Seeing as Ali Smith opted to write all four of her seasonal novels in a year, it seemed only right to try to read them in a year – and at the appropriate time of year, no less. I love me a goal. This is how I ended up reading Autumn in lockdown in Paris, Winter voluntarily sheltering in place in New York under feet of snow, and Spring as we tentatively reemerged from these objectively quantifiable yet emotionally unending months in this strange new world. Summer came last, as I spend the last month of summer hovering on the surface of my hometown, seeing and hugging people I haven’t seen or hugged in months, celebrating the arrival of my favorite season and yet warily watching as the world prepares for yet another surge of the virus that only barely tinges the pages of Smith’s 2020 novel.
Summer ties up loose ends of the quartet in a way that only Smith can: not-too-neatly; not-too-tightly. Characters we had nearly forgotten about from earlier in the loosely-knit-together quartet resurface; ones who were just this side of two-dimensional emerge into a third dimension of humanity in a way that fills my heart. Smith’s deft wielding of the paintbrush that is her arm for engendering righteous rage at the state of the world is tempered by a softer summer glow, an almost resigned acceptance of the state of affairs, albeit still tinged in the faintest optimism.
I’m describing this badly.
Here’s the thing: Smith is a writer who defies description. Is the quartet a bit formulaic? Yes. To write four novels in a year without some kind of formula seems to me to be an insurmountable feat. But is it also eye-opening? Refreshing? Stalwartly human?
Also, yes. And I’m at once pleased and somewhat sad to have finished it.