Given the similarity of their themes, I can’t help comparing ‘Spring’ with [b:Only Americans Burn in Hell|41735690|Only Americans Burn in Hell|Jarett Kobek|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1536361803l/41735690._SY75_.jpg|65121368]. Both elucidate the horrors of second modernity (as [a:Shoshana Zuboff|710768|Shoshana Zuboff|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1563298665p2/710768.jpg] calls it), including social media death threats, neo-fascist demagogues, and persecution of refugees. Both address the reader directly at least some of time; both use allegorical and somewhat fantastical elements (Kobek more than Smith). Harsh as it sounds, Smith is definitely a more skilled writer, however the most significant difference is tone. Both confront the reader with horrifying realities that we’d rather ignore, Smith by taking you into a squalid government detention centre for refugees. While Kobek’s novel leaves the reader feeling almost completely hopeless, though, Smith's does not. Her characters have a vividness, a kindness, and an empathy that is missing from Kobek’s book, apparently deleted by the shock of Donald Trump’s presidency. ‘Spring’ follows a suicidal TV director, a detention centre employee, and a mysterious young girl from one end of Britain to the other. While the narrative isn't naively optimistic, neither does it discard the power of community, kindness, and art to counter cruelty.

I found ‘Spring’ a return to the heights of [b:Autumn|28446947|Autumn (Seasonal, #1)|Ali Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1456560519l/28446947._SY75_.jpg|48572278], which was a highlight of my 2017 reading. [b:Winter|34516974|Winter (Seasonal #2)|Ali Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1498905680l/34516974._SY75_.jpg|55647867] was very good without being revelatory, but with ‘Spring’ Smith has once again seized the zeitgeist and played clever literary games with it to brilliant effect. She considers, amongst other things, how art interprets the world and people justify collusion with evil, how we experience grief and regret, our responses to service automation, history, and social media. For example:

But why? Richard had asked when it came to audience questions. Why are you doing this? Why go out of your way to create any of this at all?
To demonstrate what people will write or send when they contact the website, the young man said. People like feeling. They like to be asked to feel. Feeling is a very powerful thing. I’ve already been approached by numerous advertisers keen to advertise on Mourning Has Broken.
Do the people who respond to your, your, website, do they know that these people you’re displaying as having so sadly passed away are all completely made up? Richard said.
We explain that the profiles are fictional prototypes in the small print of the terms and conditions for initial log-in to the website, the man said. You have to log in if you want to send us a message. Which also means we have, as a by-product, an expanding list, it’s called a database, of personal information about our website members.
But you’re lying, someone in the audience said. You’re lying about life, about the deaths, about emotional connection.
No, I’m storytelling, the young man said. The emotional connection is true. And it’s very very valuable.
But you’re pretending it’s real, and it isn’t, the woman holding the microphone said.
It is real, the young man said. It’s real if you think it is.

On a related note, I’m still reading [b:The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power|26195941|The Age of Surveillance Capitalism The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power|Shoshana Zuboff|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521733914l/26195941._SY75_.jpg|46170685] and can already tell it’s going to be one of those books I go on about endlessly to anyone who will listen. ‘Spring’ includes a glorious riff on the concept:

We want to narrate your life. We want to be the book of you. We want to be the only connection that matters. We want it to be inconvenient for you not to use us. We want you to look at us and as soon as you stop looking at us to feel the need to look at us again. We want you not to associate us with lynch mobs, witchhunts, and purges unless they’re your lynch mobs, witchhunts, and purges.
We want your pasts and your presents because we want your futures too.
We want all of you.

And this heartbreaking sequence:

My being ineligible makes you all the more eligible.
No worries. Happy to help.
Also you’ll notice this face resembles the drawings on the posters that tell you to report anything you think looks suspicious.
Tell the police if you see anyone who looks like me, because my face is of urgent matter to your nation.
Not at all. No problem. Glad to be of service.

‘Spring’ may have all the beauty that [b:Only Americans Burn in Hell|41735690|Only Americans Burn in Hell|Jarett Kobek|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1536361803l/41735690._SY75_.jpg|65121368] lacks, but it’s no less mercilessly insightful. The prose is bright, sharp, and full of layered subtlety. It commands your attention and forces contemplation. What an utterly brilliant novel; I absolutely recommend it. ( )

gods i hate this book. the characters dont act like actual people. it's the most pretentious thing ive ever read and overall just incomprehensible. writing notes and comments in it with a pen while reading was the only way i could get through the book, and some of my own bored comments occasionally make me smile when i read it back, and they are the only reasons why i havent burned the book ritualistically.

and you know what? it actually has somewhat interesting commentary that would have been more interesting if it didnt feel like i was being lectured by an old person that had learned a couple new and hip buzz words on facebook and decided to add them to their vocabulary

unfortunately i was unlucky enough to actually have to read this book for a class and i actually had to STUDY the bloody thing and answer questions about it in an exam. curse this book for making me suffer.

i also remember a character looking at a pile of lemons and reminiscing about how they look like boobs. i dont have anything to say about that. i guess i just found that strange. ( )

A soft four stars. I think I don't love Spring as much as I love the two previous novels in Smith's quartet, Autumn and Winter but nevertheless the author's passionate, witty, deeply angry intellect is on grand display here.

I wonder how these books will read in 30 years, when I think we as humans will look back on this time with a great deal of despair and regret. Regardless, these books are a time capsule of an upset Western world, drawing together art and politics, history and the present, naturalism and mythology, into a compelling literary strand. ( )

(6.5)I only finished this book a few days ago but am already struggling to recall the characters and storyline. Not a good sign. I found it disjointed and uneven.
I did enjoy the portrayal of the relationship between Richard, the aging film director and his longtime friendship with Paddy his scriptwriter, who was dying of cancer.
Spring is the time for hope and new beginnings and following Paddy's death, Richard walks away from his life and catches a train North. When he gets off at a random station and plans to end his life, a 13year old girl, Florence, intervenes and he becomes involved in an escapade with her and her companion Brit. Brit works as a Detention Officer at a camp for refugees. Here we learn of the unfair treatment that is being meted out to the detainees by Britain.
There is also an element of surrealism especially around the child Florence. At times I felt I didn't understand what was happening. It did manage to end on a lighter note with Richard contemplating making contact with his estranged adult daughter. ( )

Spring, Ali Smith's third installment in her seasons quartet, begins with Richard, an aging director who is deeply unhappy with the direction of the project he was working on. He ends up standing on a platform at a train station in the north of Scotland. Meanwhile, Brit is working as a guard at a detention center for refugees. There is a story floating around about a girl who can move around without being stopped and when Brit sees her, she feels compelled to join the girl, Florence, on a train journey to a small station in the north of Scotland.

Spring makes the same references to the arts as the previous two novels, moving between the main story and one about [[Katherine Mansfield]] and [[Rainer Maria Rilke]] in a hotel in the Swiss Alps, as well as the photographer Tacita Dean who, like Pauline Boty from [Autumn], was new to me. Smith is a talented author, writing at the peak of her abilities and yet this book feels like the weakest in the quartet so far. It is just a little too blunt in its execution to match the subtler approach of the first two books. Her anger is apparent and utterly justifiable; the way asylum seekers and refugees are treated by the wealthiest and allegedly Christian nations is abominable. A less heavy-handed approach might have been more effective. No one enjoys a sermon, even when one agrees with every word. ( )

My favorite so far. Waiting for Summer... ( )

Didn’t understand it all, but I liked the way she told the story and the way she provoked feelings about the inhumane treatment of immigrants and refugees. Probably too modern for a poorly educated old geezer but I definitely got something from it. ( )

This is the third book in Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet. There are two main storylines, both set in the UK in the same present time frame, which converge near the end. The first story involves aging television director Richard Lease, and his good friend, mentor, and scriptwriter Patricia (Paddy) Neal. As the story opens, Paddy has died, and Richard is attending her funeral. We gradually learn about the mentoring relationship of Paddy and Richard, a project Richard is working on (of which Paddy does not approve), and pieces of their backstories.

The second story involves Detainee Custody Officer Brittany Hall. She is working a job she does not like for a security company in charge of an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC). A girl has gained access to the IRC and managed to get improvements made. This girl asks Brittany a series of questions, and Brittany ends of following her on a train traveling to Scotland.

The narrative jumps back and forth between the two stories in a rather disjointed way. There is not much of a flow here, though there is a lot going on, such as explorations of art, literature, scriptwriting, a number of political issues, grief, environmentalism, and economics. The main theme is the UK’s anti-immigration policies and what happens to detainees. She leaves a lot of loose ends for the reader to connect. Personally, I prefer a bit more of a straightforward story, but it is imaginative and clever, filled with lots of cultural and historical references.
( )

This novel revolves around three incongruous characters: a film director, a security guard at an immigrant center and a somewhat magical teen who goes about setting things right, including saving the director from a suicide attempt and improving conditions at the immigration center.

If I had to name a theme, I would say it is loss and change, perhaps hanging on until the next better thing comes along. Isn’t that what spring is? Winter is over and something new (good or bad) is coming.

Yet I found this one less engaging than the previous two in the series. There were parts where the writing sang for me; however it just didn’t hang together well and told less of a story than Fall and Winter.

I’ll probably go on to Summer, but am less enthusiastic than I was before I read this volume ( )

“April.
It teaches us everything.
The coldest and nastiest days of the year can happen in April. It won’t matter. It’s April.”

“Even the machine has to encounter nature, not even it can escape the earth. There's something reassuring in that.”

"The light starts to push back, stark in the cold. But birdsong rounds the day, the first and last thing as the light comes and goes."

The third in Smith’s seasonal quartet is a tough one to describe. It is more immersive and introspective, than plot driven. Four different people get thrown together, while traveling through Scotland. An aged film director, a security guard, a librarian and a mysterious twelve-year-old girl. How their lives change on this chance meet-up, is the thrust of the story. There are plenty of ruminations on Shakespeare, poetry, climate change and Brexit. Not always an easy read but her lovely writing and pure ambition make it worthy of your time. ( )

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2022/01/2022008-spring-ali-smith.html ( )

This book took me a long time to read, and considering how short it is I can definitely attribute that to my own attention issues and not the book. In the beginning of reading this I don't think I paid as much attention as this book demands. I didn't realize how demanding this book would be? Not demanding in the way that classic literature is, more so It requires you to learn and listen as you read, and to even do research to truly understand the nuance of some comparisons. Apart from that, I don't think I've read prettier modern period prose than I have when reading this book. Sure, I haven't read much, but Ali Smith is a fantastic writer. She integrates dialogue in such a natural, non-obstructive way and it's as if real people were speaking rather than models for people. I think it's very easy in a book about such dense and angering topics to make preacher like characters who aren't people but messengers for a theme. But Ali Smith didn't write perfect people, she wrote real people. Real people that don't have resolved endings and are dealing with this new Spring in their lives, dealing with the pain of the thawing winter. And how people can be so frozen in their ways that they aren't ready to accept that change. So, yeah. I will be reading the rest of this seasonal quartet and I hope that they inspire as much thought in me as this one did. ( )

Spring and the feeling of hope is here in this book but much of it was too sad to really feel this. The darkness of winter kept creeping into this spring. As ever, Ali Smith is a powerful story teller. She brings in so much information and so many ideas. Please read other reviews for more detail! ( )

There are so many excellent reviews already posted that I can't possibly add much insight. I loved this book....but at first, I didn't. We start with the story of Richard, an aging film maker who was more famous decades ago. He has recently lost his best friend and co-worker, finds himself alone with only an uninspiring project offered to him.

There is a sudden jolt in the novel, and we move to the story of Brit, an officer in charge of immigrants awaiting deportation and a young schoolgirl named Florence. I wondered if these stories would come together because they were so different. As I became more engrossed in this story, I started liking the book again.

And they do come together in a wonderful way. The book contains the message of the importance of hope in spite of every evidence to the contrary. ( )

Another season, same great feeling. Ali Smith continues to create a wonderful mindset of feelings. I’ve become seriously addicted to these books. When I started Spring, I was feeling that I liked Winter the best, and then I kept reading, and I wasn’t as sure. All three of the seasons/books are clever and find a daring and fresh use of language. They are all uniquely strange in that they don’t use much of any narrative or have a firm plotline running through them, Smith does her thing and leaves impressions. The books have different characters that reappear within them, but there aren’t many active scenes.

And then there’s the visual appearance that uses several styles in different sections, many with a variety of font sizes and layouts. Often there were many short lines, almost like a form of poetry, but they were always evolving. She also creates a text that is very rich in puns. Smith keeps the reader on their toes, as one is never sure if you’re reading a dream, are being invited into a hallucination, and where the book will pull together, or if it even needs to. A reviewer said that Spring made them think of something in a raw state like a Twitter rant.

One of the book’s major characters is named Florence, who we “know” to be in her early teens, but most everything else about her isn’t nailed down, isn’t firm, anything else about her could just be some vague rumors of fact. How does Smith make this vagueness work so well? I’m not even going to attempt an explanation here. The two main discernable stories in the book do eventually bring Florence together with the more defined characters of Brit (who works at an Immigration Removal center outside of London), and Richard (a television director who was much more relevant back in the 1970s), in a Scottish town and it somehow miraculously works. Ali Smith could be an outstanding poker player, as she’s very good at holding her cards close to her chest, while keeping an excellent poker face that reveals nothing beyond what makes her writing able to amaze the reader.

Because I waited several years until I had all four volumes of the quartet in hand, I have chosen to read them in order, but I’m still pondering exactly how a different order would change the overall experience. Again, I don’t have an answer. That old standby line about not overthinking something, and to simply let art wash over you … comes to mind. The political and social landscape of Great Britain was making some serious twists and turns as she wrote some of these books during the evolution of Brexit. The anger and discord of the different factions seems to bring more of an edge to this season.

This is a vague review, but these books are not written in black and white with clear boundaries, they work for me because I’m trying mightily to keep my anal-retentive, detail-craving mind in the background. Anyone reading this piece knew this line of thought would show up before I was done here: these books will either work for you or you’ll be on the outside wondering what exactly you just read. Through the first three books, I’ve been in the room thoroughly loving these seasons. ( )

‘’None of it touches me. It’s nothing but water and dust. You’re nothing but bonedust and water. Good. More useful to me in the end.
I’m the child who’s been buried in leaves. The leaves rot down: here I am.’’

Four people meet in Scotland under peculiar circumstances. An elderly director who has lost his heart, a troubled young woman, an enigmatic librarian/canteen-keeper and an extraordinary 12-year-old girl searching for her mother. How can one person alter the lives of many? How can they save them? And how do we repay the help we have received? There are no easy answers to these questions. But we can read this book and try to understand.

‘’February. The first bee hits the window glass.
The light starts to push back, stark in the cold. But birdsong rounds the day, the first and last thing as the light comes and goes.
Even in the dark the air tastes different. In the light from the streetlight the branches of the bare trees are lit with rain. Something has changed. No matter how cold it is that rain is not winter rain any more.
The days lengthen.
That’s where the word Lent comes from’’

Richard, Florence, Brit and Alda find themselves in the setting of a contemporary Pericles, a tragedy enriched with the symbolism of the Spring, the rebirth and the rejuvenation of Hope. But is there any Hope, really? In stark and lyrical language, with Scotland at its heart, the novel is a raw commentary on the immigration crisis and Brexit, the daily life that has to go on in an environment of tension and uncertainty. But I’m not here to talk about politics. I never discuss such issues online, among absolute strangers. My opinions are my own and nobody’s business. I am interested in human relationships, this is what I always look for in a novel and Ali Smith excels in that field. With Florence as our mysterious guide and the sad voice of Richard, we become a part of a story about loss, reconciliation with the past, surviving a threatening present that is draining, justice and dignity.

‘’If you rise at dawn in a clear sky, and during the month of March, they say you can catch a bag of air so intoxicated with the essence of spring that when it is distilled and prepared, it will produce an oil of gold, remedy enough to heal all ointments.’’

It’s not just the story that makes Spring special but also the beautiful tidbits that elevate the novel. The beautiful character of Paddy, the enticing, cryptic Alda, the wisdom of Florence. The harrowing descriptions of the Troubles, the beautiful homage to Katherine Mansfield and Rainer Maria Rilke. The poignant observations on the absurd fashion and worry that every word we use may end up being offensive as dictated by the Twitter mob that launches crusades, hidden behind a screen and a (probably) dirty keyboard. The Highland traditions, the scenes from Candlemass, the story of St Brigid, the awakening of March, the dance of the Maidens, the echoes of the Jacobite Rising.

I can only imagine the perfection that Summer and Autumn are going to be…

‘’What’s under your road surface now?
What’s under your house’s foundations?
What’s warping your doors?
What’s giving your world the fresh colours?
What’s the key to the song of the bird? What’s forming the beak in the egg?
What’s sending the thinnest of green shoots through that rock so the rock starts to split?’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ ( )

Each of the books in Smith's Seasonal Quartet focus on a few major subjects/social justice issues/moral imperatives. Spring explores the detainment of refugees and migrants as well as the dehumanization of the people who we place in these centers (as well as the general disregard and/or derision that our society has for people labeled 'other' or 'foreign') . She looks at this topic through a few different lenses so that the reader can get a full view of the situation. We see the inside of a detainment facility in the UK through the eyes of a Detainment Officer named Brittany who has lost all compassion for the people under her 'care'. [A/N: The care aspect is dubious at best if the person doing the caring sees the people as inconveniences instead of humans which is pretty much the main point that Smith is making.] When Brittany meets a young girl at the train station who seems to have an almost hypnotic effect on everyone that she meets (including Brittany) the story takes a turn because Brittany (as well as the reader) is confronted with serious questions about otherness, belonging, and moral responsibility on a macro scale.

The same time that this storyline is unfolding there is a parallel storyline following a director named Richard who has lost someone very close to him and has decided that life has lost all meaning as a result. His story is told very descriptively through literature and film references and without any visuals still manages to evoke clear pictures in the mind of the reader. (If you couldn't tell I really loved it.) Rainer Maria Rilke and Katherine Mansfield's stories are told alongside his as he wrestles with adapting a book about them into a film. I feel that Smith's writing is valuable and poignant as well as incredibly relevant (purposely so which is why I somewhat regret not reading these as they came out). I'm very much looking forward to the last in the series but I'm also sad to be finishing the journey. Spring is a definite 10/10.

[A/N: As a slight spoiler, there are mentions of suicidal ideation so be aware if that might be triggering to you.] ( )

The third in Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet, and another good, engaging read. I really enjoy Smith's wonderfully complex narratives. ( )

Richard is an aging filmmaker who’s just lost his best friend, screenwriter Paddy. Brittany is a security guard at an Immigration Removal Centre. Florence is a child with a mysterious ability to get people to do things they don’t want to do. Their lives will unexpectedly collide in Kingussie, Scotland.

The arts are as prominent in this book as in the first book in Smith’s Seasonal Quartet. This time it’s Katherine Mansfield, Rainer Maria Rilke, Charlie Chaplin, Beethoven, and visual artist Tacita Dean. There is grief, depression, and fear, but also the hope signified by spring.

The writing is what I’ve come to expect from Smith, yet it feels a bit derivative. Richard’s conversations with an imaginary daughter is a device Atwood uses to good effect in Hag-Seed. And the whole book has the feel of a Jackson Brodie novel, but without Jackson Brodie. ( )

Richard Lease, a documentary filmmaker is reeling from the death of his longtime collaborator and occasional lover Paddy. He is also struggling to develop for screen a novel imagining an interval of time during which Katherine Mansfield and Rainer Maria Rilke lived in the same small mountain town—did they ever meet? What would they have said to each other? Midway through the book, his life converges with Brit, an aimless guard in an immigrant detention facility and 12 year old Florence, who has a way of speaking truth to power and getting results. As in the other volumes of the quartet, there is little plot, and the narration is nonlinear. But there is a lot going on about contemporary life in Britain, and in this volume much of the focus is on the detention of immigrants and refugees. There’s also a lot of discussion of art, and I once again learned about a contemporary British artist I’d not known of before, Tacita Dean.

That completes my reading of the quartet, out of order, unfortunately. I’m putting all four volumes on my “To Be Reread” list, if I happen to live long enough, to be reread in order. It would be well-worth it.

4 1/2 stars ( )

This is a book of our time for our time. Ali Smith captures the noise and inhumanity of social media, the threads of stories that we are living, the refugee crisis and detainment that strips away humanity, the ignorance and willful blindness to humanity that some willingly embark upon. This book is beautiful and bleak at once, full of hope and despair intertwined. I have greatly appreciated the slow burn of this book and cannot wait to read Summer next year. Once I do, I plan to re-read all of the books in immediate sequence to see what connections can be made in the cycle. ( )

Spring is the third in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet, a series of loosely connected novels set in contemporary Britain. Richard Lease, a filmmaker, is mourning the loss of his colleague and dear friend, Paddy. He bailed out of his latest project, caught a train to northern Scotland, and began considering his next steps, quite literally. After spending about one third of the book inside Richard’s head, learning about his career and his friendship with Paddy, Smith suddenly jumps to an Immigration Removal Center where a young woman named Brit works as a security guard, and a mysterious girl recently found her way into the center to advocate for the immigrants’ rights.

This sounds disjointed, and the non-linear narrative of each story makes it even more so, and yet it works. The story occasionally jumps forward a few months, and then back again. The threads all come together into a narrative that leads each character to new places, literally and figuratively. I admit I wasn’t always sure just what Ali Smith was trying to say, but I found piecing this puzzle together oddly satisfying. I can’t wait to read the last book in the quartet. ( )

My least favourite of the season cycle so far. It’s funny really, as the meat of the story - examining detention centres - arguably gets closer to examining modern Britain than the “blah Brexit blah“ of its predecessors. ( )

Just as the years moves on so does Ali Smith with the third volume of her seasonal quartet. Now, its spring time, the time of the year between death and re-birth, between the end and a new beginning. A promising time, but also a time which can surprise and is hard to foresee. This time, we meet Richard, an elderly filmmaker who is still shaken by his former colleague and friend Patricia Heal’s death. He remembers his last visits when she was already between here and there. Richard is standing on a train platform with clearly suicidal intentions when a girl and a custody officer rush by. Florence and Brittany are headed for a place which they assume somewhere in Scotland, on their journey this unusual couple also addresses the big questions of life and humanity which Brittany can hardly find in the prison she works where the detainees are dehumanised and not even granted the least bit of privacy.

Just like the two novels before in this quartet, Ali Smith captures the mood of the country at a very critical point. In my opinion, “Spring” is absolutely outstanding since it has several layers of narrative, it is philosophical, literary, sociological, psychological, political – an eclectic mix of thoughts and notions that come together or rather have to be put together by the reader. While, on the one hand, being were close to an archaic understanding of the concept of time and the natural course of a year, there are many references to artists and the imaginary world.

Underlying the whole novel is a certain despair - Richard’s grieve, Britt’s disillusion with her job, Florence’s detachedness from humans which makes her almost invisible – in a time of political shaky times: Brexit, migration crisis, an overall suspicion in society about what (social) media and politics tell them and more importantly what they do not tell. Will there come a summer? And if so, what will it be like? As spring always is a new beginning, something might be overcome or left behind and something has the chance to flourish, at least the hope remains.

I found it a bit harder this time to find my way in the novel, therefore, “Autumn” remains my favourite so far and I am quite impatient to see, what “Summer” will bring. ( )

The author creates a folk tale to deliver hope to refugees and detainees, whose harrowing experiences are also documented here. I am too cynical to be convinced, but as always I appreciate her inventive storytelling and playfulness with language. Recommended.

Favorite lines:
"What kind of a culture is it that wants its people not to know? What kind of a culture wants some people to have less chance to access information and knowledge than the people who can afford to pay for it?"

A character who imagines another "...as a book open in someone's hands, held with kindness... She was desperate to be opened herself, too, and read, especially by someone who loved what she'd tell them, someone who'd learn things from all the facts she had in her about the world." ( )