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How to Be Both - General Discussion with Spoilers (January 2015)
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Edgarf wrote: "My copy of How To Be Both started the 15th century artist. I have already read through that part and am not about 60 pages into the part about George. I am sorry to that so far I am not enamored...."Edgar, my copy also started with Francescho, and I'm glad it did. The downer for me was when that section ended. I wanted more detail about Francescho's life (historically accurate details would be good!) and I wasn't really ready to say goodbye and move on to George. But, of course that would have lead to a much longer book.
Does anyone think that two separate, but connected, volumes might have been a better way to go?
I started with the 15th century painter and loved his/her story and wished there were more to it, although it seems there was little to base more on! I thought the George story was well done. I was constantly working to pick out the parallels in the two and to fit them together. I was surprised that George ended with her discovery of Lisa and did not continue with the "stalking" that the painter observed. The image that I find myself rethinking about, is the helix, the twisting of the various dualities dealt with in this book.I don't think I want to question the author's decision to leave these stories to the reader to ponder rather than to spend more time with either character. This "experiment" seems to have captured attention and maybe she, or some other author, will expand on it.
I saw a goodreads review that affirmatively stated that the painter part was what the girls had imagined. I disagree. It is possible that the girls might have made up the girl/boy part as part of the empathy, but, for me, certainly not Ercole and all the other characters except the Duke or George's "stalking" of Lisa.
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I just finished the book this morning so my mind is kind of swimming amidst a lot of half-formed thoughts (many inspired by the comments above). DNA seems sort of like a metaphorical and a material link/symbol in a few different ways: link to the past through generations/families; yet another example where female discovery/progress was "painted" over; two stories/two viewpoint/any two lovers intertwining to become something new/one; the original drawing hidden underneath life's fresco (wow, that sounded cheesy, eh?); etc.
How did you interpret the "both" in the title--both what?
Marc wrote: "How did you interpret the "both" in the title--both what? "Ahh, the duality question! Here's a few of my pairs ..
male and female
before and after
past and present
forgetting and remembering
For example, under before and after, there is ...
1. George, before and after her mother's death
2. George, before and after H's declaration
3. George's mother, before and after Lisa's kiss
4. Del Cossa, before and after his/her mother's death
Mod
I can't quite word it right, but there's something about technology in here: direct vs indirect experience (all those examples of George wanting to look up information and her mother either wanting to learn it firsthand or just be ok with not knowing). Or maybe what we miss in the hurry of today's technological world...
"Or perhaps it is just that George has spent proper time looking at this one painting and that every single experience of looking at something would be this good if she devoted time to everything she looked at."
Marc, I think you are right about the technology duality, even to how walls are built. Del Casso describes the wall his father and brothers built and they physical demands of doing so. And, Del Casso describes the photographic collage that George made of all the small photos and how it was a beautiful wall. And, as you point out, the difference between George wanting to Google and her mother not wanting to spoil the firsthand experience with other information.
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There's also something I can't quite articulate about the relationship between "Eyes" and "Camera." Before the invention of the camera, realistic painting was valued in part because it was the only way to capture a moment in time. After photography became common, art took a different direction, and modern art is less "realistic." At the point when my brother was a college painting major (early 70's) traditional landscape paintings were sort of looked down on and sneered at by his art department. We speculated that, after centuries of art striving to create realistic images, when the camera came along and could produce realistic images effortlessly, art had to take a different path.
Mod
The painting/photography split is a pretty profound one. I'm also having trouble articulating it, but I think you characterized it very well. Linda's comments about building walls (i.e., making stuff with your hands, similar to painting) and your comments about technology (in this case, the camera) as a replacement make me think the issue might move beyond art but certainly brings up lots of issues about representation, image-making, the role of art, the viewer, etc.
One of the things I liked so much about this book is how many questions/issues it raised: art, history, gender identity/sexuality, technology, grief, family, love, ...
(Thank you, Chevrefeuille, for nominating it!)
Normally I avoid any reading anything about a book before I start it – not even the cover notes. However, having read Ali Smith before, I did read some reviews beforehand (links posted by Chevrefeullie). So I started with the del Cossa part and the reviews surely prevented me from becoming pretty confused.I thoroughly enjoyed reading both sections. I found them both equally mesmerising. Needles to say, I didn’t understand it all and it left a number of questions in my mind.
My main query relates to del Cossa’s stream. While George has every reason to relate to del Cossa because her mother took her to Italy to see the frescos, etc, etc. , I can’t quite see why del Cossa’s ‘spirit’ should see George as part of her stream of consciousness. Hundreds of thousands of visitors must have looked at her art works, so why does she single out George to be observed and followed?
Does anyone have any ideas as to why she picks out George? Does this point towards the idea that del Cossa’s part was indeed ‘penned’ by George herself?
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Casceil wrote: "Ideas for why she picked out George: while hundreds of thousands of people have viewed del Cossa's art, I suspect the number of people who focused on it the way George did is relatively small. Geo..."I think that's right Casceil. George was spending a good part of the day at the gallery looking at the painting. She admits at first to not seeing anything special and that it was only because she studied the painting intimately that she discovered its uniqueness, and then she did the study to see how much time people spent looking, and it was pitiful (although much like most of my gallery visits that don't include Michelangelo, Caravaggio, or Van Gogh). But did the Del Cossa's pick George or did George rouse the spirit by spending so much time pondering the picture?
Just finished this. I thought it beautifully written, interestingly structured, but curiously uncompelling. The book seemed all travel and no destination. It struck me more like a set of long, intertwined fragments than what I think of as a novel. I may like it better in retrospect than I did when reading it.
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At a certain point, I did sort of feel like pieces of Del Cossa's story came from George's imagination, particularly once H had moved away and she started spending a lot of time on her own at the museum. Maybe she liked to think Del Cossa was watching her in the same way her mother thought Lisa was watching her.
I really liked the subtle parallels between the stories too, such as when Barto makes Del Cossa drink the "different" glasses of water and when George's family burns lists for each new year.
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I think Smith is experimenting here with not only the structure of a "novel" but what can be called a "novel." There's no traditional narrative path through this and nothing really "happens". There's no resolution and it's sort of like a Moebius strip the way it feeds back upon itself. I'm guessing a lot of readers will be turned off by that kind of approach. But I think she still manages to do "both"--experiment and deliver an interesting read.
The more I've read about this book (reviews and interview), the more I actually think so much of it is supposed to blur lines. I think the del Cossa section can be read as both George's imagination (more so if you read George's section first) and not (if you read del Cossa's section first). There's enough detail in there to make you think there's no way George and H could have imagined all that, but there's also a lot of quirks to make you think it just might be possible (kind of popular modern speech like "just saying", del Cossa being sort of reincarnated right out of the ground in the beginning of her section--which I totally didn't understand upon first reading, del Cossa having no memory/knowledge of her death, etc.).
Why do you think Smith chose to make del Cossa female (when the actual historical male del Cossa's gender was not in question) and what impact do you think this has upon the book?
It occurs to me that the style of this book has some similarity to Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, with its different writing styles in each section, and the interlocking of the stories reminds me of Mitchell's Ghostwritten. Perhaps I'll see some similarity in next month's read -- The Bone Clocks!
Marc wrote: "Why do you think Smith chose to make del Cossa female (when the actual historical male del Cossa's gender was not in question) and what impact do you think this has upon the book? "I hate bringing the author's private life into the discussion, but I think it is intentional. Ms. Smith reflects on the role of genre in our life: what we are and how we identify ourselves. Besides, the society at that time was obviously quite patriarchal, even during the Renaissance in Italy, and clothes tend to hide many secrets. This novel is also like a set of Renaissance clothes: layer after layer of new meanings and new connections, and like any good clothes, the threads in the fabric of this novel overlap and are interwoven, forming a beautiful lace.
The novel itself is a literary fresco with something solid under it, possibly the old conventional painting (George's narrative) and a fresh, quickly painted fresco (del Cossa's story). Sometimes, frescoes hide older paintings, and they can be subversive and treacherously dangerous.
I really enjoyed finding the connections between the two stories, but I am afraid it would not have worked so well for me if I had started with del Cossa's narrative.
P.S. I really liked how del Cossa's gender was revealed to others through her feet, not bosom, not other obvious biological difference. I find this way of revelation original and ... sexy:-)
Linda wrote: "It occurs to me that the style of this book has some similarity to Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, with its different writing styles in each section, and the interlocki..."Am I alone in thinking that Ghostwritten was much more successful than Cloud Atlas? I'm wary of Bone Clocks for that reason but looking forward to what readers say about the new one (as opposed to critics who you can't trust at all).
Martin wrote: "Linda wrote: "It occurs to me that the style of this book has some similarity to Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, with its different writing styles in each section, and ..."I liked Ghostwritten better than Cloud Atlas. I think David Mitchell is extremely creative. For me, all his books are a bit hard to get into but are worth the initial struggle.
I've read both Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas and I don't think either of them is really all that much like How to be Both. It looks to me that David Mitchell is the first author a lot people encounter who writes novels where the structure of the book is an important part of nature of the book, and end up comparing any other book where the structure is important to his work (Mitchell claimed in a interview that he writes that way because his natural writing length is the novella, and the structure is there to tie the novellas into novels). But this isn't a new thing. Vikram Chandra in his meditation on coding, writing, beauty and ethnic identity, Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty, says the the 'ring composition', where the ending of the narrative links up with the beginning of the narrative (a description that can be applied, I think, to both Ghostwritten and How to be Both) is in India the standard architecture, used in the epics and in novels. He also quotes an anthropologist, Mary Douglas that "ring composition is extremely hard for Westerners to recognize", (see here), which I think is simply not true.
Peter wrote: "I've read both Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas and I don't think either of them is really all that much like Trying to be Both. It looks to me that David Mitchell is the firs..."Thanks for the links - good food for thought! I like that descriptor - "ring composition."
Peter wrote: "I've read both Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas and I don't think either of them is really all that much like How to be Both. It looks to me that David Mitchell is the first a..."I think in both those books David Mitchell must have been heavily influenced by the Italian writer Calvino and his book "If on a winter's night a traveller" which is definitely worth a read if you like that kind of thing. I would add a link to this post but I'm new to this kind of thing. Anyway I'm sure it is on Goodreads somewhere.
I was looking forward to reading this book by Ali Smith, and at first I thought it was going to be a good read. Edgar captured my feelings in his post: "My copy of How To Be Both started the 15th century artist. I have already read through that part and am not about 60 pages into the part about George. I am sorry to that so far I am not enamored. The second part for me, the George part, is better to me than the first part. I hope this George part saves the book for me. As for the 15th century artist part when I first started reading it I liked it. The language was very poetic; it was foggy in a good way and did gradually become more concrete when it was needed." I also liked the poetic prose of the early section. I also loved the child wearing his/her dead mother's clothes. But I'm afraid I grew impatient with the rest of the section and the second half, George, didn't draw me in at all. Sorry to be so negative, but I'll have to pass on How to be both.
I was less than impressed by the book also. I read through it fast, because I was anxious for something to happen. I wanted to get to the Big Point of It All. But that never happened. However, I did enjoy the parallel of the two stories, my favorite being the irony that the artist died of the plague (small pox?) and George's mom died from an allergic reaction to an antibiotic. I read George first, so the end of the book for me was the artist watching the girls paint eyes on the wall to watch the mom's friend. Because of the suspicions that George's mom was under surveillance, I liked the way George gave the woman a taste of her own medicine by sending out the message of "I'm always watching you."
While I didn't love the book, I did enjoy reading a book completely different from what I'm used to, so I thank the reading group for that.
I could not get my hands on the book in time for this reading so I read The First Person and Other Stories instead, just to check out the author. Really fun and inventive stuff.
Mod
Zulfiya wrote: "Marc wrote: "Why do you think Smith chose to make del Cossa female (when the actual historical male del Cossa's gender was not in question) and what impact do you think this has upon the book? "I..."
I am a month late to this discussion, and I don't know if anyone will even read this post, but it would like to thank Zulfiya for her analysis: "The novel itself is a literary fresco with something solid under it, possibly the old conventional painting (George's narrative) and a fresh, quickly painted fresco (del Cossa's story). Sometimes, frescoes hide older paintings, and they can be subversive and treacherously dangerous."
As has already been discussed, Smith is experimenting with narrative style and pushing the form of a novel in new directions. Zulfiya's description of that style as a "literary fresco" is apt, and it helps me grab a hold of my experience of the novel as a whole.
My copy began with the George section which I enjoyed more thoroughly than the del Cossa section. I don't mind being patient with poetic or stream of consciousness narration, but quite frankly toward the end I became a bit lost either because I was tired or because I didn't catch contextual clues.
I empathized with George's grief over her mother's death and found Smith's depiction of this universal emotion to be both fresh, accurate, and poignant.
I knew the artist is the second section was the one her mother has introduced her to; for some reason that was obvious to me. I also enjoyed the transport into the Renaissance with its insights into the training, apprenticeship, and patronage of talented artists.
I enjoyed the dualities that Linda @9 captured so succinctly. Thank you.
I found striking both George's mother's existential questioning of whether the painting existed if it had not been seen, and continuing to examine our experience of the world,
"Though, you know, it might just be that our eyes are more used to finding some parts of the room more beautiful than others because of what we now expect beauty to be. It might be our standard rather than theirs."
( p. 58, Smith, Ali. How to be both. New York: Pantheon Books, 2014.
What is reality? How do our perceptions, how does what we envision, how does what our potentially narrow perspective shape reality? Age-old questions, always a worthy challenge especially if we have slipped into complacency.
I also liked the artist's mother reflecting on the seed that has fallen into a pool of horse urine: ". . . It gets the chance with enough sun, enough water, with a bit of luck and justice it'll make another tree."
Ibid.
The odds of life; the odds of flourishing or failing. And yet, this rather odd image can be seen as a foreshadowing or a metaphor for the successful cultivation of the artist's career, especially in a world where female artists were unacceptable.
Philosophical - yes; artistic - yes, literary - yes. Ali Smith's novel is rich with all this along with memorable characters, scenes, and superb writing.
Mod
Maureen wrote: "Zulfiya wrote: "Marc wrote: "Why do you think Smith chose to make del Cossa female (when the actual historical male del Cossa's gender was not in question) and what impact do you think this has upo..."Nice summary!
Linda wrote: "Maureen wrote: "Zulfiya wrote: "Marc wrote: "Why do you think Smith chose to make del Cossa female (when the actual historical male del Cossa's gender was not in question) and what impact do you th..."Thank you.
Finally got back to this and finished, and boy oh boy, am I ever liking it.I could say more, but I'm not done with just appreciating it. The time is not ripe for letting analysis get in the way. One more reading . . . .
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
How to be Both (other topics)The First Person and Other Stories (other topics)
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (other topics)
Cloud Atlas (other topics)
Ghostwritten (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Italo Calvino (other topics)Vikram Chandra (other topics)
Mary Douglas (other topics)
David Mitchell (other topics)
David Mitchell (other topics)
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I have been turned around in my opinion of a book at other times and I hope the story of George does that.