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Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer's Reviews > The Accidental
The Accidental
by
by
2005 Whitbread (now Costa) Award winning novel and shortlisted for both the Booker and Orange (now Women’s Prize).
Incidentally the Costa is typically seen as the last literary/most populist of the UK’s main literary awards and yet (as of 2021) Ali Smith (one of the best known experimental writers in the UK – far more interested in language, form and resonance than plot or character) has won the Costa twice (the Women’s Prize once, the Goldsmith once albeit with a shorter history, and the Booker no times despite four shortistings).
I read this book partly due my love of Ali Smith (based largely around her Seasonal Quartet) but also due to its setting in Norfolk (for interest the culmination of the Seasonal Quartet is also set in Norfolk – Smith herself living nearby in Cambridge, my University town, which also features in this novel).
I purchased the book (together with a number of other Norfolk themed books) from the excellent North Norfolk independent Bookshop – Holt Bookshop (https://www.holtbookshop.co.uk/)
And from a Norfolk viewpoint I laughed at the first page when one of the characters – decidedly underwhelmed with the village where they are staying – exclaims “Ducks actually have their own roadsign” – as there is also a duck crossing sign outside the bungalow where I grew up and my Mum still lives.
The basic set up is of a family of four who spend a lengthy Summer break in 2003 in a property in the Norfolk Broads – both setting and property falling well short of their expectations. The family is the Smart’s: stepfather Michael (a University lecturer and serial adulterer with his students), Eve (an author who has hit some success with her Q&A novels which take the life of a real WWII victim and assume the victim survived – however now suffering writer’s block); Magnus (17, and something of a star-pupil but and haunted by his undiscovered role in a fake picture which caused a fellow student to kill herself), Astrid (12 and obsessed with photography and filming and with the little she knows of her real father – she has been unable to tell her parents about text bullying she has suffered)
Into their midst appears a self-assured 30-something women Amber who none of the family know and initially assume is connected to another – but who quickly becomes an uninvited house-guest.
The novel has three parts: "The Beginning," "Middle" and "The End". Each part has a third party point of view of each character as well as short first party biographical and film-heavy sections by 'Alhambra' (who seems to be Amber).
In simplisitic terms “The Beginning” sets the background to each member and to their initial interaction with Amber, “The Middle” more of a moment of crisis/resolution both with the characters directly and forcing them to deal with their crises. “The End” more how they are affected when returning to London, when the memory of Amber takes more of a dream like quantity and the have a chance to start again (the redemption symoblised by a protracted burglary in their family home which even included fixtures and fittings) and to confront their actions (provoked by a series of specific answerphone messages).
I found this an enjoyable book with strong links to the ideas and techniques explored in the “Seasonal Quartet”: rampant wordplay; an obsession with names and what they mean and what wordplay can be made around them; fragmentary sections (most noticably in Eve’s first section and Michael’s section and Alhambra’s sections); an outsider with magical powers seemingly able to defy not just physical laws but also bullies and authorities and with almost Jester-like qualities (able to say the unsayable and challenge conventions); a focus on security cameras, security guards and surveillance (I was almost surprised not to see a reference to S4A); missing parents or lost family relationships; references to contemporary (in fact very contemporary and year-specific) politics and art; references to older films (wider than Chaplin here) and literature.
One thing I found odd was that “outsider character” Amber was an adult – and I think the subsequent implications for her relationship with Michael did not work well, with Michael’s chapters reading like a teenage fantasy. Smith is stronger I think when her outsider is a child – it is perhaps interesting that the Astrid characters are the strongest here.
But overall a very worthwhile read.
Incidentally the Costa is typically seen as the last literary/most populist of the UK’s main literary awards and yet (as of 2021) Ali Smith (one of the best known experimental writers in the UK – far more interested in language, form and resonance than plot or character) has won the Costa twice (the Women’s Prize once, the Goldsmith once albeit with a shorter history, and the Booker no times despite four shortistings).
I read this book partly due my love of Ali Smith (based largely around her Seasonal Quartet) but also due to its setting in Norfolk (for interest the culmination of the Seasonal Quartet is also set in Norfolk – Smith herself living nearby in Cambridge, my University town, which also features in this novel).
I purchased the book (together with a number of other Norfolk themed books) from the excellent North Norfolk independent Bookshop – Holt Bookshop (https://www.holtbookshop.co.uk/)
And from a Norfolk viewpoint I laughed at the first page when one of the characters – decidedly underwhelmed with the village where they are staying – exclaims “Ducks actually have their own roadsign” – as there is also a duck crossing sign outside the bungalow where I grew up and my Mum still lives.
The basic set up is of a family of four who spend a lengthy Summer break in 2003 in a property in the Norfolk Broads – both setting and property falling well short of their expectations. The family is the Smart’s: stepfather Michael (a University lecturer and serial adulterer with his students), Eve (an author who has hit some success with her Q&A novels which take the life of a real WWII victim and assume the victim survived – however now suffering writer’s block); Magnus (17, and something of a star-pupil but and haunted by his undiscovered role in a fake picture which caused a fellow student to kill herself), Astrid (12 and obsessed with photography and filming and with the little she knows of her real father – she has been unable to tell her parents about text bullying she has suffered)
Into their midst appears a self-assured 30-something women Amber who none of the family know and initially assume is connected to another – but who quickly becomes an uninvited house-guest.
The novel has three parts: "The Beginning," "Middle" and "The End". Each part has a third party point of view of each character as well as short first party biographical and film-heavy sections by 'Alhambra' (who seems to be Amber).
In simplisitic terms “The Beginning” sets the background to each member and to their initial interaction with Amber, “The Middle” more of a moment of crisis/resolution both with the characters directly and forcing them to deal with their crises. “The End” more how they are affected when returning to London, when the memory of Amber takes more of a dream like quantity and the have a chance to start again (the redemption symoblised by a protracted burglary in their family home which even included fixtures and fittings) and to confront their actions (provoked by a series of specific answerphone messages).
I found this an enjoyable book with strong links to the ideas and techniques explored in the “Seasonal Quartet”: rampant wordplay; an obsession with names and what they mean and what wordplay can be made around them; fragmentary sections (most noticably in Eve’s first section and Michael’s section and Alhambra’s sections); an outsider with magical powers seemingly able to defy not just physical laws but also bullies and authorities and with almost Jester-like qualities (able to say the unsayable and challenge conventions); a focus on security cameras, security guards and surveillance (I was almost surprised not to see a reference to S4A); missing parents or lost family relationships; references to contemporary (in fact very contemporary and year-specific) politics and art; references to older films (wider than Chaplin here) and literature.
One thing I found odd was that “outsider character” Amber was an adult – and I think the subsequent implications for her relationship with Michael did not work well, with Michael’s chapters reading like a teenage fantasy. Smith is stronger I think when her outsider is a child – it is perhaps interesting that the Astrid characters are the strongest here.
But overall a very worthwhile read.
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