ha sido mi primer acercamiento a Ali Smith, después de haber leído muchas opiniones entusiastas sobre sus obras.
Tenía unas expectativas altas, y aunque no se han cumplido del todo, tampoco me ha decepcionado.
Estos cuentos destacan por su originalidad y su capacidad para sorprender: nunca sabes hacia dónde te van a llevar, y para ello nunca necesitan alejarse demasiado de la vida cotidiana.
Smith tiene un don para los comienzos: en apenas un par de frases, capta tu atención y te deja con ganas de leer más para saber qué pasa.
Sin embargo, al menos en esta recopilación, se acaba desinflando en la resolución de los cuentos.
A veces la premisa es muy buena, pero no conduce a ningún sitio,
Pese a todo, me han gustado mucho los relatos "La historia universal", "Erosión", "Rápido" y "El principio de las cosas".
Lo suficiente para animarme, más pronto que tarde, a leer alguna de sus novelas,
La frase: "En eso consistía la vida, en mantener las cosas en buen estado y las chimeneas encendidas.
" I'm rereading this fave and it is the best thing I've read all year,
Okay, done rereading, Still the best. So comforting, funny, weird, unique and delightful, Ali Smith is the best, Very well quoted from Time Out on the back cover of the paperback edition I possess Smith,s writing is full of passion, frustration, wit, whimsy and the bizarre.
Time out .
I am unable to follow the theme of this book, The writer is over ambitious about his stories to such as extent that he seems confused, . . The story is pulverized even crushed badly due to complex style of story telling, . I can not understand most of the stories, The themes and plots of most of the stories are not clear, Endings are ambiguous too. This is utterly bizarre. except The Universal story which is reasonable among others of this book, . I rated this book as one This is my second ever Ali Smith book, the first being Public Library.
Like the previous one, somewhat, this too is a collection of short stories, While I enjoy Smiths characters, Im more in love with her words, Theres something truly magical about them that makes me want to stay lost in the worlds she creates on the pages.
Of course, as is the case with most short story collections, I enjoyed some stories more than the others.
Reread
I just finished a reread of this for discussion with an online group/friend.
When I participate in a buddy or group read, I generally don't feel like I have anything else to say afterwards or maybe it's more accurate to say that I don't feel like rehashing what was discussed.
My rating of stays the same, The stories that were my favorites stayed my favorites, The others didn't captivate me nearly as much this time around now that I know even more of her works and her style.
Feb, This collection of stories has a flop or two, Some less than interesting tales, But the ones I love are made for photocopying and mailing to your ideal lover with pressed flowers and a photo of that feather you found in a graveyard.
Although I do feel it is the less impactful Ali Smith I've read as of yet, her writing is always a joy to read.
I feel like how subtly but emphatically sapphic her stories are has not been recognised enough, so here goes my thanks.
Apart from that, this was one of those "some stories are great, others good, others soso", with some weird changes or hiccups I don't know how to express it in narrative scheme, and the overall collection doesn't feel too cohesive, which I don't tend to like.
But, again, every Ali Smith is a gift and I will remember some of these stories forever so, I wouldn't recommend it to fall in love with her works but I do for people who already like reading her.
I enjoyed some of the short stories in this collection very much, others less so, All the stories have totally convincing characters and settings and all drew me in, but some lack any real plot resolution which I found frustrating.
The best ones told the same story from different viewpoints or told a story not in chronological order and were heartwarming.
The thing I love about Ali Smith is her immense optimism, This is my third Ali Smith I think, after sitelinkHotel World which I gaveand sitelinkThe Accidental which I gave.
I enjoy her. I don't think I could say love her, in the way that so many do.
But I think she is incredibly talented and will read more, as I desperately want her to win me over completely.
This is a short story collection, and as is typical of such a collection with some beloved exceptions I found that there were some brilliant moments and some which just didn't quite grab me.
It opens incredibly strongly, and there are some standout pieces seeing Death at the train station, falling in love with a tree and thwarting a hold up of a fast food restaurant.
But then at other times I just lost the thread a bit sometimes even in the same story that I had been really enjoying.
Smith's writing always has a touch of weird to it, which I have to be in the right mood for.
And although I don't always need things tied up in a neat bow, there were a lot of unresolved endings in these stories that just
made me a bit frustrated.
But her wit and way with words are utterly undeniable, and her way of capturing the Scottish experience sometimes in as little as a single sentence is pure perfection.
And that is what keeps me holding on to Smith, I know she'll blow me away if I keep picking up her books.
la primera reseña en goodreads dice “i doubt that anyone would think this is indispensable”
Estoy en desacuerdo.
Me da igual si tengo un sesgo enorme, si adoro a ali smith y todo lo que escribe.
Llevo llorando quince minutos por sentir tanto tanto tanto, esto es indispensable, esto es lo que me hace leer a ali smith.
gracias por hablar del amor y de la ruptura de la manera que yo la entiendo.
Gracias por hablar de la belleza, y de la existencia, de forma que la comprenda, que la sienta dentro, gracias por expresarlo todo.
Its official. I am not as smitten with Ali Smith the story writer as I am with Ali Smith the novelist.
Isnt that usually the case Its either one or the other with writers, Could Barthelme write a decent novel to save himself Nah, Don't link me to The King, Puhleaze. Could Barth write a short story to save either himself or Mrs Barth Nah, What about Martin Amiss short pieces Oh please! So it goes, There are stories in here I adored, most notably The Universal Story which toggles narrative positions like a prized platespinner, and Erosive which confronts the notion of structure: can a story ever, truly, finally, really, properly end The central beef I have with her stories is their oblique, wraithlike narrators, their recourse to the second person, their uncertain “poeticising” of the quotidian.
But Ali is the best novelist writing in Scotland today, so dont take my criticism with anything less than a keg of salt.
Ali Smith is always worth reading, but I doubt that anyone would consider this collection to be indispensable, though it does have its charms, and the first story "The Universal Story" is quite impressive.
This sets the tone for the collection by switching perspectives several times in the course of less thanpages.
All of the other stories change focus at least once, several of them between two halves of a couple, and they share Smith's talent for seeing the unusual in fairly quotidian situations.
The other story I particularly liked was the ironically named "Paradise", which highlights the lack of opportunities for three young sisters growing up in Inverness, spearing a few lazy cliches about the Highlands in the process.
The book might have made more of an impression on me if I had devoted it my full attention rather than the odd story here and there while taking breaks from the much bigger task of reading sitelinkThe House of Government, which rather confirmed my view that I prefer to concentrate on one book at a time.
Ali Smith's short stories are not as playful or experimental as here novels, however there is a certain amount of consistency which I find rare with short story collections.
Plus there are a couple of brilliant ones, The opening one being the strongest, At this point read The Accidental or How to be Both and you'll be more aware of this talented author's penmanship.These were pretty creative but they lacked any sense of urgency, There's much to enjoy here: breezy, effortless style, clever structural play, the writer's brimful confidence, curiosity and charm, the strong sense of place infusing most of the pieces.
The story I love best, "Paradise," the tale of a Scottish tourist town on Loch Ness and three semimiserable young sisters who dream of escaping it, is one of the few that carried much emotional punch.
I admired most of the stories, with their light touch, their mystery, their sheer joy I would've liked a little more weight.
reread this story by story with an online group :
late
early
Some of these are purely deliciously all that is wonderful about Ali : sitelinkwww.
facebook. com/miciausknygos
Esu skaitęs šios škotų rašytojos kelias parašytas knygas, tarp jų ir metų laikų seriją, tad nusprendžiau perskaityti ir šią trumpą, nė dviejų šimtų puslapių neturinčią knygą.
Skaitant šias istorijas galima sutikti, moteris persekiojamas dūdmaišių orkestro, traukinių stotyje susitikti su mirtimi, pamatyti knygyną kurį aplanko keistuoliai arba iš "didžiojo Getsbio" knygų statomą laivą.
Visos istorijos traukia savo paprastumu, bet kartu kyla mintis kaip galima buvo su galvoti tokias įtraukiančias istorijas.
Kas yra skaitęs bent vieną šios autorės knygą tikrai man pritars, kad visi jos kūriniai tokie, neveltui ji tokia populiari ne tik gimtojoje Škotijoje, bet ir visame pasaulyje.
This is a rather unassuming short story collection that gave me such joy to read for reasons I dont know how to articulate.
Only my second Ali Smith and I reckon its not one of the more essential ones to read but I really enjoyed this.
I only liked "Universal Story" from this volume of stories, The others were trying too much to be good and they weren't or they were really unfocused and weird.
I like weird, but not the kind of weird I found here, This one is a mix bag, love some of it and some aren't for me, This is the second short story collection I have read by Ali Smith and what's amazing about her stories is you get something from each of them one way or another.
Prachtig! Je krijgt echt het gevoel dat je de wereld door Smiths vingertoppen bekijkt Quite a quirky read with a strand of Scottishness running as a thread through the stories.
hardly surprising
Quite a number of these, when using the first person, I found it difficult to know for certain the gender of the protagonist a minor point but annoying.
Because it is a collection where some worked for me, 'The Universal Story, Being Quick and others didn't Paradise I didn't twig there weresisters until I read other reviews I played it straight down the middle in awardingstars.
My wife and I grabbed this one earlier in the summer at the library sale in Louisville.
I had read Hotel World a million years ago after buying it at the Strand and recalled its haunting, inchoate characters.
Memories of that appear rather reinforced by some observations in London a year or so later,
I read the first two stories around the time of its purchase and found both intriguing.
The third story, the protagonist sees Death at the train staion, I felt glib and stopped there.
I read the forementioned story today in entirety and then finished the collection, Smith does a fine job of going half way with a protagonist's perspective and then switching to the partner or counterpart.
Stories make me tired. They also inspire a longing for novels, Its deeper there. .