-than-triumphant return, but it is fitting - i need to be punished for my weekend hedonism an...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Fionnuala rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is no doubt in my mind that Ali Smith is a fine writer, a reader’s writer, maybe even a writer’s writer too, although I suspect there are writers out there who think she makes it all look as easy as an unmade bed. There you go, people differ hugely in what they rate as interesting or significant, but whatever kind of writer Smith is, she’s definitely my kind, and for the long term. There will be, I hope, many more of her books to enjoy since she is one of the rare woman writers I admire wh...more There is no doubt in my mind that Ali Smith is a fine writer, a reader’s writer, maybe even a writer’s writer too, although I suspect there are writers out there who think she makes it all look as easy as an unmade bed. There you go, people differ hugely in what they rate as interesting or significant, but whatever kind of writer Smith is, she’s definitely my kind, and for the long term. There will be, I hope, many more of her books to enjoy since she is one of the rare woman writers I admire who is younger than I am. There’s a positive thought! There is profit to be found in the oddest places if only we look for it.

But what is this book about, you ask, with a title like that? There but for the..what? There but for the accidents of birth and death, the accidents of time and place, me here, you there, me now, you then, the inhumanity of man towards his fellow, all of the terrible things which, because they happen to you, can't happen to me. There but for the grace of God go I, as my parents' generation used to remark, in a kind of incantatory and consolatory refrain whenever they were faced with tragedy happening to other people. But the book is also about the fact that none of that matters in the end since in spite of the average reader’s better rather than worse life circumstances, in spite of our living in peace times rather than in war times, or hunger times, or pestilential times, or ‘disappeared’ times, in spite of the advances in technology we enjoy, in spite of life, there is always and only death. There but for...nothing, we all will die. That’s how I interpreted the title. But the title viewed as a whole is only part of what's going on here; Smith wants us to view it in sections too: There. But. For. The. And the sections serve to reveal the whole. The sections allow many interesting things to happen,, many big themes to be thrashed out.

For this book is about happenings and there is certainly a lot happening; bad things, sad things but sometimes miraculously brave things too. Some of the characters make things happen, others are acted upon in a kind of parallel with the artist/spectator relationship. Smith is the artist, manipulating events so that we, the readers, are caught up in the spectacle. To paraphrase herself, Smith catches us at exactly the moment of letting us go, she defies belief and then shows us that we were wrong ever to doubt her. For with Smith, we laugh until we cry and then we cry until we laugh again.

The really funny thing is that I'm reading Proust at the moment and I can't help noticing the similar themes which emerge in these radically different books. The action of this book takes place mostly in Greenwich and one of the major themes is Time. There but for the is, in its own way, a search for lost time. And once I’d noticed this initial parallel with Proust, I found more and more convergences between the two books, and was pleased when Smith briefly mentions Proust, along with Joyce, near the end. The narrative of this novel takes us through forgotten time, remembered time, fugitive time, historical time, chronological time, dream time. The journey through time, just as in Proust, is enabled partly by music and song lyrics, partly through references to the performances of great artists of the past. Gracie Fields in one, Sarah Bernhardt in the other, rhyming couplets in one, alexandrine verse in the other. Mother obsessions in both, a precocious child in both and always, always, time passing, history happening.

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Feb 03, 2012 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

Will you remember me in a months time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in 6 months time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in a years time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in 2 years time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in 3 years time?
Yes.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
See, you've forgotten me already.

I used to work at a video store in college. It was a small mom and pop shop, and it was a great place to work. Since it was such a small operation, there were only a handful of other employees and I knew everyone pretty well. So you can...more Will you remember me in a months time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in 6 months time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in a years time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in 2 years time?
Yes.
Will you remember me in 3 years time?
Yes.
Knock knock.
Who's there?
See, you've forgotten me already.

I used to work at a video store in college. It was a small mom and pop shop, and it was a great place to work. Since it was such a small operation, there were only a handful of other employees and I knew everyone pretty well. So you can imagine my surprise when a former co-worker and I were conversing about the old days, and she brought up a person who worked there that I had completely forgotten about. And when I say completely forgotten about, I don't mean like someone I hadn't thought about much in the intervening years, how are they doing these days? I mean like, I completely forgot this person existed. This is a person I saw three or four times a week for something like a year or more, and I completely forgot they existed. And I'm not even 30.

But that's life, right? How many times have you promised to stay in touch with an old co-worker or a friend who was moving away, and you do, for a little while. But then the time between emails lags a little more, and a little more, and then they stop coming at all, and then you find yourself 10 years down the road realizing you have completely forgotten this person. We're constantly creating new experiences, meeting new people, making new memories, and there's only so much room in our brains. Sometimes things get pushed aside, even things that we really appreciated in the moment. At the same time, there are other things we wish we could push aside and forget about forever, banish to a graveyard with all those old co-workers and classmates, yet, no matter how hard we try, we just can't forget.

That's what There But For The is about. Ostensibly it's about a man who, during a dinner party, locks himself in a guest room and doesn't come out for months. But really, it's about relationships, and they way we simultaneously hold onto some so tightly, while letting others slip through our fingers without giving it a second thought. The central character, Miles Garth, is seen only through the periphery of four characters who have gotten to know him in some limited capacity over the course of his life, and his sweetly tragic personality is doled out in bits and pieces. He is almost a more subdued, British version of Salinger's doomed hero Seymour Glass, due to his coy, unassuming nature and his preference to interact with children than adults, an answer to the premature loss of his own childhood. The four characters whose past interaction with Miles make up the story are each sweet but tragic in their own way, as I would guess all of us are to some extent. We've all had dead loved ones, or been picked on by peers (or, worse, supposed mentors), or dead-end jobs, or other small, personal tragedies that make us human. We all get on just fine, thank you, but it does leave a sadness, lingering just below that surface, that perhaps we can't quite put our fingers on. But sometimes, like a long-forgotten friend, it comes bursting to the surface, and we can't help but be overcome by it. At times like those, we all just want to go into our own little 5x7 room and stay there until we're ready to face the world again. And that's what this book is about.(less)

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Dec 15, 2011 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you're new to Ali Smith and think you might like her (I can easily see that she's not everyone's 'thing'), read her brilliant short stories, or the novels Hotel World or The Accidental first. I loved those.

And if you have read all of Ali Smith, as I have, I think you will find that this book is merely okay, even tedious near the end, and that maybe instead it could've been another brilliant short story. Because what feels like excessive padding and way too much language-play (esp with the la...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Jimmy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scotland, year-2010s, novel, female, reviewed-in-the-style-of

THERE

is no there there, Gertrude Stein famously wrote in 1937, a sentence that loops back on itself in order to question its own grammar. Maybe what she meant was that the first there has no antecedent. But the sentence also pushes out, questions the world, questions the idea of a place in time, a time in place, that exists only because it is not here, relatively speaking.

This novel has a similar trajectory. Broken down into four sections titled There, But, For, and The, it tells an abstract sto...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, audiobooks, 6-books-6-countries-6-continents, around-world-13

THERE

was once a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party.

There was once a woman who had met this man thirty years before, had known him slightly for roughly two weeks, in the middle of a summer when they were both seventeen, and hadn't seen him since, though they'd occasionally, for a few years after, exchanged Christmas cards, that kind of thing....more THERE

was once a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party.

There was once a woman who had met this man thirty years before, had known him slightly for roughly two weeks, in the middle of a summer when they were both seventeen, and hadn't seen him since, though they'd occasionally, for a few years after, exchanged Christmas cards, that kind of thing.

Right now the woman, whose name was Anna, was standing outside the locked bedroom door behind which the man, whose name was Miles, theoretically was. She had her arm raised and her hand ready to--to what? Tap? Knock discretely? This beautiful, perfectly done-out, perfectly dulled house would not stand for noise; every creak was an affront to it, and the woman who owned it, emanating disapproval, was just two feet behind her. But it was her fist she was standing there holding up, like a 1980s cliche of a revolutionary, ready to, well, nothing quiet. Batter. Beat. Pound. Rain blows.

So begins a truly delightful book. The premise is a little zany, with a guest locking himself in a spare room during a party, and the plot unfolding in response. Smith takes this far-fetched premise and weaves a delightful story of the connections between people, tangential as they may be, and the differences they can make in people's lives. In the process, the reader also gets social commentary, history, a little information about science and the arts, quick, intelligent dialogue, and one of the most enjoyable child characters I've read in awhile. This was the one addition to the 1001 List in this edition that I had never heard a thing about, and while I probably would have found it because I would have discovered the author on my various lists of award winners and short-listers, I am delighted to have read it sooner because of the inclusion in the 1001 List. I will be reading more of Ali Smith's work soon!(less)

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Mar 19, 2012 Mark Desrosiers rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Mysterious dinner guess trudges upstairs, locks himself in a room, and uses his silence and media attention to hurl four deep abiding characters at us. The resulting novel (actually a quartet of novellas) is riveting and hilarious, puts us in sixteen safe places, yet begs for a serious scalp-clutching reread. Ali Smith drops riffs and clues whose scent wafts many pages later, and her punning and wordplay evoke another reality, one where a trickster gender-neutral wisdom kid seems to conduct (or...more

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Nov 04, 2011 E rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

Oh, Ali Smith. You are an infuriating lover.

I know Frustration is half the fun. And I had so much fun.

But could you please just TRY to write in goddamned paragraphs?

I saw and felt the Disorientation, Stream of Consciousness and Frustration.

But I majored in poetry, and therefore I do not believe but KNOW that space allows for lyricism in all the ways your Matrix layout did not.

It's just a suggestion. Because otherwise I loved it all.

And to be honest, I don't know if I know how to love you with...more

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Feb 01, 2012 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is another one of those books getting good reviews, but for me, it didn't live up to the hype. This isn't your typical book in that there's not a plot per se. The author sometimes does away with punctuation and linear notions, and even though it centers around Miles Garth who locks himself up in a guest room during a dinner party, we never truly learn about him or his motivations.

Instead, we get the perspectives of four different people who had a brief interaction with him. Mostly, each nar...more

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Oct 02, 2012 Janet rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

Based on the reviews and descriptions of this book on Best of the Year lists, I expected to love this book. A bit quirky? Fine. Written from different viewpoints? Fine. Not linear? Probably fine, just so there was some sort of logic that I could follow.

They neglected to mention that the wit and wordplay became precious, or that the reader would reach the end of the book still having no clue why Miles (aka Milo) had locked himself in the room for months, which I found incredibly frustrating.

It se...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Larou added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-12, general, fiction

If you look really closely, this book does have a plot; it would go something like this: Man withdraws from dinner party to barricade himself in a guest room at his hosts’ house, stays for several months, then leaves without telling anyone. Which, no matter how you view it, really is not much in the way of a plot – but then plot is not what Ali Smith’s novel There but for the is about.[return][return]What the novel is about is history, both public and private, about knowledge of the world, of ou...more If you look really closely, this book does have a plot; it would go something like this: Man withdraws from dinner party to barricade himself in a guest room at his hosts’ house, stays for several months, then leaves without telling anyone. Which, no matter how you view it, really is not much in the way of a plot – but then plot is not what Ali Smith’s novel There but for the is about.[return][return]What the novel is about is history, both public and private, about knowledge of the world, of ourselves and of other people, about how people are mean to each or kind to each other, and about how to cope. It is also about it five protagonists (as well as a host of secondary characters), four of which narrate one of the four sections of the book (each of the sections named after one of the four words of the title, and also being about that word in some way), the fifth being the person locking himself away in the guestroom. He is something like the empty centre of the novel, and each of the narrators stands in some kind of relation to him. The narrators not only have distinct personalities but also a distinctive voice of their own (although there also is an auctorial voice slipping in some passages in between parentheses) and one of the many things that make this a remarkable novel is the apparent with which Ali Smith manages to make each of her narrators sound like her or (in one case) his own individual while still maintaining her own unique writing style. The author’s mastery is also very much in evidence in the many descriptive passages in the book that can range from the hauntingly beautiful to the scathingly satirical, and while this is definitely not a realistic novel, it is still very evocative of places and atmosphere.[return][return]The narrators are spread across the whole human age range – 40, 60, 80 and 10 years old respectively. This not only gives the author the chance to illuminate the experience of present day life from all sides, so to speak (and indeed, considering its emphasis on seeing the same things from various perspectives and angles as well as its almost total absence of plot and its many descriptive passages I’d almost feel inclined to call There but for the a Cubist novel) but also shows a nice example of the way Smith throughout the novel builds structure and symmetry without becoming repetitive and predictable but instead uses them in surprising and significant ways. The above sequence of narrator ranges suggests death and rebirth to me – and indeed, in the books final section there is (something like) an opened tomb with the stone moved aside and (something more or less like) an angel announcing that the place is empty. There is also at least a hint of a cyclic movement involved which mirrors the circular structure the novel achieves (in what I thought was a very clever twist) at its end.[return][return]The novel is not just a formal exercise, though, far from it – not only is it politically very aware, taking a firm stance against racism and middle class hypocrisy but it also is emotionally very involving, delivering a very sympathetic portrait of its main characters, making the reader feel with and for them. It is a very touching novel without being manipulative and without making any compromises with conventional narrative structures.[return]There but for the is a great novel that is unflinching in the pursuit of its artistic vision and dares to stray off the beaten path and do something that is entirely its own, and does so with a rare and delightful mastery of language and imagery, an exuberant inventiveness in structure and composition while being at same time emotionally involving and enjoyable to read. By now it’s probably obvious to everyone that I loved this book, and am definitely going to read more of Ali Smith’s works.(less)

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Dec 11, 2012 David Franks rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ali Smith: There but for the

There’s a wonderful scene in the film Educating Rita in which Julie Waters, as an Open University student, asks her tutor (Michael Caine) what assonance is. He tells her it’s a form of rhyme, and gives her an example from a poem where Yeats rhymes the word "swan" with the word "stone". Rita’s comment is “yeah, means getting the rhyme wrong”. It’s a good joke, but it’s been pointed out many times that this is not an example of assonance, but of dissonance, where the fi...more Ali Smith: There but for the

There’s a wonderful scene in the film Educating Rita in which Julie Waters, as an Open University student, asks her tutor (Michael Caine) what assonance is. He tells her it’s a form of rhyme, and gives her an example from a poem where Yeats rhymes the word "swan" with the word "stone". Rita’s comment is “yeah, means getting the rhyme wrong”. It’s a good joke, but it’s been pointed out many times that this is not an example of assonance, but of dissonance, where the final consonant of stressed syllables is the same, but the vowel preceding it is not. (Assonance is where the vowels are voiced the same but the consonant that follows is different.)

The usual comment is that Michael Caine, or rather the script writer, got it wrong. Well, yes, but I suspect he intended to get it wrong. And to me, this is what this book by Ali Smith is about, getting it wrong, misunderstanding, the failures of communication, and there’s the wonderful scene in it where the unbelievably precocious girl, who is also a boy, threatens to assonate the screwed-up Anna K, whose name is really Anna Hardie, like President Kennedy was assonated. It isn’t just a joke on the similarity between the word assonated, which doesn’t exist, with that other word. There is a deeper meaning. The failure of meaning. The encounter between the girl, Brooke Bayoude and Anna even gets off on the wrong foot, or perhaps it’s the right foot for this novel, when Brooke says her name is Brooke (you have to say it with a Caribbean accent), and Anna thinks she says she’s broke, replies “me too”, and Brooke thinks Anna’s name is also Brooke.

The story is well-known. A man, Miles, is brought to a dinner party by a guest, although the hosts don’t know the man, and half-way through the dinner he goes upstairs, locks himself in a bedroom and refuses to come out. He stays there for weeks: fortunately the bedroom has an en suite bathroom. Why don’t they break down the door? Why indeed? Because the house is elegant, and the doors are magnificent, and they don’t want the door to be damaged. Another reason develops: the man becomes a celebrity, tourists gather to watch the curtains of his room, and when the hosts stop providing him with food, a makeshift food supply is organised by well-wishers, food hauled up in a basket. Standing in a bookshop I overheard a comment about this book: not much of a story, is it? Well no, the story isn’t the point. The point of this novel is the brilliant display of misunderstanding and ambiguity that Ali Smith does so well.

And when you’ve read the rest of the book you discover what the opening chapter, in which a boy prizes metal shutters off the man’s eyes and mouth, is about. The boy is in fact Brooke, a girl, and this is entirely appropriate for a writer like Ali Smith who has explored issues of gender, most notably in The Accidental and in her retelling of the myth of Iphis, Girl meets Boy.

Another wonderful scene is where the gruesome Genevieve Lee is desperately trying to convince Anna that she, Anna, knows Miles, who has come to be known as Milo, better than she really does, trying to impose her own, that’s Genevieve’s, version of reality on someone else. We all do that, of course, as every husband and wife knows. We all listen to accounts of ‘what you said’, or ‘what you did’, and think, it wasn’t really like that, was it? But you’re never sure. That isn’t actually true, some people are so confident that they know exactly what happened or was said. But people who aren’t sure are nicer people. I hope.

Ali Smith is a subversive. We need subversives.
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Sep 04, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ali Smith is not everyone's cup of tea. Her writing can be quite experimental and frustrating, but this is worth it for her clever and original use of words and language, her playful sense of fun and making the reader think for a change. It was only after discussing her latest novel "There but for the" at last night's Book Club did I understand a couple of things I had missed. I had previously read and enjoyed Ali Smith's prizewinning "The Accidental" as well as "Hotel World" and the less impres...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Andrea Mullarkey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don’t know how I got this far in life without reading a book by Ali Smith! There But For The was wonderful. Miles Garth goes to a dinner party in an upper middle class neighborhood in Greenwich. Somewhere between the main course and dessert he goes upstairs to a guest bedroom and locks himself in. Over the course of the next days and weeks he develops a cult following as people seek to solve the mystery of the guest who over-stayed his welcome.

Miles’s story is told in four parts, first by the...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Meera rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm undecided. I really wanted to like this more, I see that it's clever, and literary, and the author loves words and puns and trickery, but ultimately I was frustrated. The story seems to offer potential - guest comes to a dinner party (full of truly obnoxious people) and goes off and locks himself in the spare bedroom halfway through. No-one knows why, and no-one really knows him. Unfortunately, by the end of the story, you're really no wiser why, and I wanted to know more about what motivate...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Richda Mcnutt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wish there were a way to give a book 3 1/2 stars - that's what it was for me. The beginning and third sections were 4, but for me the second and last sections were 3; ergo, 3 1/2. If you are a fan of old-fashioned narrative, this book is not for you. It has some of that, but it also has some stream-of-consciousness and some post-modern writing as well. Ali Smith loves words - she plays with words, she plays on words, she connects different depths and meanings of words with back-to-back sentenc...more

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May 01, 2012 Amy Pratt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There But For The
Ali Smith

I am a big fan of Ali Smith. She likes to set up an ordinary situation and insert into it an absurd event. In The Accidental, my favorite, (and structured more traditionally) a girl moves in with a family and won't leave, thereby changing the family dynamics in important ways. In Hotel World, a much darker tale, a homeless person ends up in a luxurious suite for a night due to other weird events. There But For The , like Hotel World, is a series of vignettes, each from...more There But For The
Ali Smith

I am a big fan of Ali Smith. She likes to set up an ordinary situation and insert into it an absurd event. In The Accidental, my favorite, (and structured more traditionally) a girl moves in with a family and won't leave, thereby changing the family dynamics in important ways. In Hotel World, a much darker tale, a homeless person ends up in a luxurious suite for a night due to other weird events. There But For The , like Hotel World, is a series of vignettes, each from a different character's points of view, often stream of consciousness. The situation here is most Kafkaesque; a man at a dinner party goes upstairs, locks himself in one of the bedrooms, and refuses to leave. He is there for months. We learn something about him, but mostly we learn about the other people whose lives he has entered at some point. A sort of cult grows around the figure of the man who has locked himself in the room; he becomes a symbol, and this kind of imaginative “work” is set against (or complements) the power of story and the different kind of work it does.

The patter at the dinner party wonderfully sets up the roles we are handed by modern day life, which are portrayed as both very serious and very absurd, and the debate about the meaning of art, culture, and history (high and low) carries on throughout the book in subtle ways. Throughout the main star is language itself and Smith the wordsmith is always a treat to spend time with, even with, as with this novel, I did not feel quite satisfied in the end, did not quite see the point of the last two sections. The final chapter comes to focus on the power of imagination itself; we see this from the point of view of a precocious girl who is made a misfit because she is so clever and because she is black; it is poignant to realize what is really going on for this girl who we had met earlier as the sassy, wise counterpoint to “adult” knowledge, but the play of language too often overpowered the character in this section (which may be the point.) But I suspect I will remember this, and am very glad I read it.
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Apr 30, 2012 Kasey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, fiction

An amazing and happy surprise. I picked up this audiobook at my local library, needing something to listen to on my commute, and knowing nothing about Ali Smith. It's hard to know where to begin to praise this novel(and it's also hard to know how to without giving too much away). I adored it. Though maybe not at first... it took me a while, an hour or so of listening, to let myself fall into it completely. It is that sort of book--it takes some work on the reader/listener's part, and some trust....more

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Apr 07, 2012 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

In the midst of a dinner party, a guest barely known to anyone there walks up the stairs, locks himself in the spare room and refuses to come out. Days, weeks, months...the gentle vegetarian behind the door shows no signs of leaving, only requesting they please slip something other than lunchmeat under the door. By the time the narrative actually takes us to that dinner, and we are regaled by the wickedly satirized dishonesty of drunken, bone-headed repartee in which these dinner guests are accu...more

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Apr 03, 2012 christa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was robbed by a British author. Not cool, Ali Smith. The masses were bleating favorably about the novel “There But For The” and frankly the premise seemed so intriguing: A man at a dinner party with a collection of strangers gets up, goes upstairs and locks himself in a spare room -- luckily one with a bathroom, unfortunately at a house not very sympathetic to his vegetarian diet. He refuses to come out for days, for weeks, until he becomes a folk hero and the locals camp out and wait for a gl...more I was robbed by a British author. Not cool, Ali Smith. The masses were bleating favorably about the novel “There But For The” and frankly the premise seemed so intriguing: A man at a dinner party with a collection of strangers gets up, goes upstairs and locks himself in a spare room -- luckily one with a bathroom, unfortunately at a house not very sympathetic to his vegetarian diet. He refuses to come out for days, for weeks, until he becomes a folk hero and the locals camp out and wait for a glimpse of him.

This is such a great idea. Who is Miles? (Or Milo, as he’s being referred to by the media). What’s he doing in there? (Is he talking to himself? Pacing? Moving from furniture surface to furniture surface, like the star of a super hot one-man show, a dramatization of the circumstances, that is playing at a small local theater?) And mostly: Why did he do this?

We’ll never know.

Instead of capturing the story’s most mysterious character, Smith dances around the outside. She presents short stories about people who have known Miles pre-lock down: A woman named Anna who met him while abroad in 1980 with other students, winners of a writing contest where entrants considered life in 2000. The Scottish misfit is having a wretched time until Miles finds a common interest with her, engages in some witty word-play banter, and provides her entry into the group.

Then there is my favorite, Mark, an older dude who meets Miles while at a production of “A Winter’s Tale” and they find the beginning of friendship while considering whether the mistimed ringtone from the audience ruined the moment or added to it. They end up going for drinks to chat more, and Mark invites Miles to the dinner party.

May is an elderly woman who has had a stroke. She’s seemingly unable to speak, shocked by her own aged body, a little confused and memories are shooting through her mind -- including movies she saw when she was a teen and an old friend of her daughter, who died when she was young. In a last gasp for life, a girl (who is related to the owners of the home where Miles is locked in) takes May on an adventure that doesn’t end well. Miles was friends with May’s daughter and after the young girl’s death he makes a yearly visit to the elderly woman on the anniversary of her death.

The final word goes to Brooke, a tween who is just a little too smart, enjoys puns and history, a quirky and curious daughter of two intellectuals. She also thinks and talks in a rapid flow, stream of consciousness. It’s like, kudos on character development, unfortunately her voice felt like someone was picking at a scab on my brain.

As for Miles? No idea. We learn little about him beyond what these people remember: He was a kind teen, a good conversationalist, a thoughtful man and a vegetarian.

There were times when I liked this story. To be fair, each of the short stories is an interesting slice. And the dinner party hosted by Gen Lee is a kick. She and her husband invite a bunch of mostly-strangers and then see what happens. It’s just something they do. This time they’ve paired smart and articulate neighbors with a man Mark has secretly been banging (and his wife) and a few loud mouth idiots who hate art. The result is the most uncomfortable dinner party, you’ll actually squirm, in the history of placemats.

There is also some commentary on becoming a pop icon. The people gathered in the yard, selling Miles-themed T-shirts and psychic readings and holding signs. Gen Lee, the homeowner, first extremely put out by the intrusion, then finds ways to turn it into a money-making venture. But these little nuggets are few and far between tedious passages.

But the elephant in the room, or the unwanted guest in the room, is Miles. There are, admittedly, a lot of reasons to lock oneself in a stranger’s spare room. We’re all just a single impulse-control glitch from doing some pretty uncharacteristic stuff: punching the accelerator, shoplifting cheap lipstick, chopping all our hair off. Or maybe he is exhausted. Like my friend Hank used to say: “Who wouldn’t want to hole up in a padded room and play some balloon volleyball for awhile?” Maybe he’s on the lam from the mob or an overbearing mother. The point is, there is no right reason. And that bugs.

You know what this is, Ali Smith? You lured me to your store on a snowy night with the promise of selling me the TV I wanted at an inexpensive price. But when I got there, you didn’t even have that TV in stock. Blerg. (less)

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Mar 29, 2012 Bonnie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Let me play devil’s advocate here. Does the fact that the part that made the most sense was told by an eighty year old woman with dementia tell you anything about this book? How about the idea of page after page of stream of consciousness? Paragraphs that are pages long? How about a premise that is absolutely laughable? Here it is:

A man accompanies another man to a dinner party. After being introduced to the hosts and other guests, partway through the meal, he excuses himself, goes upstairs into...more Let me play devil’s advocate here. Does the fact that the part that made the most sense was told by an eighty year old woman with dementia tell you anything about this book? How about the idea of page after page of stream of consciousness? Paragraphs that are pages long? How about a premise that is absolutely laughable? Here it is:

A man accompanies another man to a dinner party. After being introduced to the hosts and other guests, partway through the meal, he excuses himself, goes upstairs into a spare room and locks himself in. For months! I’m sorry, but in the U.S. anyway, the police would have been called and the guy would have been hauled away; end of story.

But I have suspended disbelief before and enjoyed books with preposterous plots. So maybe I’m being too skeptical. How is the author going to handle this? It soon becomes apparent that the people who tell the story have only a miniscule remembrance of the intruder, one Miles Garth. Somewhere in history their paths crossed, however briefly.

Somehow I’m soon drawn into the story and charmed by both the author’s clever use of language and the star of the novel, ten year old Brooke, wise beyond her years, precocious, and utterly charming. She has only just met Miles at the dinner party but her world view and her troubles in school with a teacher, who has no idea how to reign in her galloping intellect, immediately sucked me in.

Anna is originally stunned to get an e mail from the party’s hostess, who found her e mail address in Miles’ phone. She racks her brain trying to remember who in the world he is. Finally, she remembers how he befriended her on a school trip in 1980, when she was lonely and friendless.

Eighty year old May, suffering from dementia and at the end of her days, knows Miles because he has been with her on the worst day of her life. I found her story absolutely gripping.

Sixty-ish Mark, who brought Miles to the party after meeting him at a theater production, is still anguishing over the long ago suicide of his artist mother.

These four narrators tell a compelling story about isolation and connections and in making the connections, as you most certainly do as the book progresses, you can’t help but smile at the way Smith has wrapped you around her finger. Right towards the end of the book, as Brooke and Miles are discussing deep philosophical questions, the author gives us this:

”That was a very clever dream you had. Yes, Brooke said, but maybe is it too clever? No, Mr. Garth said, not at all, there’s no such thing as too clever anyway.”

Wait, did the author just wink at me? Is she…pulling my leg? Is she mocking her own cleverness? Oh and did I mention there’s not a quotation mark in the whole book? So not a conventional novel by any stretch, but a book that will make you think (there are more hidden meanings than you can shake a stick at and I'm sure I only discovered half of them), and scratch your head and smile. As the crowds gather to wait to see what happens to the unwanted guest you can’t help but think of the Occupy movement. I’m pretty sure the book was written well before that all started but it certainly was oh, I don’t know, prophetic, maybe. Recommended for adventurous readers.(less)

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Mar 28, 2012 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook, library

This is the first thing I've read by Ali Smith, so forgive me if I gush over elements that may seem tiresome to those of longer acquaintance. From a slight and silly premise (at a fancy dinner party in Greenwich, a man goes upstairs and locks himself into the guest suite), Smith develops an original set of characters and a solid theme that never feels too heavy. The theme is, let's call it "the role of individuals in history" (where history is both History and personal history), and the characte...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Tanya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm interested to have read There but for the relatively soon after reading A Visit from the Goon Squad. I'm sure an academic reader somewhere has already named this particular brand of post-modern novel, but I haven't read/heard about it yet, so I'm calling them networked novels. Reading them seems to most closely resemble my somewhat tenuous connections to/reading of my Facebook and Twitter account. Each seems to reject a structure based on a central character, or even a tightly connected grou...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Eileen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

With a title like this (and without reading the synopsis on Amazon), I had no idea what to expect. It was amazing. I honestly can't wait to pick up another of Ali Smith's novels to see what else she can do.

I debated between giving this four or five stars... mainly because I suppose this would be classified as "experimental fiction," as it doesn't have a clean narrative flow, and, in fact, the narrative really doesn't resolve at all. I prefer my fiction to end with a tidy bow. However, it was a j...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Jowel Uddin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2011-2012

There but for the
Review

“There but for the”, is an example of wonderful modern literature and a good read. Ali Smith is very intelligent and clever in her ways.

“There but for the” is about a man who locks himself in a room upstairs during a dinner party in the lavish London suburb of Greenwich. Miles Garth or the man refuses to leave and his reason for locking himself is unknown. Miles's tale is then told from four different people each with their own point of view: Anna, a forty year old wo...more There but for the
Review

“There but for the”, is an example of wonderful modern literature and a good read. Ali Smith is very intelligent and clever in her ways.

“There but for the” is about a man who locks himself in a room upstairs during a dinner party in the lavish London suburb of Greenwich. Miles Garth or the man refuses to leave and his reason for locking himself is unknown. Miles's tale is then told from four different people each with their own point of view: Anna, a forty year old woman; Mark, or Mile's partner; May, an old women; and Brooke, a ten year old. Each one of the four people, talk about their slight interaction with Miles Garth, and slowly Miles's identity is pieced together and possibly the reason for him locking himself up.

This book seemed interesting because it was unlike anything I have ever read. The story is told from four different perspectives and I enjoyed this. All four points of view were invigorating. The story's plot and characters were very likable. The plot slowly does develop, yet not as greatly as one would like to have it. Ali Smith leaves the ending a bit to the reader's imagination rather than the cookie cutter happy ending or a very saddened ending. The novel depicted how the slightest interactions could have the most wondrous effects. Anna for example, only met Miles at an European tour for teenage writers. Both her and Miles wrote essays and won and therefore went on a tour of Europe. Although Miles and Anna spent some time together, they only knew so much about each other. The same goes for Miles's partner Mark, whom Miles only dated for a very short time. All of these characters met Miles slightly, yet they all tried to come to the aide of Miles. Although they thought they didn't know much or they didn't know Miles's at all, they all knew something essential about Miles.

“There but for the” is an amazing novel and is deemed fit for readers who enjoy several perspectives and the author's own wit. Ali Smith uses an abundance of puns and even her title: “There but for the” is a reference to “There but for the grace of god”. The theme of interactions if defiantly evident in this novel. All of the characters meet Mile's yet they only remember specific things about him. Smith makes us think about our slight interactions and how we often times cling to certain things about someone. Whether they are a stranger or someone we've known our whole life, we tend to remember certain things about them, above others. Ali Smith is quite a creative and fine writer. (less)

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Mar 03, 2012 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow. I hardly know where to start. I read "Hotel World" not long after it was published. It was hard getting through it at times because Smith's writing is so experimental (I guess that's the right word). But I really liked it and it was short, more novella length, and was glad I finished it, even though it was a mental struggle. I couldn't do it for "The Accidental." I just got too lost in the "experimentation" (let's just keep using this word that doesn't really mean what I want to say but is...more Wow. I hardly know where to start. I read "Hotel World" not long after it was published. It was hard getting through it at times because Smith's writing is so experimental (I guess that's the right word). But I really liked it and it was short, more novella length, and was glad I finished it, even though it was a mental struggle. I couldn't do it for "The Accidental." I just got too lost in the "experimentation" (let's just keep using this word that doesn't really mean what I want to say but is often used to describe her work and I can't think of a more accurate descriptor). But I always thought - ill come back to this one day, with more determination and resolve because I know it will be worth it.

I'm not sure what made me decide to buy "There But For The" considering my last experience but I am so glad I did. Her writing and story-telling is still as cutting-edge, boundary-pushing "experimental" but much more accessible. I know this will make some diehard Smith fans dislike the book but I do not find anything in the book automatically lost just because it is easier to read.

There is not exactly an overall plot but many mini-stories which help develop each character (all of whom relate in some way, sometimes not fully known, to a man who inexplicably locks himself in a guest bedroom while at a dinner party). Smith has always been extraordinarily skilled in developing really interesting characters with complexity and depth. She is especially outstanding in this book where the characters are so seemingly opposite such as one character, an old woman nearing death who has some kind of dementia, to a "cleverist" gifted child. But Smith's command of voice and story make this interwoven tale a real joy to read.

She also tackles many different relevant themes of our day - the role of media, both professional and the public via YouTube etc, and manipulation and exploitation of an unknown and this blank slate to further a cause or career. But also broader themes, philosophical questions about what exactly is time and the many ways we define and try constrain it. What is the purpose of a story, of a book sitting on a shelf. Why are people so cruel to one another and why do we find entertainment in that cruelty. What is history.

Without giving too much away, I can say I feel much like the little girl and want to start over and read all over again. But I think I'll take a little while to try to absorb this go-round. (less)

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Feb 21, 2012 Beth Jusino rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane, then how much can happen when a man excuses himself from a dinner party and locks himself in his hosts' spare bedroom, behind a priceless antique door that they can't bear to see destroyed? This is not a novel that tolerates distraction. You have to shut out the rest of your world -- the dishes in the sink, the spouse or child trying to talk to you, the oven timer going off -- and dive deep into the ripple effects that throw themselves at...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Ben Dutton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is such a simple premise. A dinner guest goes up the spare room and doesn’t come out. Not for days. Not for weeks. The owners have to pass food under the door for him and he passes notes back out, but he will not open that door. Then a cult springs up about him – the cult of Milo, though his name is actually Miles (Milo just sounds better, they reason, more like a name such a man would have). Only this being an Ali Smith novel, the presentation isn’t quite as simple as that. We meet a woman h...more

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Dec 24, 2011 Anita Laydon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult

Fiction for adults can be separated into two distinct worlds: literary and popular.

Literary fiction explores characters in depth. It’s not unusual for literary authors to write pages of character description, both physical and psychological. Literary fiction is often complex and multi-layered. While these books have a plot, the emphasis is on character more than story.

Popular fiction, on the other hand, is all about story. Ask a reader to describe popular—also known as “commercial”—work and he o...more Fiction for adults can be separated into two distinct worlds: literary and popular.

Literary fiction explores characters in depth. It’s not unusual for literary authors to write pages of character description, both physical and psychological. Literary fiction is often complex and multi-layered. While these books have a plot, the emphasis is on character more than story.

Popular fiction, on the other hand, is all about story. Ask a reader to describe popular—also known as “commercial”—work and he or she will have no trouble summarizing basic premises. Characters are important in these books, but not as important as what happens to them.

As someone who frequents area book clubs, I regularly see people give up on literary novels. Readers get halfway through the book, and when “nothing happens,” they put the book down. Popular fiction is, well, more popular.

I have no issue with popular fiction. In fact, most of the books I recommend in this column fall into that category. I do, however, keep my eyes open for entertaining literary fiction, books I believe will hold the attention of readers who normally prefer commercial works.

Ali Smith’s “Where but for the” is one such literary novel. Smith’s characters exist within a unique, interesting storyline. The central character, Miles Garth, attends a dinner party in a London suburb. He is a stranger to his hosts and to all but one person at the party—and the person who does know Miles only recently met him. Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when Miles locks himself in a spare bedroom, and refuses to come out. He’s there for months.

The first character Smith delves into is Anna Hardie. She knew Miles only as a teenager. They each won spots 30 years ago on a European holiday for high schoolers from around the country. Despite their loose ties, Miles inexplicably has her email address in his wallet. He didn’t take his wallet into the spare room, and the homeowners find Anna’s address in it and contact her. Intrigued, Anna comes to their aid.

In addition to Anna, readers meet several other characters who have loose affiliations with Miles. As each character appears, readers learn about them in depth. The tension in the story—the question of whether Miles will ever leave—keeps the character analysis interesting. I wondered which character would draw Miles out. And that made this literary work popular with me.

Miller welcomes book suggestions. Read her blog at www.anitalaydonmiller.blogspot.com or e-mail anita.l.miller@att.net.
(less)

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Nov 21, 2011 Jannekb rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ali Smith’s “there but for the” is a deliciously vivid, clever, and humane novel told from the perspectives of four different people who know (or knew) Miles, a man who decides to lock himself into a spare bedroom while at a stranger’s dinner party and then refuses to come out. Caveat: if you like things neatly tied up and all your questions answered with a certainty at the end of a book, or if you happen to have a strong aversion to puns, Ali Smith’s “there but for the” may not be for you. This...more

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About Ali Smith

Ali Smith is a writer, born in 1962 in Inverness, Scotland, to working-class parents. She was raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a Ph.D. that was never finished. In a 2004 interview with writing magazine Mslexia, she talked briefly about the difficulty of becoming ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a year and ho...more

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Quotes from There but for the

“What would happen if you did just shut a door and stop speaking? Hour after hour after hour of no words. Would you speak to yourself? Would words just stop being useful? Would you lose language altogether? Or would words mean more, would they start to mean in every direction, all somersault and assault, like a thuggery of fireworks? Would they proliferate, like untended plantlife? Would the inside of your head overgrow with every word that has ever come into it, every word that has ever silently taken seed or fallen dormant? Would your own silence make other things noisier? Would all the things you’d ever forgotten, all layered there inside you, come bouldering up and avalanche you?” — 14 people liked it

“What shop did this book come from? she asked. Her father was looking worried at the cooker. He always got rice wrong. I don't know, Brooksie, he said, I don't remember. That was unimaginable, not remembering where a book has come from! and where it was bought from! That was part of the whole history, the whole point, of any book that you owned! And when you picked it up later in the house at home, you knew, you just knew by looking and having it in your hand, where it came from and where you got it and when and why you'd decided to buy it.” — 8 people liked it

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