This is an incredible novel full of wit, sarcasm, and characters that are a touch arrogant and temperamental. Ali Smith’s How To Be Both has won the 2014 Costa Novel of the Year award, the 2015 Women’s Prize for Fiction award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014. It is a joy-filled read and one that is relatable, quirky and highly inventive.
The novel is split into two parts. The first part follows young George, a girl who is grieving the loss of her mother. She is a fun character and asks a lot of questions that lead on wild tangents of more questions until she is back to the start. She is trying to figure out how to grieve properly while dealing with the possibility that her mother was being monitored by the government and feeling unsure whether to start a romantic relationship with her friend Helen. In this chapter, Smith perfects the messiness of being a human and being pulled different ways depending on different emotions and moral stances. George’s mother took her to visit a painting whose painter is unknown apart from his name and a letter stating he wanted to be paid more for his art. This artist and his work play a large role in George’s chapter, influencing her relationship with her mother and friend.
Part two follows the artist of the painting who doesn’t know if he is alive or dead because he can’t remember dying. We learn about his life, how he became a great painter by drawing prostitutes rather than having sex with them, and discover why he wrote a letter about money. The painter is also watching George go about her life and we in turn find out more about her. Their lives weave in and out of each other and create a small parallel between events that happen to George and the painter though they are hundreds of years apart. In the “George” chapter we find out that there is no historical information about this painter, so it feels special and unique to find out about his life given that no one else knows anything about him.
This novel has hints of an Oscar Wilde influence. Georges mother talks about loving art for the beauty in it regardless of who created it, while the novel is a work of art itself. Smith uses punctuation differently or not at all, no speech marks and throughout the painter’s chapter the text is laid out in a unique style creating an image on the page. There is also a touch of Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth with both painters being smug, thinking their art is far better than anyone else’s, and yet they have a way of charming you and getting under your skin all at once.
Smith has been able to create characters you will actually care about. They are down to earth, charming, relatable, and funny. It will leave you feeling like you’ve had a sneak peek into someone else’s life.
This book review is dedicated to my lovely friend Georgi who reminded me so much of the character George that I swear this novel was written with her in mind.