Winter

By Ali Smith

This is the second book in her quatro of books based on titles of the seasons. I did not find this book as interesting or powerful as the first one, Autumn. 

In this book Art (Arthur) is working from home trying to find copyright infringement on the Internet.  I think the author makes reference to winter and death.  However, I think this bookis more about truth.  As we learn about Art we find out that he writes a popular blog on a nature theme.  We find out two things about his blog:1) he lies, he writes about nature issues as he imagines them and makes things up on his blog.  In one of his posts he writes about having spotted a Canadian warbler in England.  These have never been see before.  2)his blog has been taken over by his ex-girlfriend who is writing all sorts of annoying stuff which is getting his followers angry at him and he is getting so many angry emails and tweets that he has had to turn off his phone.

It is Christmastime and Art is supposed to be taking his girlfriend with him to visit his Mother for the holidays.  As he no longer has a girlfriend he approaches a girl he sees lingering on a bus bench to come to his mother's with him.  He offers her one-thousand pounds to come and spend a few days with him.  Art does not like his mother and doesn't really want to spend time with her.

We then meet a woman who seems to have a disembodied child's head floating around her.  She eventually gets used to this and it even sleeps with her in her bed.  As time passes the hair on the face seems to be falling out and the features on the face fade until nothing is left but a stone.  We learn that this woman is Art's mother.

Art's mother has been a successful entrepreneur, featuring items that are trending at the time, e.g. meditation items, or old fashioned light fixtures.  When they arrive at her house outside of London they find his mother is huddled in a coat, hat and mitts and has no food in the house.  Art and his mother are not getting along.  The girl he has brought along is initially rejected by his mother, however Lux is very gentle with her and gradually she is able to convince Art's mother to remove some of her outerwear.  She also gets her to eat a little bit of food.  She also convinces Art to contact his Aunt, who has been estranged from his mother for years.

The Aunt who is supposedly in Greece working with refugees shows up rather quickly with a box full of vegetables.  The Aunt cooks a meal, Art's mother seems to avoid all the food but Lux is able to coax her to eat a bit.  The two sisters argue about the past including whether the sister looked after Art when he was young.  Art's mother had quite often dropped Art off with her father as she went about running her business.  Her sister insists that it was she who actually looked afer the boy.

We learn that the aunt was living in a house with a bunch of hippies in her youth and that Art's mother became pregnant by one of the men in that house.  The house was in quite a state of disrepair.
We discover that Art's mother later bought the house after it had been renovated.  The aunt did a lot of protesting about environmental issues and was also part of the long women's protest against cruise missles in Britain (this is the fenced area mentioned in the first book). 

The house is located in a somewhat isolated area but one day a bus arrives with British birdlovers on the hunt for that Canadian bird that Art claims he spotted.  They want him to tell them where he saw it and tell him there have been other sitings of the bird.  He doesn't tell them and after they have a meal at the house the birders set off on their quest.

The two sisters seem to become less aggressive toward each other and even share some good memories.  Art and Lux return to London and he pays her.  Later Art asks his ex-girlfriend if she wants to take over his blog and she agrees to asking him to write occasional posts.  The book ends with Art trying to connect with Lux again but he is unable to find her.

I have no idea what the floating head/stone is about.  It is obvious that Art's mother is having a breakdown.  She is terrified of eating thinking it will poison her.  The lies that Art tells on his blog are I think comments on the world today.  There are some references to Brexit and to Donald Trump.  While Art's Aunt seems to have maintained her passion for good causes, Art, his mother and Lux seem isolated and lonely.  Lux seems to have had a positive impact on all of them but then she is gone.

I wonder what "Spring" will bring.   I hope it is less depressing than winter.