K.D. Absolutely's Reviews > The Accidental

This novel was shortlisted in the 2005 Booker. This and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go lost to John Banville's The Sea. I can't believe it!

Compared to "The Sea", this book's storytelling is very innovative. Brilliantly fresh. My first Ali Smith and I thought I was reading the 21st century equivalent of my favorite James Joyce. The first half is alienating because it basically uses stream-of-consciousness with the main characters having their own POVs per chapter and Smith used terms and events that are basically known probably to people in England except when she used contemporary world-known lines from movies, e.g., "Love Actually" or songs, e.g., Streisand's "Love, soft as an easy chair". Then I saw myself singing while trying to figure out what was the book was trying to tell me. But I love it for its newness. I mean, Smith went everywhere with her narration especially in the first part, The Beginning. Then the plot started to take shape in the second part, The Middle before she finally tied all the loose ends and made herself clear in the last part called The End. On the criticism that the girl Amber's role seemed not to make sense, I think her role was just to let the family members realize their true selves.

The Smart family, composed of Michael, the father, Eve the mother, Magnus, the son and the daughter Astrid, is a typical Western dysfuntional family. In the beginning of the book, the young girl Astrid brings with her, anywhere she goes, a camera and she has this habit of capturing sunrises and sundowns. My take on this is that Astrid tries to filter what she sees through her camera because it is through the lens where she can figure out things better. It's kind of metaphor and I loved it.

One day, she finds a beautiful letter that her father wrote to her mother when they were still courting each other. This seems to have made her realize that their family was once a happy one. When the father was not yet having extra-marital affairs with his students, the son hasn't been the cause of his classmate suicide and the mother hasn't lost touch of the reality in her life. The reason why I said this is that towards the end when Astrid kisses her mother, "Eve was moved beyond believe by the kiss." It reminded me that we sometimes all get to busy with our everyday tasks and we forget kissing and hugging our loved ones. This is kind of a cliche but true.

My favorite character is of course Astrid. She is now one of the fictional characters that I will remember for a long time or maybe remember forever. Smith was able to beautifully capture the eccentricities and intensity of a 12-y/o lost character.

I will be reading more novels by Ali Smith for sure. Same goes for Kazuo Ishiguro: I'm currently reading my 7th novel written by him. But not for John Banville. After I read his "The Sea," I decided not to pick another one by him. This is one of those cases when I don't agree with the Booker jurors.