Wildly different books titled Winter
Karl Ove Knausgaard and Ali Smith both embark on series based on the four seasons
It’s perhaps less of a coincidence than it initially seems that two of today’s most celebrated and idiosyncratic authors — Ali Smith and Karl Ove Knausgaard — would embark more or less simultaneously on a series of books based on the four seasons, the latter’s cycle representing certainty in uncertain times (global warming notwithstanding). Both, curiously enough, began with autumn and published their second instalment two weeks apart.
That, however, is where the similarities end.
Comprising two- to three-page diaristic “meditations” on subjects ranging from the elemental (“Atoms,” “Water”) to the domestic (“Christina,” “Mess”) to the everyday banal (“Winter Boots,” “Manholes”), Knausgaard’s “seasonal quartet” takes the opposite tack to his six-book autobiographical word-tsunami, “My Struggle,” which left no personal rabbit hole unexplored.
Like its predecessor, “Winter” is divided into the season’s three months, each preceded with a letter to Knausgaard’s unborn daughter (January is addressed to “my newborn daughter,” as she was born prematurely).
It’s a touching gesture, though one wonders what her reaction will be when she reads these books and discovers not Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” but rather mini-treatises on Q-Tips, safety reflectors, spilled petrol and sexual desire. (Though being Knausgaard’s child, this might be exactly what she’ll expect.)
The few winter-specific entries offer some lovely evocations of the snowbound Scandinavian landscape that will resonate with Knausgaard’s latitudinal neighbours. Even when discussing other subjects, though, the essays as a whole reflect the season’s mood of quiet introversion.
Most relate to Knausgaard’s daily surroundings and follow a similar arc, beginning with a borderline-irritatingly simple statement (“Pipes transport flowing liquids” or “A chair is for sitting on”) before veering off on tangents that are by turns philosophic, funny and personal.
After admitting the shocking fact in “Toothbrushes” that his children use theirs interchangeably, for instance, Knausgaard explains that he equates not brushing his own teeth with freedom because his first (successful) lie to his oppressive father was about whether he’d brushed his teeth (he hadn’t). That he now avoids showing his yellow teeth when he smiles seems not too high a price to pay for that freedom.
“Autumn” received criticism for a certain quasi-scientific earnestness. But with few exceptions, I loved the weird helterskelter of its ramblings.
“Autumn” and “Winter” don’t quite present things “anew,” but they give their subjects a uniquely Knausgaardian cast; the fun is in seeing where we end up, Plinko-style, from where we began.
Ali Smith’s “Winter” revolves around the Christmastime reunion of two estranged, temperamentally opposite sisters: Sophia, a high-strung, retired entrepreneur and single mother, and Iris, a childless, lifelong social-rights activist.
All the elements we’ve come to expect from the Scottish author are reliably trotted out: linguistic playfulness; surreality (a disembodied baby’s head and a piece of English coastline are both seen floating around); and a bevy of cultural references, high and low (Elvis, Dickens, Barbara Hepworth and Shakespeare’s Cymbeline — which has a nice connection to Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library).
The thrill of a Smith novel is in its specifics.
One is Sophia’s son Art, who, when he’s not scouring the web for copyright violations on behalf of a faceless media conglomerate in London, maintains a nature blog called “Art in Nature.”
When the novel starts, his girlfriend, Charlotte, having had enough of his apolitical narcissism, dumps him in spectacular style: after destroying his laptop she commandeers his Twitter account, filling it with false sightings of the elusive Canada warbler on British shores.
Worried how the breakup will play with his mother, Art offers a young woman sitting at a bus stop a hefty sum to play Charlotte at Christmas. What Art doesn’t anticipate is that “Charlotte” — in a reality a Croatian immigrant named Lux — will connect with Sophia in a way he never has.
“Autumn” was dubbed the first post-Brexit novel. Winter carries us disconsolately into the age of Trump, partly through the bridge of immigration: “‘What’s wrong with people wanting better lives, Mrs. Cleves?’ Lux says. ‘You mustn’t be naïve, Charlotte. They’re coming here because they want our lives,’ his mother says.”
Smith uses an elaborate system of counterweights in plot and imagery.
The clash of Sophie’s angry capitalism with Iris’s idealistic socialism is mirrored in Art and Charlotte’s own dynamics, for instance. At times, it can feel over-engineered; its characters like sides in an argument whose moral is never in question.
That’s a relative quibble, to be taken within the context of Smith’s truly original, emotionally intelligent body of work. In this, another winter of discontent, we need art/Art like hers more than ever.