How to Be Both

A Novel

By: Ali Smith

Narrated by: John Banks

How to Be Both is the dazzling new novel by Ali Smith. It is long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2014. Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive, and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith's novels are like nothing else. How to Be Both is a novel all about art’s versatility. Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving, genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths, and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real - and all life’s givens get given a second chance.

©2014 Ali Smith (P)2014 W.F. Howes

Ali Wordsmith

No doubts why she’s a winner
Wow
So life like
Like life,
the unreality of it.

👍

excellent writing

I loved this book. This was required reading for one of my college English classes and I'm so glad that it was. Very touching and heartfelt. The writing is quite good and the narration is entertaining and engaging.

Impressive

Loved the interesting way stories are told. Impressive work of art and writing. I want to see the real paintings.

A SHATTERED LIFE

Ali Smith has written several books and plays, mostly fiction with one nonfiction titled “Shire”. In 2014, she is awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (A prestigious UK Prizes for fiction), and the Costa Book Award (also a UK award) for “How to Be Both”. It is two stories separated by eight centuries. The two stories are written from the perspective of a camera and what is categorized as “eyes”. Smith has the book published in two ways, i.e., with the first of the stories to be a photograph of “life” and the second, presumably, “life” as it happens. One can read either story first. The audiobook version of this listen is the camera version first. The two stories are related to each other. Camera takes place in the 21st century while “eyes” is in the 15th century.

There are many parallels one might draw in the two stories, but it is tiresome to contemplate what they are, and trying to ferret them out will make some reader/listeners quit this review, let alone the audiobook. Ali Smith is a good writer of interesting stories if one judges this audiobook as an example of her skill. However, to this reviewer, dissection of Smith’s intent spoils its entertainment value.

Brilliant Writing

I listened to this twice as there were nuances I missed the first round. Narration was spot on and gave warmth to the characters. The descriptions of art are breathtakingly beautiful and the examination of memory is poignant. There is humor and a generosity of compassion in the characters and I could see them as if they were standing in the same room, or rather, I was in the room with them. Love the references to language, both funny and informative. One of a few books I can listen to over and over. Not for those who are frustrated with the lack of a direct linear storyline… you must surrender joyfully and let it pull you out to sea.

Incompetent Foreign Pronunciation

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I never finish listening to, much less recommend, books in which the narrator has not taken the time to learn to pronounce foreign words correctly.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of John Banks?

Banks is a good reader/actor, but Like so many narrators, he didn't study the pronunciation of foreign words, in this case Italian. It really detracts from the listening experience to hear names of places and major characters mispronounced. What would it take for the producer to require that a narrator work with an accent and pronunciation coach for a day?

Was How to Be Both worth the listening time?

See comments above.

Any additional comments?

Please don't give prompts for reviews as if we were in grade school.

Two stories, two responses

Ali Smith is a master of her craft and How to Be Both is masterly, full of nuanced and fascinating characters. The hard copy was published in two versions, half with one narrative at the start, half with the other. I don't know if we audio readers also had two different versions but I preferred reading about the mother/daughter relationship rather than about the life of a Renaissance muralist, even though the two stories interlace.. If you love word play, you'll find that the section on the girl abounds with it, and I ate it up.

Read this one instead

Hard to follow by listening. A lot of elements don’t transfer well to the audiobook format. Not a great story overall but could be better understood in written form.

unresolved ending

Choose your own adventure ending. This is Sad with really no resolution. A big disappointment.