Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Event Calendar
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • The CBR Team
    • Leaderboard
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us
> FAQ Home
> Genre: Non-Fiction > Artful – Ali Smith (2012)

Artful – Ali Smith (2012)

Artful by Ali Smith

January 12, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

In an essay and kind of novel form, Ali Smith writes about a writer who begins seeing the ghost of her dead partner, who appears in spectre-form, performing actions, sometimes saying words, and bringing up an untold number of memories. Challenging these images too is the relatively short amount of time that relationship lasted before her partner’s death.

This is a meditative and mourning book is beautifully evocative about life, death, what form and presence another takes in our life, and about those traces. It’s also the least Ali Smith book of hers that I’ve read (and I think my 6th or so) and speaks to the power of the narrative and ideas she’s putting forth in this book. I went into this thinking I was getting a collection of essays or speeches about literature, and in part I was, but got more so a meditation on life and death and love. When I say it’s the least Ali Smith book of hers that I have read, what it made me think of instead is of a Jeanette Winterson book, who also write about the haunting forms and vestiges people leave in our lives. I’ve never lost a partner, short or long term, and of course I hope never to, but I’ve been in the lives of people who have and there’s some very recognizable and painful moments in this book that remind me of those people in my life.

(Photo: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15811569-artful)

Filed Under: Non-Fiction Tagged With: ali smith, artful

vel veeter's CBR13 Review No:20 · Genres: Non-Fiction · Tags: ali smith, artful ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

About vel veeter

CBR13 participantCBR12 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/69444656-vel-veeter View vel veeter's reviews»

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • llamareadsbooks on Whales… in… space!I think it's more like a space squid, but I totally had the whole Pinocchio thing in mind, too. Just posted my review of the...
  • lowercasesee on Another roundup (sorry)Thank you!! It was the first of this bunch I'd read so I couldn't remember everything.
  • narfna on Another roundup (sorry)I'm reading Eve Brown right now (so good!), and Jacob explicitly tells Eve he's autistic almost as soon as he meets her, in the job...
  • ingres77 on The Wheel of Time (Part I)I’m sorry. If it helps, I really wish I didn’t know either. I saved all these books so my kids could read them when they...
  • narfna on “I’m dealing with a lot of scary things. I think you have to react to them. And you either laugh at them or you go insane.”I'm enjoying seeing your thoughts on this series so much! Looking forward to your review of six (and seven!)
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in