How to Be Both

Review ebook How to Be Both

How to write a novel about art—everybody’s doing it—without revealing the amount of research that has gone into it.
There’s the twist.

Research is important in a novel written in the twenty first century but which is partly set in Renaissance Italy. The author needs to comb the archives but burn her notes after reading. She needs to walk the old town she’s writing about from one end to the other but then she needs to throw the guidebook away and leave with only her own impressions, any hard facts How to write a novel about art—everybody’s doing it—without revealing the amount of research that has gone into it.
There’s the twist.

Research is important in a novel written in the twenty first century but which is partly set in Renaissance Italy. The author needs to comb the archives but burn her notes after reading. She needs to walk the old town she’s writing about from one end to the other but then she needs to throw the guidebook away and leave with only her own impressions, any hard facts should be left in the library. Ali Smith shows such creativity in every other aspect of this book that any reservations I have about the amount of hard fact that show up in this book should be dropped right now…
Ouch! That was a lot of facts!

But back to Ali Smith’s creativity.
Creativity demands we go beyond what we know, experiment with new ideas, new forms, find new angles to present those new ideas and forms. Creativity demands inventiveness, and the enthusiasm and energy to turn the old on its head and reveal the new, to add an original twist. That twist again.

Ali Smith possesses more than her share of inventiveness, and enthusiasm, and energy. This book is unique, in fact there ain’t never been nothing quite like this!

There are two distinct halves to this book and each could possibly stand alone but instead they are linked by a neat twist. Some copies of the book have one half first, some the other. Imagine a sheet of paper with story A at the top of one side and the same story repeated at the bottom. On the reverse side, you have story 1 laid out in the same way. You give the paper a twist in the middle and if you read one side only, you get story A and then story 1, but if you turn over, you get story 1 first and then story A. The author has written both halves very carefully so that while each touches on the themes of the other, neither steps on the other’s plot line too much. They are like an image and its mirror image, except not quite, as if there’s a little flaw in the mirror’s surface which causes a distortion, a slight twist in the perception of both stories. And perception is very important here. No question of Put your blindfold on. No. You have to keep your eyes wide open right through this book or you might miss a vital twist.

Smith is very enthusiastic about her content, almost childishly enthusiastic. Here’s a different dance for you all to do, I hear her saying to her readers, Spin your body like a screw.
And we do, because there’s no other way to keep up. The narrative voice is young, breathless, but oddly knowing too, old and young at the same time which can be destabilising for the reader—there’s that twist again, can’t avoid it, it seems.

So I guess by now you’ve got the gist
better not forget it on your shopping list!

And if you still need convincing, check out The Wilbury Twist

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Edit: 28th September 2018
I was in Ferrara recently—where a lot of the action of this book happens. It was great to be there. We walked the old town just as Ali Smith must have done as she followed in the footsteps of her characters, especially the fifteenth century artists Francesco del Cosse and Cosmè Tura.
I saw Tura’s Saint George in the museum:

Unfortunately, the Palazzo Schifanoia which houses the frescoes by Tura and Del Cosse, described in such detail in Smith’s book, was closed for renovations. Another time perhaps. …more