Jan's review
The Accidental by Ali Smith
Jan's review
rating:
bookshelves: 2007reads
recommended for: kate atkinson fans
status: Read in June, 2007 — I have a copy to sell/swap
rating:
bookshelves: 2007reads
recommended for: kate atkinson fans
status: Read in June, 2007 — I have a copy to sell/swap
why are the brits so playful with language? i guess their reading public is more willing to go on a bit of a lark, suspend the plot for a while and just go with the rhetorical flow. i think maybe the english are taught to have more respect for writers, and so they trust them more, implicitly, trust that they'll come back around to the point. smith is no exception; the language here is wonderfully vivid and frisky, mischevious without being excessively cutesy or disingenuously lighthearted. like atkinson, though, i never quite fall in love with her characters. i don't get inside them fully, somehow -- though they're wonderfully flawed. and there is some po-mo spiralling at the end of the book that doesn't quite work for me. but i'm glad she did it. glad someone is doing that sort of thing. extra-glad someone is publishing it.
