Customer Reviews

The Accidental: A novel

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

There are so many pleasures to be found in this skillfully crafted book. Whether it is the characters' names, their hidden perceptions, the setup, or the interior monologue of the catalyctic Amber, the only story told in first person. Initially, the four "Smarts" are so wrapped up in their individual dramas, that they barely intersect. Many issues of the day are addressed, some of which don't become apparent until after the book has been closed. The reader keeps returning to passages, wondering how this or that was missed the first time around, but realizing that until the entire picture has been presented, it would be impossible to isolate a revelation. To say more would ruin new readers' experience of taking this journey for themselves. It provided more fun than I've had in a long time with a book.

Surprise and chance have a way of intrusively wedging a new perspective into people's lives. The four members of the Smart family seem in particular need of just such an unexpected element during their holiday in the Norfolk countryside. All of them are on the brink of a major crisis in their lives, but most of them are carefully avoiding the reality of their situations. At their idyllic getaway which the daughter Astrid views as an "unhygienic dump" they receive an unexpected visitor who brashly delivers a new point of view. From beginning, middle to end they are shaken into a new understanding of the world.

This is an intelligent, carefully structured novel that is both funny and illuminating. A chance trip to watch the movie Love Actually leads Magnus, the confused young son of the family to ruminate on Plato's ideas about Belief and Illusion. Ali Smith is able to incorporate myth and philosophy into her wry look at ordinary modern life in a way that produces an entirely fresh way of seeing. From the minute details of life to the war in Iraq playing in the background, the methods we use to understand things are exposed and questioned. Whether seeing reality through the filter of Astrid's camera lens or the mathematical equations of Magnus, the way we view the world is scrupulously examined. But the characters have a sense that truth is still hidden from them leading them to use new tools to examine it. Ali Smith bravely experiments with language and the form of the novel to re-view life. If her technique is viewed by some as placing literary panache over essential meaning then Smith seems to answer this through her character the novelist Eve who responds, "It's not a gimmick. Every question has an answer." Smith cleverly constructs different paths to bring us to new answers.

I have to say I've never written an even indifferent book review before, but in this case, I felt compelled. I forced myself to finish the book and though there were interesting tidbits (Magnus' emotional turmoil), I would rate the reading experience as bordering on unpleasant. I found myself skimming entire pages at a time and becoming annoyed at the constant sentence fragments. I will admit that I went into the book anticipating a light read, and perhaps that is why I wasn't fond of it. The writing style requires interpretation throughout. I will even grant the fact that I am not a literary critic and thus may not understand the complexities of the story. I will leave it at this: if you are looking for a page-turner or other easily engaging story, skip The Accidental.

Novelist Ali Smith's books (HOTEL WORLD, THE ACCIDENTAL) have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and it is certainly no mystery as to why. Her writing is fresh, her character development is thorough and refreshingly consistent, and her motivation for writing clearly is not to prove a point, to push an overarching authorial voice, or to flaunt her obvious talent, but simply to allow her characters to tell a good story. Winner of the 2005 Whitbread Book Award, THE ACCIDENTAL is such an engrossing and contemplative novel that you'll want to read it a second time in order to pick up what you might have missed the first go-round.

Although Smith's stream-of-consciousness writing style takes a bit of getting used to, it is inevitably the glue that holds this fascinating book together. Split into three sections (the beginning, the middle and the end), the story slowly and deftly unfolds as the perspective switches from character to character, narrator to narrator. What we are left with at the novel's conclusion is a patchworked, pieced-together glimpse into a broken down yet blazingly human family before, during and after the strange summer that permanently altered each member and changed their outlook on life (and each other) in mystifying ways.

Before "escaping" for a summer to a rented cottage in Norfolk, the Smarts (12-year-old Astrid, 17-year-old Magnus, and parents Eve and Michael) resemble a typical dysfunctional family. Astrid spends her days either walled up inside her imagination or behind a video camera filming other people's "far more interesting" lives. Magnus sequesters himself in his room, refusing to bathe, eat, or speak to his family after a school prank he masterminded results in a classmate's suicide. Michael sleeps with countless of his students at the university and ignores his family, and Eve halfheartedly whittles away at the writing block that is preventing her from beginning her next novel. Collectively, they are a pathetic sight to behold --- incommunicative, worn-out, and apathetic about each other and their future.

Enter Amber MacDonald, the barefoot and unshaven thirty-something year-old stranger, who appears one day out-of-the-blue at the cottage and stays long enough to make a few unexpected --- and frightfully lasting --- impressions on each of them.

Despite the fact that she isn't directly connected to the family (although each of them assumes she's a friend, lover or colleague of the other), Amber manages to worm her way into the Smarts' day-to-day routine.

"Amber is ruthless with Astrid. She is unbelievably rude to Michael. As if I give a monkey's f--- about what you think about books. She is bored silly by his mother, makes no attempt to hide it. Uh-huh. So: Astrid is besotted. Michael looks more determined every time. His mother gets keener to dredge up 'interesting' things to say. It is like a demonstration of magnetic gravity. It is like watching how the solar system works. As concerns Magnus himself, Amber = true. Amber = everything he didn't even know he imagined possible for himself."

Accidentally --- or quite on purpose --- her magnetic presence becomes a turning point for each of them and forces them to take control of their lives, presumably for the better.

In the end, Amber disappears from the scene (after being banished by Eve), and what follows in the last section (a plot twist; universal questions posed by each of the characters, including reflective musings on the nature of truth, the role of chance, and the importance of choice in life; and deliciously long and quiet yet immensely powerful sentences) is what makes the novel worth reading again and again. Indeed, Ali Smith's THE ACCIDENTAL is truly worthy of the praise it has garnered thus far and is the mark of a writer with a rare gift of divine expression and an acute insight into the frailty of human existence.


--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

While this book is not the best and most life defining I have ever read, I really did love it. I didn't find the different voices used pretentious because they shed light on the character of the.. characters, as it were. For instance Michael talking in verse shows how he himself is pretentious and sees himself as more than he really is, as if his life is so ultimately important that sonnets and epic poems need to be written about him.

Astrid's use of 'i.e' and 'and' was actually the thing that made me thing that this book could be something special. Because it IS exactly how I was when I was twelve, I remember saying things like that and it seemed like a very accurate observation. It shows her 'teen angst' mentality: everything is repetitive and needs explaining, and people are 'weird' or 'wankstains'. Astrid's voice was for me incredibly apt, and the fact that she didn't even know what i.e. stood for until she was told by Amber was touching in a way because Astrid sees herself as so worldly and bored by everything.

I was disappointed by the chapters told from Amber's point of view because we learnt next to nothing about her and the pop culture references largely left me confused because I'm too young to understand :( But I want to find out about them now.

I wasn't biased by reading rave reviews, as I just picked it up of a shelf in the library and thought 'this looks ok' and took it home after never having heard of it before. All I can say is that it got inside my head, and I think that speaks for itself.

Ali Smith's Whitbread Prize winning "The Accidental" has drawn a mixed bag of reactions, polarizing opinions with critics roughly standing on one side and readers on the other side. The critics seem to love the book for its quirky post-modernist homage to stream-of-consciousness styling and its unusual treatment of "anomie", an aberration in the human condition that in the case of the Smart family has reduced its members to emotionally disassociated individuals living under the same roof. The book may be awfully clever for all the right writer-ly reasons, but how many readers give two hoots when they can't see the pay off in navigating past thickets of rambling prose to discover the fate of four, maybe five, not very likeable people....including one who may be "imaginary" after all or worse a mere fictional device !

Well, I confess that my feelings vacillated wildly between curious enthusiasm and downright frustration when reading the book. Amber was conceived in a cinema. That much we know....trouble is, that's also as much as we'll ever know about her. Each chapter is dedicated by turns to a "family" character. There's Michael the philandering husband/stepfather, Eve the writer-in-selfdenial wife/mother, Magnus the mixed up suicidal teenage son and Astrid the camera-obsessed changeling of a daughter. The few pages devoted to Amber, the catalyst for the Smarts' miraculous transformation, are more like dividers, consisting of short bursts of social, pop cultural and cinematic history. So who's Amber, why does she affect each member of the Smart family the way she does and what's her motive ? Good questions, but we don't get any answers, so we'd better figure them out for ourselves, mustn't we ? I for one am inclined to see Amber as a not quite human character, an angel sent anonymously to jolt the Smarts out of their catatonic state and restore them to...what I don't quite know.

As long as Amber is around causing havoc or turning the lives of the Smarts inside out, you can feel the current's undertow and are encouraged to persevere. But when Eve calls Amber's bluff and throws her out of the household, the story loses steam and begins to stagnate. Finally, we are left with the hint that life is a circle when Eve finds herself potentially in Amber's position with another family but this is as much a mystery to me as the rest of the story. Maybe, Smith wants us to ask, "Will Eve go the same way as Amber ?"

The critics may be effusive in their praise for "The Accidental" but I suspect the rest of us are just going to have to take it on faith that "they know better than us" and be content with reading an award winning book that's not very accessible or entertaining.

It's rare that a book excites me so much at the start only to utterly disappoint me by the end. Usually the gap is not so great--either the beginning quickly informs me this will not be a book for me, or the book begins a slow gradual decline from a not-so-great height. The Accidental begins strongly--in the first 50-100 pages I thought this would be the best book I've read lately, one I'd excitedly recommend to my wife's book club as offering up a full meal of potential discussion both on the writing and on the characters.
I'm almost always a sucker for multiple points-of-view, and while not all of the voices struck me equally effectively, the various stream of conscious p-o-v's here (the Smart family--husband Michael, wife Eve, 12-yr-old girl Astrid, 17-yr-old son Magnus--along with the catalyst "stranger" Amber who arrives to roil things) were distinctively enjoyable and at times powerful. The movement from each to each was handled smoothly and there was a fine pleasure in seeing the same events through the prism of their differing mindsets.
The characters themselves were somewhat varied. Magnus, depressed to the near point of suicide over his involvement in an actual suicide, struck me the strongest--his repetitive obsession over his actions and their fatal results (his voice somewhat reminiscent of Quentin Compson) bearing down powerfully on the reader. And his math-ridden language freshly appealing. Astrid was not quite as strong and I have to admit the whole young, angst-ridden teen seeing things/life through the eyes of a camcorder is wearing a bit thin on me lately, but her voice carried me past my original annoyance. Michael, playing the role of the cliched professor-sleeping-with-his-students unfortunately is somewhat limited by the role, though what becomes more interesting is his slow recognition of it. Eve, a writer of semi-popular fictionalized and hypothetical biographies of long-dead people I found the least interesting at the start and through most of the book. And finally there's Amber herself, who shows up one day unexpected and becomes the blank slate the Smarts all throw their various needs/desires upon.
As mentioned, the technique of multiple pov's works well to introduce each of the characters and draw the reader into their lives. Ali does a great job with the individual voices and manages some beautiful language across their various styles. Eventually, though, the characters became less interesting (the plot was never much to begin with) and this doomed the book for me despite the pleasures of technique. Magnus' use of math felt less and less fresh and more forced and expected and his focus on sex pulled his story too much into the realm of the mundane for me, losing the power of his original "sin". Astrid I eventually simply didn't care much about, as became true as well for Eve. Michael's slow change was interesting, and his linguistic movement into poetic form, while certainly a gimmick, was also effective, both in its writing and its characterization. By the last third of the book I actually didn't care much at all what happened to these people and the feeling only strengthened (if one can say that about apathy) until the finish.
While it left me severely disappointed, I'd still recommend the book for its strong opening and let those who don't find its pleasure to dissipate enjoy it all the way through--there's obviously a lot who didn't based on its awards and nominations. But for those who begin it and find themselves halfway through thinking they've gotten what they could out of technique/style and don't care much for the plot or characters, then feel free to lay it down and start something else. Weakly recommended, though with sadness.

"The Accidental" by first-time Scottish novelist Ali Smith has to be one of the most irritating books I've read in a very long time. It's so modern, it's really hard to tell what happened or why you should care about it. This book won the Whitbread Novel Award. According to another website, the Whitbread Award lost its sponsor and ceased to exist the same year. Would it be fair to label this book as the one that killed the Whitbread Award? The jacket also labels this book as a finalist for the Man Booker Prize whose website says that they award "the very best in contemporary fiction." For me a requirement of the very best fiction is to be able to affect the reader in a positive way. My only positive is that I finally got to the end of a dreadful book; & no, it did not get better.

Eve Smart is a novelist. I usually try to avoid books where writers write about writers. It's like a movie about movie stars or a song about songwriting -- it seems quintessentially self-indulgent. Who knows what happens to Eve at the end of the book? Why is she in some lady's house near the Grand Canyon? Is it just to present another character as irritatingly self-absorbed as the main character? Why is Eve unconcerned about her children? Why does she see her dead mother floating above the Grand Canyon when this wasn't a book about her parents? Wouldn't it have been more interesting to have her be eaten by a mountain lion?

Michael is Eve's husband. He's a university professor that sleeps with his students. His wife Eve knows and doesn't care. Are they progressive people because they sleep around? Is this supposed to make us care about them? What is the effect of their loose behavior on their two children? Do we care or applaud when Michael gets fired?

Astrid is the youngest child. She is going through typical adolescent behaviors. Yes, she is one of the most real of the characters, but she doesn't change throughout the book. She gets mad at her mother for not being home and refuses to speak to Eve when she calls on the phone. Astrid was right to be mad at Eve, but so what?

Magnus, the son, was the most interesting character to me simply because he loses his virginity in a church. It's a bit of a mixed message from author Ali Smith. What does it say about the church? Is the message that "The Accidental" is man because there is no God proved because the church is empty? Who knows?

Amber shows up as the family summers in Suffolk or Norfolk as Eve tries to write. She buddies up with Astrid smashing her expensive camera. She has sex with Magnus. She insults Eve and gives her a knee massage. She kisses Eve on the lips, right before Eve leaves for the Grand Canyon. She ignores Michael. Who is Amber? Why is she in the book? Magnus tells Astrid he knows who Amber is after she's disappeared, but Smith fails to let the readers know. Is this a puzzle? An illusion? A nightmare? Then when the family returns home, their house has been completely stripped. Who did that? What's the point?

I did not care for Smith's repetitious use of pages of short sentences. It doesn't further the story. It basically just says, "Look at me. I can write in short sentences." However, it was enough to have her awarded the Whitbread Novel Award. I didn't mind the poetry. I liked it because I could get through the book faster. To what point it was there, I cannot say. Perhaps you will be more modern than I and not particularly care if a story makes sense or whether there is anybody about which to care. For me, this is an award-winning dud. Taxi!

The whole "stranger enters family and causes upheaval" thing sounds so much like those movies I used to watch on TV in the 70s, that I was looking forward to seeing how it would be handled in this book. This book was much better than those movies. The character development was what kept me reading. It just seemed like so much work to get through it all, and in the end, I really didn't care enough about anyone to be disappointed in the threads that were left hanging at the end. I hate it when you finish reading a book and can only think "That's finally over."

Is life fateful or is it all accidental? This is a thought provoking novel that makes you examine all your relationships, their importance and their reality. Smith shows us we may think we know the people we are close to but we haven't got a clue.

I liked Smith's offbeat style and the different methods she used to develop the characters. We learn about the Smarts (not quite), more from what they think and how they feel about themselves, in contrast to Amber's (the stranger's) actions. The Smarts operate from the inside out, Amber works from the outside in.

If you're looking for something different and original, you'll enjoy this book.