Spring: 'A dazzling hymn to hope’ Observer: 3 (Seasonal Quartet, 3) - Hardcover

Smith, Ali

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241207045 ISBN 13: 9780241207048

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2019

Synopsis

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

'Her best book yet, a dazzling hymn to hope, uniting the past and the present with a chorus of voices' Observer

'Spring is an astonishing accomplishment and a book for all seasons' Independent

'Autumn, Winter and Spring are state of the nation novels which understand that the nation is you, is me, is all of us' New Statesman

'A story of our times... Savour it, because there is just one instalment left' Evening Standard

'Smith tells stories in a voice you can't help but listen to' The Times

From the bestselling author of Autumn and Winter, as well as the Baileys Prize-winning How to be both, comes the next installment in the remarkable, once-in-a-generation masterpiece, the Seasonal Quartet

What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times?

Spring. The great connective.

With an eye to the migrancy of story over time, and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tells the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown Smith opens the door.

The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story?

Hope springs eternal.

LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2019

Praise for the Seasonal Quartet:

'Transcendental writing about art, death, political lies, and all the dimensions of love. It's a case not so much of reading between the lines as of being blinded by the light between the lines - in a good way' Deborah Levy on Autumn

'The novel of the year is obviously Autumn, which managed the miracle of making at least a kind of sense out of post-Brexit Britain' Olivia Laing, Observer on Autumn

'Ali Smith is flat-out brilliant, and she's on fire these days... Combining brainy playfulness with depth, topicality with timelessness, and complexity with accessibility while delivering an impassioned defence of human decency and art' NPR on Winter

'Rank[s] among the most original, consoling and inspiring of the artistic responses to 'this mad and bitter mess' of the present' Financial Times on Winter

'A novel of great ferocity, tenderness and generosity of spirit that you feel Dickens would have recognised... Smith is engaged in an extended process of mythologizing the present states of Britain... Luminously beautiful' Observer on Winter

About this title

Review

Luminous, generous, hope-filled... The third book in Ali Smith's seasonal quartet is her best yet, a dazzling hymn to hope, uniting the past and present with a chorus of voices... [Ali Smith] is lighting us a path out of the nightmarish now (Observer)

Is there a writer so critically acclaimed and universally beloved? ...Autumn, Winter and Spring are stories of the unlikely connections human beings can make and the cost exacted when those connections are broken. They are state of the nation novels which understand that the nation is you, is me, is all of us: the nation is our choices, our fears, our losses... [Ali Smith] is the national novelist we need in 2019 (New Statesman)

An astonishing accomplishment and a book for all seasons (Independent)

Smith is a masterful storyteller... Spring is political but Smith is more concerned with the human fallout of current affairs then the machinations of elites... Through her account of unlikely friendships, Smith brings human values to the fore. Savour it, because there is just one instalment left (Evening Standard)

Spring weaves a story around the most pressing issues of our time... [A] bubbling, babbling brook of a book...Smith tells stories in a voice you can't help but listen to (The Times)

A powerful vision of lost souls in a divided Britain... As Smith's Seasonal Quartet moves towards completion her own role in British fiction looks ever more vital. The final page proclaims spring 'the great connective'. It's not a bad description of Smith herself (Guardian)

Beguiling... The eagerly awaited third instalment (Financial Times)

Infectious in its energy and warmth (Daily Telegraph)

Just when things were starting to look really bad, along comes the third instalment in Ali Smith's seasonal quartet to lift us out of the gloom... An extraordinary embodiment of the ways in which storytelling connects us... The work of Katherine Mansfield and Rilke, Greek myths and the propulsive lyricism of spring itself, thread together in narratives of loss and rejuvenation (Daily Mail)

The third of her exceptional Seasonal quartet, which riffs back and forth with Autumn and Winter to expound on the importance of hope to move us beyond the darkest of times (I paper)

About the Author

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of many novels, including most recently Autumn, Winter and Spring in the 'Seasonal' quartet. Her 2014 novel How to be both won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award. She has also been shortlisted once for the Orwell Prize, twice for the Orange Prize and four times for the Man Booker Prize, among many other prizes. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0241207045
• ISBN 13: 9780241207048
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352