Forget it! I have it.

Sylvie Vartan and Francoise Hardy.

A-ha! Martin, thank you for posting the pics. I never could quite get the visuals of the girls by description only, and I didn't have a good enough clue to make a search. I recognize them now, especially Sylvie Vartan the blonde. Just think, those "sweet young things" are now in their seventies -- shades of Twiggy gyrating to The Chocolate Watchband.

The U.S. cover is nothing so evocative as the UK one. Instead we got a disembodied hand holding what looks like a flower stem to which are attached a pair of eyes instead of flowers. Okay, I suppose I get the significance, but it seems lame to me, comparatively.

Those of you who read the "Eye" section first, which by the way is referred to as "Eyes" in the U.S.: How long did it take you to figure out what was going on? Truthfully, I didn't until I read the "Camera" part, although I had suspicions.

Why, do you think, Smith chose the 1960s as the intermesh period between Fran (of whichever gender) and George? It makes a convenient round number -- 500 years into the future -- for Fran; that I get and also that was the decade George's mother often referenced. But I'm wondering why the 1960s when Smith herself, who was born in 1962, wouldn't have had too much actual memory of that time. It is a fascinating decade to me and many people, but I've always suspected it might not seem such a "magical" period to others.

Did you notice any anachronisms? Vee always notices such things. I think I found a few -- one is about tomatoes in mid-15th century Italy, although that reference could be a confusion of being able "to see into the future".

This post was edited by friedag on Tue, Jan 13, 15 at 20:11

Frieda, I've been thinking about your "why the sixties?" question and my take is that the author chose that decade as her pivot point because the sixties were the start of the sexual revolution, of women's liberation, and was when the idea of equality of the sexes began truly gaining ground. It was also a time before the technology that saturates the "Camera" section of the book, perhaps it's meant to represent innocence? I'm reaching, here, I know. But I do think the sixties as a point of reference works nicely to echo the characters' sexual and gender fluidity in both time periods.

What do you think?

How do you mean, the sixties as pivot point? You both seem to know what you're talking about - but it's slightly lost on me....

On a separate note - this is a book which is mainly written in the present tense. I know there are some people here who don't like this - but I think it works particularly here because of the ability to "jar" the reader - things like

George's mother says.

Said.

Reminding you that we were back then in Italy when her mother was alive, and we're are now back in the present day, and her mother is dead.

Frieda/Sheri I have been unable to get this book from the library (a thirteen person 'queue') but am reading this thread with interest.
Frieda you are right that I always notice anachronisms . . . I wish I didn't, I waste so much time questioning everything.
Re the 60's. I was fifteen in 1960 (which makes me a very bad age, today as it happens) nothing really changed in everyday life until about 1967/68. Perhaps different for the cosmopolitan/arty types but I think few females were on the 'Pill' or awaiting their husband's offers to do the laundry or mind the baby. Also Women's Lib has always been less strident here than in the US.

Jumping in here without having yet obtained the book.

In the US the 60's were a pivotal time period in which many major changes took place. To name a few: the Civil Rights Movement, desegregation in the South, the Hippy movement, mainly in New England and California, the idea of "free love" (albeit not that new except to us Puritans), the dress code changes for women in the workplace: e.g. the arrival of panty hose and being allowed to wear pant suits in offices. (instead of those too-short skirts). I lived through it all.

As for tomatoes in the 1400's in Italy: they would just have been introduced from The New World. At first they were feared as possibly being poisonous, but they soon caught on, as did so many other "new" foods that came with the discovery of North and South America. (Just finished a course on this very thing).

I didn't mind the story being told in the present tense once I got used to it. I admit to being a bit dismayed reading the first page or two of "Eye" and wondering if I was going to be reading an entire novel in free verse -- happily, it sorted itself out. As there were no quotation marks and some text meandered over the page I thought it all fit together and I didn't mind the use of present tense throughout.

However, I like punctuation, particularly quotation marks for dialogue! it allows me to read quickly, so the lack thereof was a little cumbersome at first. But ultimately this style made me read more slowly, which was necessary as the stories hopped around in time (which I like) and I had to focus to see who was speaking and when and where they were.

I also liked the fact that George was a bit of a grammar curmudgeon, a funny contrast to an entire story without quotation marks!

As for the sixties, I felt there must be a reason for the author to include the "Georgy Girl" references, and the French singers and the actress from the 1960s. Frieda honed in on that decade being significant to the novel and wondered how it applied it to both stories.

The whole wandering hippie / free love thing certainly seems an apt description of Francesco's life as a traveling artist. And the infidel in white rags could have certainly slipped into Woodstock and fit right in.

Pivot point is a more precise -- thus much better -- phrase than the one I used: intermesh. I was floundering for a way to articulate a nebulous concept. I'm glad you understood what I was after, Sheri. I'm nodding my head in agreement with you. The 1960s is the logical "hinge".

Sorry, Martin, that I lost you! I'm still not sure why, but the stuff about the 1960s is the first thing that jumped out at me about George's story. Maybe it's my abiding interest in that decade. And isn't that what Smith was essentially doing by giving hints that there was a tie-in between the 15th and 21st centuries? And at what point was that? I don't have the book with me presently to look up that part, but I think I recall that George's mother began to have the feeling that she was being watched in the 1960s. Or did I imagine that interpretation? Set me straight, either way, please, with what you think!

Mary, I hope you get your hands on the book soon, because of all the readers I know, I think you are one who will most enjoy the "experimental" style.

Hmm, I think tomatoes in Italy during Fran's 15th-century lifetime (circa 1430-1477) is too early. Tomatoes are native to central Mexico. Cortez didn't invade Mexico until 1519, and it was probably some of his crew or a subsequent crew who first took tomatoes back to Spain with them. The earliest known mention of tomatoes in the writings of Europeans dates to 1544. It's true that the Italians were some of the earliest Europeans to accept tomatoes, but it had to be after they were discovered in Mexico by Europeans.

Vee, I want you to read this book soon, too. I predict that your reaction will be more similar to mine. ;-)

Frieda, re tomatoes: Columbus was in the Americas in the late 1400's, and some other European explorers had been inland where tomatoes were cultivated by some native populations in the 1400's. It's perfectly feasible that a few had gotten to Italy then. Don't forget Columbus was in the Caribbean in 1492.

After much difficulty using the so-called 'friendly' library web-page I have put my name of the list for How to be Both. Sixteen people are ahead of me, but my name will be kept on the list until October, by which time this thread will probably have fallen into obscurity.
From what I understand about tomatoes, I think the 'first' eg's to be grown in S Europe were small and yellow and very many people regarded them as poisonous or used just the leaves in herbal remedies.
See below

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomatoes in Europe

I merely included the possible tomato anachronism to 'amuse' and entice Vee into reading How to Be Both. I did a double-take when I noticed it and thought immediately of her zest for getting to the bottom of such head-scratchers. :-)

Whether the Italians got the jump on tomatoes as food as early as the mid-1400s might be true, but it is debatable because there is no documentation. If there were other European explorers who ventured inland in central America or South America before Columbus and happened to pick up some tomatoes and take them back to Europe, we simply don't know. It is possible but most food historians (Reay Tannahill, Andrew F. Smith, et al) cite the known. I don't know if Ali Smith had a particular reason for including the unverified tomatoes or it was simply a mistake -- one of those things that niggles but probably doesn't matter much.

Vee, I'm glad you are at least in the queue. Even if you don't get the book for some months, you can always resurrect this thread and tell us what you think of Smith's effort.

Lest everyone thinks I have tomatoes on my brain, I want to revert to something else that puzzles me:

Above I mentioned the perception I got that Carol Martineau (George's mother) had a receptivity to dualities -- the things that exist below the surface, e.g. the line drawings below the plaster and paint that made up the frescos -- because she had a prior experience when she was a child (in the 1960s?) of sensing that many things were happening simultaneously on different planes; in other words, time is never over and done with. BTW, I am assuming Carol was born in the 1960s, the same age of Ali Smith because many authors can't seem to avoid inserting aspects of themselves into the narratives they create. Carol was fifty when she died so the math works out, too.

Anyway, I've tried to pinpoint where it was in the book that instigated my impression. I can't find it! I'm beginning to think I did imagine it. I'm not usually very imaginative, though. Can anyone help, give me a clue? Does what I'm asking for even ring a bell with you? :-(

Another thing, I don't doubt that Carol is supposed to be admirable -- as was Fran's mother -- but does Carol's form of feminism and parental attitude come across as admirable? Vee mentioned stridency above and strident seems an apt word, or at least a bit of stridency, for some of Carol's attitudes, at least to me -- especially in all that business about the "subverts" she designed. I'm not even sure I like Carol, but I suspect that is not what Smith intended...or maybe that indecision on the part of some readers is part of the ambiguity Smith intentionally planted. I think she's a clever writer but...

I liked Carol. I didn't think she was "strident" in any way, she was just a fully-formed human being who wanted to be "seen" in the world. I found her interesting because she seemed to be able to do what she wanted without worrying over what others might think or prefer her to do/not do (the curse of many women's existence, IMO).

She is ten years older than her husband. She is established and a little famous for the subvert thing. She struck me as someone wholly independent who was happy to be married but could do just fine on her own (as they'd broken up and reconciled twice). She doesn't seem to take too much terribly seriously. When she decides she wants to go see the frescoes she tells her family what she wants to do, and when her husband does not want to go, she simply says "fine", asks the kids if they want to go, and then goes.

I liked the way she talked to George, too. She treated her like a thinking adult and prodded her into thinking about things in a deeper way.

She still needed support and validation (her explanation of why she really didn't mind Lisa being -- perhaps -- a spy was odd but OK), she wasn't superwoman, but I didn't find her unsympathetic at all.

Frieda, I'm trying to find what you're referencing re: sense of duality and time, and all that pops into my head is George being very relieved that history was over vs. her mother being very interested in talking about it. I'll have to look back and re-read.

By strident I don't necessarily mean loud or shrill, but rather the other definition of assertive and commanding, which might be quieter but no less forceful. This, that you wrote, Sheri, seems to me to be part of that:...she seemed to be able to do what she wanted without worrying over what others might think or prefer her to do/not do (the curse of many women's existence, IMO).I can't help but agree with the 'curse' part! Carol is an interesting character to me, too, but she slightly annoys me -- perhaps in a way that mothers (even loved and respected ones) can annoy teenage daughters.

Sheri, if you happen to run across it while you are rereading for your own pleasure, I'd love to hear about it. But don't knock yourself out for my benefit. I'll probably find it myself eventually when I'm not in frenetic search mode.

This book makes me think about so many things that I can't resist the danger of posting too much, too often!

Anyway, I was quite tickled, at first, with being "in on" the knowledge that Fran didn't have -- e.g. why George would dance in complete silence after putting "blocks" in her ears. But it occurred to me that our concentration on our 'superior' technology makes us (me, at any rate) shallow in thinking that it's technology that most differentiates us from our predecessors -- and probably our successors as well. This is such an old trope, though. It's quite amusing to read H.G. Wells and his predictions of what the future held and we can chortle over what he got wrong. On the other hand, Orwell was uncannily accurate, although a few decades too soon, I think.

I don't think Smith broke new ground by turning the old trope upside-down, though, by having someone from the past "see" what we have now. And aren't we conceited that we think our particular now would be so fascinating to people of the past? I don't know enough about science fiction, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that sci-fi writers have messed with it before. I do recall a film from the late 1970s (I think) that had Jack the Ripper transported to 1978/79 and he was agog over a Mickey Mouse-shaped telephone!

George's iPad, for example, soon will be just as dated. And this built-in obsolescence probably will make How to Be Both a 'relic' soon. Do you think it's merely a book of the moment or is there something about it that will make it last past the ordinary attention-span of readers?

I'm personally not so convinced that Orwell was accurate. I think myself that Huxley's Brave New World is a much more accurate picture of where we are likely to be going. (Though, in my worse nightmares, I wonder whether Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale might be a possibility, too...)

But that's a side issue, really.

Back to the book. I enjoyed the "looking at the future" bit - I didn't think how it would look to see someone dance to an iPod. And I loved the idea that the photographs would be considered to be the works of master artists.

I rather liked George's mother. Is her name really Carol? I could not have told you that off the top of my head. Most of the time, she is referred to as "her mother". I liked her feminist attitudes and the way that she made George think about things, and challenged her.

I also rather liked her father. He's not as fully formed a character as her mother, as we don't see as much of him. I think he gave up a bit after her mother died, which is understandable but perhaps not acceptable, given that he had two children to deal with. But I thought this bit near the end (of George's half) was very moving.
It's the nature of things, her father said. Your mother, in some ways, is lucky. She'll never have to lose you now. Or Henry.

Dad, George said. I'm not going anywhere. I'm sixteen.

Her father looked down. He looked as if he might start to cry.

Perhaps the day will come, George thought, when I will listen to my father. For now though, how can I? He's my father.

As she thought it, she felt mean. So she gave in, fractionally.

Oh yeah, and dad, she said. My room's got a leak.

Oh - and just checking my copy of the book to quote that bit above, I've discovered that Ali Smith actually identifies Sylvie Vartan. Oh well.

Apropos of nothing at all - I must say I loved the bit in the book where all of the family are crying with laughter on the rug at Tell Laura I Loved Her. I remember the song from when I was very young, but I hadn't remember just how utterly cheesy the story in the song is.

And - I've just looked it up again (nice things, ebooks!) and, Frieda, I think I found the bit that you are referring to, about her mother's receptivity to dualities. It's literally the bit before the Tell Laura I Love Her bit.
Tell Laura I Love Her. That's one of the records that her mother loved when she was small. One Little Robin In A Cherry Tree. To listen to these, with first their crackling needle noise then the starburst of their hokey tunes, is like being able to experience the past like you have literally entered it and it is a whole other place, completely new to you, where people really did sing songs like this, a past so alien it is a kind of shock.

Shock of the new and the old both at once, her mother says.

Said.

Martin, Yes! I see now that my memory distorted Carol's experience and probably blew its significance out of proportion, but that's the way memory often is: a mishmash of impressions and who knows which will survive the longest. Thank you and your superior technology, Martin. :-)

When you questioned the name Carol, I thought oh no, did I screw that up? I had a pretty strong association with George's mother's last name, Martineau, because it was Harriet-the-19th-century-British feminist's last name and I wondered if Carol and Harriet were supposed to be kin. Smith was already mixing up real and fictional people, so I thought this might be another example. But I forgot to follow-up or make a note of it, so I still don't know.

Tell Laura I Love Her is certainly a blast from my past. The version I know is by Ray Peterson, circa 1960, when I was ten years old. Sometimes, back then, the U.S. and UK had same-song hits with different singers, but whoever sang it, it was bound to be sappy/soppy. There was a whole raft of morbidly sentimental songs from that era: Last Kiss by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, Patches by Dickie Lee, and Moody River by Pat Boone. And they are all howlers! I'd be right there on the rug with George's family crying with laughter. To my chagrin I remember liking every one of the songs I named.
That's a wonderful bit, Martin, and I'm delighted you reminded us of it.

I can't recall any of the technology of Huxley's Brave New World but I only read it once begrudgingly about forty-seven years ago. I also read Nineteen Eighty-Four the first time in 1967 and loathed every bit of it, but I had to read it again for another class later so I have an altogether better memory of it: the mandatory telescreen in Winston Smith's flat, the Newspeak, and "Big Brother Is Watching" posters on every street corner and public hallways (don't we now have safety cameras on most street corners?), etc., etc.

I also remember a short story in Seventeen magazine in 1967 (more than just fashion and celebrity gossip aimed at girls in those days). I don't know the title of the story but I never forgot the tagline: "It's only seventeen years until 1984." Whooo! Dire!

An observation only: Thinking over the recent fiction I've read, though I admittedly don't read a great deal of fiction, I've noticed that female characters, or at least one important female character, seem to be 'required' to have some kind of feminist agenda and credentials. Those books that do are the ones that most often excite the critics and the voting committees for giving various awards. Maybe it is what excites common readers as well.

Is this some sort of redress, do you think?

Hadn't really considered it that way. But assuming you're right, it's no bad thing, is it? :)

I have noticed that most of the discussion has been about George and her family and not so much about the artist. Is that a reflection of the relative qualities and memorability of the two parts, do you think.

I wondered about this, so I went back and deliberately re-read the Eye section. I enjoyed it, but it didn't resonate much with me. I did notice a few obvious parallels which I hadn't really registered before, though - for example, both George and Franchesco have mothers who died; they are both women with men's names. And the consequence of that is that you're reading each half of the book and you make the obvious assumption that the main character is male - and then, you suddenly realize that she is female and it makes you rethink what you've read. In Camera, that happens in the third paragraph ("her mother said") - but in Eye it's several pages before you realize.

But I did enjoy the way that George's mother came up with the "witty" suggestion that Franchesco might be female, based on the art of the frescoes - and then the other part of the book was written as it that were actually true.

Has anyone else any other comments? Woodnymph - have you managed to get a copy?

martin, I'm still waiting for my public library to come through with a copy. I am very eager to read the part about the art work.

Martin, the feminism angle is not a bad thing to me. But it does seem curious that I, who do not read much fiction, have run across it in about three-quarters of the novels (of the literary type, especially) that I've read recently. Perhaps it's because most of the fiction stories recommended to me have feminist themes. Come to think of it, most of the mysteries I've read seem to have feminist protagonists, of some persuasion, as well.

I just wonder how often feminism appears in all the fiction that big fiction readers consume. It seems to be a favorite for writers and readers alike presently -- oh, say, in the last ten to fifteen years or so -- and it is, perhaps, the social revisionists 'darling' now as politically correct compensation for all the years when it was mostly ignored. I don't really know if it is -- it just seems that way to me. However, anecdotally, I have heard and read some readers say that the inclusion of feminism has become trite and overload is beginning to set in.

I will usually prefer historical fiction over contemporary, so I'm quite surprised that I like the 21st (and 20th) century part better than the 15th century part, which didn't fascinate me as much as I thought it would. Although I love looking at art (paintings, architecture, etc.) and learning about it, I have very little artistic ability myself, so I'm looking forward to what the artists among us have to say -- such as Mary with her art history background, and Vee with her keen interest in and talent for drawing, and others I don't yet know about.

Another thing about the artist's story, since it was the first part I read, I spent a lot of time just getting accustomed to its peculiarities in style and just as I was catching on, BAM, it was over. Now that the pain of reading the book for the first time has receded -- and the "Eye" part was a pain for me -- I'm remembering it (the whole book, really) more and more fondly.

Frieda, try The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson for a male protagonist, set in 1727, and more history of debtors' prison than you ever wanted to know. It's a really good book, as well.

Any more comments? Anyone else managed to get a copy - or been tempted to read this based on our discussion?

Let's leave this thread open for late-comers. I may be able to get a copy next week, but will have to find time to read it, amidst all the other reading for me class work.

I tried to read this last night (both parts) but could not get into either. I was really put off by the gimmicky style. I have read a lot of free verse and prose poems in my time, but somehow the style really turned me off, and the lack of punctuation. I wanted to like the novel, but failed.

Mary, I'm sorry you couldn't get into it, because with you there goes one of my chances 'to pick the brain' (awful phrase, I know) of a reader with a more non-traditionalist view of novels than my own. (I'm thinking of Austerlitz specifically.) I thought that you, of all the readers I know, might have a greater affinity for this sort of thing -- besides Martin and Sheri, of course, who do have a special affinity, I think. Oh well, it wasn't to be.

I wonder how many other readers -- there were a number who expressed interest in reading it -- were put off by the present tense and other gimmicks. I wish they would say!

I don't think one could ever compare W.G. Sebald's works to this novel by Smith. For one thing, Sebald is writing for the most part about actual historical events (the Holocaust and its victims) which are painful to recall. He approaches his subject matter obliquely, with the use of actual photos as part of his narrative. It's a sort of subtext that is powerful and moving.

Mary, I'm not comparing Austerlitz and How to be both content-wise, but I noted Sebald's book because of its unusual 'experimental style' of scarce punctuation and no paragraphing that many readers found off-putting but you took in stride very well, as I recall.

I took another look at Austerlitz and found that instead of 'scarce' punctuation, it has quite a lot, but the sentences have many clauses and tend to be very long -- sometimes very long indeed. But the lack of paragraphing is as I remember.

In that sense of comparison, Smith's sentences are choppy and she seems quite happy to begin new paragraphs. In the 'Camera' part her punctuation is mostly conventional, although her use of the present tense is not. It's in the 'Eye" part that she begins Fran's narrative without punctuation and the odd positioning of the 'sentences' across the page. I take this to mean that Fran was getting used to writing again after centuries of not doing so. Then Fran's writing settles into our more familiar modern style, only to revert back to the lack of punctuation and strange positioning as Fran's part ends. Fran was trailing off as if weary. Is that the way you interpreted it, Martin -- Sheri?

At any rate, I think Smith's and Sebald's styles, though different in most ways, are part of the same postmodern disposition to buck writing conventions. This drives traditionalists (like me) a bit cross-eyed, but some readers love it and find it challenging.

Frieda, I took Francesco's words meandering across the page as representing his/her being first pulled into our time (I believe there was a reference to being pulled up like a fish) to be part of the story and then later released back into the past once the story was done, with the scattering of words to indicate he/she was no longer with George in the present time. That's what I pictured, anyway, once I got the hang of the text.

I returned the book to the library weeks ago, but I find I'm still thinking about it at odd times, the mark of a good book, IMO. As far as having an affinity for things ... I do like clever structure, but if the whole book had been written as the first couple of pages were, I wouldn't have been able to read it. I thought it had just enough structure, though the lack of quotation marks bothered me through the first 2/3rds of the book.

Sheri, your interpretation fits the story better than mine does. Yet in my initial confusion I got the impression that Fran was actually writing or attempting to write his/her story as some sort of exercise -- as an assignment required, maybe, in purgatory. Later -- and I think you mentioned this above as well -- I began to suspect it was George and her mate who wrote it. That could explain some of Fran's too modern slang and the anachronisms -- those are the girls' fault, not Fran's, and were intentional on Smith's part, which is slyly clever I suppose. Too clever for me to be sure.

This post was edited by friedag on Sat, Feb 7, 15 at 21:14

Actually -- peculiarly, perhaps for as hidebound a reader as I am -- the lack of quotation marks didn't bother me much. Is that what most people are talking about when they rail against 'the lack of punctuation'? I've encountered the no-quotation-marks style in other books that aren't particularly of the experimental type, however -- quite a number of them in the past ten years or so, enough apparently for me to accept the style as one of those 'innovations' that pass like contagion from writer to writer. I think the use of the present tense is another example; e.g. Hilary Mantel caught that bug for Wolf Hall. I'm not as accustomed to the use of the present tense yet.

Sheri, I concur with your interpretation. I felt the "waviness" at the start and end was indicating being pulled into our time and leaving it again - a bit like the "Mouse's Tail" in Alice, though that's a bit more literal!

The lack of quotation marks is something I just took in my stride. Like Frieda, I've seen it quite a lot in modern literature. Ali Smith does it in other books of hers; James Kelman uses it in "How Late It Was, How Late". Roddy Doyle does a similar thing, but puts a dash in front of the dialogue.

Beyond the lack of quotation marks for dialogue and the "stream of consciousness" in the wavy bit at the start and end of "Eye", I didn't think there was any missing or incorrect punctuation. I don't think George would have allowed it to happen!

This post was edited by martin_z on Sun, Feb 8, 15 at 5:36

And - do I think that George and H wrote "Eye" themselves? I can't really make up my mind. It would certainly explain the anachronistic phrases, like the "Just saying" scattered throughout.

It doesn't matter, but it's a nice thought. I rather like the idea of the two of them working together on it.

I loved the fact that George was a grammar curmudgeon, especially after the odd text in "Eye".

As for George and H creating "Eye", I've come to think that their efforts on their writing assignment did conjure up Francesco from the past somehow, and that F's story was filtered through the girls but not created by them. That would account for details in F's tale they could never know or imagine (the cost of Venetian pigments or daily life in the whorehouse?) as well as explain the anachronistic phrases ... just my convoluted interpretation, there are so many ways it could be explained. I just like the idea that Francesco's ghost was real. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, and so forth, particularly in contrast to the technology that is intrinsic to the present day and was referenced so much in "Camera".

Did anyone else feel that "Camera" was a bit of a screed against technology? The characters are so tied to phones and iPads they hardly look around them to see the wonders of the world. I was particularly struck by George's observation of the Italian school children who were talking to each other and interacting and had no electronic gadgets whatsoever.

Argh! I agree with George's mother about George:Her mother takes both hands off the wheel in mock despair.
How did I, the most maxima unpedantic of all the maxima unpedantic women in the world, end up giving birth to such a pedant?George is a smart aleck. So what else is new? It comes in practically every teenager's development that she feels it is incumbent on her to correct a parent's mistakes and misuses. It's maddening but it's also funny!

I think you're right, Sheri, that Francesco's story is filtered through the girls but not wholly created by them. There's a part (that I can't find now to quote) where the girls discuss how Fran (my abbreviation) would say things, but the girls can't make Fran's speech entirely authentic so they say something to the effect of: we'll just let F say things the way we do.

The "Camera" part could be "a bit of a screed against technology," but I also got the impression that technology is the way we moderns measure ourselves against our antecedents and aren't we the lucky ones.

Aren't we though. I once saw a cartoon which basically said "Of course people are much more materialistic now that they were years ago - these days we've got much better stuff!"

Every so often, I pick up my smartphone, switch it on - and imagine my younger self looking at it in utter and complete amazement.

I quite like the idea of Francesco's story being filtered through the girls.

I love the term "grammar curmudgeon." It exactly describes what I have become, and I blame it on my newspaper (which I think I've complained about before [double prepositional ending]). It used to be a national prize winning publication until the local owner sold it to Gannett. They cut the quality and the content and fired all the proofreaders. Money is the bottom line.

I'm so glad to read these additional comments. They are helping me with the book.

I have to admit I gave up on it after the first chapter or so. I couldn't connect with the characters and the flow of consciousness type of writing my copy began with didn't help either . Sorry I can't join in on this.

Rouan - you have presumably got an "Eye/Camera" version of the book. You might try just reading George's story ("Camera") by itself. I think it's fair to say that the "Camera" section is more accessible than "Eye".

Martin, thanks, I might do that...after the impression I got has faded a bit. That way I can approach it as if it is completely new to me.

Anyone else?

Are you still holding your horses Martin? I now have the book with 'Camera' as the first section and getting into it much better than I imagined I would, after reading some of the earlier comments here.
I don't know what your copies look like. Mine is the hard-back Penguin edition with a photo of the two French singers, Sylvie Vartan and Francoise Hardy on the front, though not eating icecreams (as described as being owned by Carol) and the back is one of the 'three Decans who Oversee the Month of March' by Francesco del Cossa from the Salone dei Mesi, Palazzo Schifanoia Ferrara. Only had to read the small print on the inside back flap to find this out!

I'll be back . . .

Hi Vee!

Glad to see you. Your copy sounds exactly the same as mine. I think the icecreams picture was something I just found on the internet - the photo was obviously taken on the same shopping trip as the picture on the front.

Let us know how you get on.

Rouan - do you fancy trying just the "Camera" part of the book?

At long last. I'll try not to write too much as most of you have probably sent your books back to the library or have become hazy about the plot.

My copy started with 'Camera' which was just as well as I think 'Eye' would have been difficult to start with and put me off continuing.
BTW my 'picture' at 'Eye' . . the odd pair of eyes . . . is taken from a del Cossa picture of St Lucy who's eyes were gouged out when she was put to death.
I checked out the various friezes mentioned in the book and available to down-load. Not easy to get clear images but at least I felt I had a better idea of the various characters del Cossa had painted.
Did anyone notice there is quite a bit about the detail of St Francis Ferrer in the 'Camera' section, as George studies the painting in the National Gallery but little mention of it by del Cossa in 'Eye'?

I had no trouble in accepting the 1960's pre-theme and didn't read anything too special in it. It provided a period in which Smith based Carol (the mother) who is quite hippy-ish in her way of life/outlook.
Nor did the lack of speech marks and odd words scattered about . . . once I had got used to them. In fact it forced me to be more alert to the various 'conversations' in case I missed something.

The 'Camera' setting of Cambridge is where Smith lives and presumably mixes among the intelligentsia so I suppose it isn't surprising that George is much brighter than the average teenager. The hospital, Addenbrookes, where G's Mother dies and where G cycles round part of the lay-out of the gene and photos the double helix, are all there in real life.
I wonder if this part of 'Camera' is telling us about the 'twist' in history (as the DNA spiral is depicted) when G says "What if the received notions of history were deceptive."

As to the characters. I felt very sorry for both Georgia and Henry (who at first I though much younger than he actually was . . more of a toddler). Their Father seemed a distant rather ineffectual figure and G is left to look after the boy/cook the meals etc. although Smith doesn't make a big thing of it. And what was it about the damp patch on the wall in her bedroom? Did it have some significance that I've missed?
The Mother, for me, seems quite a believable 'her-own-woman' sort of character. How many people would just up and take the children away to Italy for a few days? She shows guts and obviously is happy to put two fingers up at authority, in true hippy style. She tries to make George think at an adult level, which perhaps leaves G more vulnerable after her death.
Helena, another very bright girl, comes in and out of G's life too briefly. I feel, if Camera had been a story on its own H could have played a greater part/been developed more.
Mrs Rock? Did anyone mention her? Is her name meant to imply some sort of security for G; she seems to have no one else rooting for her? I liked the way she answers a question with a question or repeats back the same sentence. I have a friend, something of a Social Worker who does that same thing; it can drive you mad.
Lisa Goliard? Obviously someone who Carol was attached to in the past, but so little information is given about her and why does G thinks she was/is a spy? Is she maybe the link between the now and then? George sees her in the National Gallery and apparently follows her to her house . . or so del Cossa 'says'. Very confusing.

I cannot think that the second part (for me) of 'Eye' is meant to be written by George and Helena, they wouldn't have had either the skill or knowledge of mid-fifteenth century Italy. Why has del Cossa been taken forward in time? No idea, unless it is just because of the length of time G spends staring at the St Francis picture, as though he has been temporarily resurrected.
I couldn't see the point of making del Cossa a female, nor the mention by some here about pornography; I hardly noticed it, (although the male review writers in the papers did!)
I was more annoyed by del Cossa' using the word cause instead of 'because' on almost every page.

Finally I think 'tomatoes' was just an error. I also noticed 'breeches' which I don't think were worn back then; still to be invented!

So, I've still written too much but must say it made me think outside my comfort zone, but I don't think I would read this type of book again too soon. Rather too clever for everyday comfort.

Final thought; all the way through reading this in my mind's background I kept 'hearing'
I am a Camera

Bringing this up for Vee.

After reading this in January, I read it again with my book group in September, and was pulled right in all over again. I found lots of additional echos of themes and images between the two books (pornography included) and I was blown away by the writer's skill and, though it certainly shows, I didn't mind the showmanship. It was painfully clever, but that's the best part of it, IMHO.

I read it in reverse order this time, my first read put "Eye" at the start and I read it with "Camera" at the beginning the second time around. I thought it made a lot more sense in that order, though when I read it originally I liked it that way, too.

FWIW, here's my take on the spreading damp, Helena, and Lisa. While reading this, I had absolutely no idea what her crumbling bedroom wall was supposed to mean or represent until I started thinking about it again this morning (and this is a book that, for me, keeps popping into my head at odd times even months later). I think it was simply meant to represent George's life falling apart after the death of her mother. She's crumbling herself, and knows her father is drunk and fragile and can't do anything to stop it or fix it for either of them. She's on her own. She doesn't tell him about the damp patch (again IMO) because she knows he's not in any shape to do anything about it and perhaps because she envisions the ultimate destruction of their house and her wall (stars above, etc.) as a rightful destruction, sharing somehow in her mother's death, an ultimate descent into grief. Once she's had time to regroup a bit and climb out of her overwhelming grief, she tells him about it and rightly expects him to do something. She's returned to the living and will pull him back with her.

I also wished Helena could have stayed in the picture, but I think her role was meant to be limited. She was the catalyst that enabled George to rejoin the world and begin to recover from her mother's death. At the end of the book George is still getting text messages from H, so there's a glimmer of hope that someday they'd meet again. H was a little bit of everything George had lost: she was George's hero (rescuing her from the idiot girls in the bathroom), her potential lover, her classmate and writing partner, someone who listened and was her intellectual equal -- in short, many of the elements of the mother she'd lost.

I'm still trying to figure out Lisa Goliard. Carol tells George once that Lisa saw her, that she felt seen, much as Francesco in the "Eye" section talks about feeling seen (understood, connected to, almost magically known, whatever you'd care to call it) by the magnificent man in the white rags. I think Helena provides the same thing to George. Perhaps George needs to know more about her mother and is obsessed with Lisa because she wants to know what Lisa "saw" in Carol, some hidden aspect of her mother that George doesn't know and will never know -- I have no idea. There are just so many angles to the story and echos across books that I know I've still missed a lot.

OK, so given the length of this post I can still ramble on about this forever. I just liked it so much. But I do agree, too clever for everyday comfort, but so much fun every once in a while!

Hi again - bringing this up for two reasons.

a) because Ali Smith has just been long-listed for the 2017 Booker for Autumn, and I think it's quite interesting to compare this with Autumn. I think if you liked this, you'll like Autumn.

b) because Vee pointed out in another thread that no-one responded to her post above, and I felt guilty.... :)

So Vee - I like your insights into this book. One thing I'd like to suggest - that the Eye section is not exactly written by George and H, but deliberately written in a style they might have used - so it's "sort of" written by George and H, though actually written by Ali Smith. Is that a bit too meta?

And I can't believe I'd never noticed the "I am a camera" double-meaning...

Thanks for bringing this up again Martin.

If someone had asked me recently what the book was about , before I re-read the information here I would probably only have been able to say that it was in two parts . . . one set in the present day and one in the time of the Renaissance . . .so few brain cells working at full pelt these days!