A Washington Post Notable Book of 2011A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2011 “There but for the is a brilliant title for a brilliant novel. Ali Smith invents new forms of fiction in the interstices between parts of a sentence – commenting "but the thing I particularly like about the word but … is that it always takes you off to the side …" The story is about a man who leaves a tedious dinner party, locks himself into a bedroom and refuses to leave. His hostess calls in the press and he becomes a cause celebre. He is put together in a series of stories from different, tangential points of view. The novel is both funny and moving – it succeeds because of Smith's extraordinary skill with ordinary language.” –A.S. Byatt,
The Guardian (London),
Best Books of 2011
“To read a book by Ali Smith is to become an unabashed fan of her clever wordplay, her inventive prose, her concern for the ethical collapse of the lives of ordinary people. . . . As wickedly ingenious a novel as is likely to be found this season. . . . Exhilarating. . . . At a time when technology is separating us, changing our language and our histories, we must listen to Ali Smith. We must heed her cautionary comments on the human need to be individuals and the human need for connection. Otherwise, There but for the.” –
Anniston Star“Ali Smith’s clever, by turns whimsical and subtly wrenching fifth novel, There But For The, is another book that sends you back to the beginning once you’ve reached the end, both to connect the dots of her intricately structured story and to marvel at what she has pulled off. . . . With her penchant for wordplay on full display, the author of The Accidental switches between the perspectives of four people whose lives have been peripherally touched by her gentle shut-in, a man who, like J.D. Salinger’s Seymour Glass, has perhaps too much heart to survive comfortably in a hard world. These appealing characters include a ‘preternaturally articulate’ 9-year-old, one of literature’s most beguiling little sages since Salinger’s Esme.” –Heller McAplin, NPR
“Five 2011 Books That Stay With You”
“Quirky, intricately put together. . . . A book about loss and retention: about what we forget and what we remember, about the people who pass through our lives and what bits of them cling to our consciousness. . . . Ms. Smith is brilliant at leaving things out and forcing the reader to make connections, so that, for example, the remaining words of the title phrase (‘grace of God go I’) go without saying. . . . Language here also proves itself to be dense and referential, capable of making unexpected connections and of imprinting itself feelingly on the mind in a phrase, a rhyme, a snatch of song lyric.” –Charles McGrath,
The New York Times “Those who have read [Smith’s] previous novels (including
The Accidental and
Hotel World) will tell you that she’s a rare talent, and in
There but for the she stretches that talent in ways you’d never have imagined. You can almost feel Smith flexing her writerly muscles as you turn the pages. From the enigmatic opening onwards, it’s clear that this won’t be your typical novel, and Ali Smith isn’t your typical wrier. . . . As challenging as it is confounding, weaving four separate stories around the central spindle of Miles Garth. . . . It’s the kind of philosophical tour de force that we’re more used to seeing from the likes of Paul Auster, but in Ali Smith’s hands it also acquires a humanity and a tenderness that feel utterly new. Smith’s love of language shines through too, as she mixes local vernacular with higher registers, creating a vibrant patchwork of words that knits together her themes and ideas in unique fashion. . . . A fascinating read, even if you don’t want to delve into its meta-narrative, and Smith has such a way with words that even the most mundane act can become poetry in her hands. Like Miles Garth himself, her invisible hand creates ripples that will mesmerize and enthrall you from start to finish.” –Culture Mob
“A beguiling ode to human connection shot through with existential wonder and virtuosic wordplay. If you fell for Jennifer Egan’s
A Visit From the Goon Squad, you’ll appreciate Smith’s formal twists and turns—and there’s more where There came from.” –
Time Magazine “It is with this word play, repetition, rhyme, and rhythm that Smith proves herself one of the ‘cleverist’—a British author at the top of her game who combines eccentricity and originality in equal measure. And, as I discovered when I heard her reading from the opening pages last week with a cadence rarely found in a fiction writer,
There but for the is a story quite literally crying out to be heard. Here we have a novel, and a novelist, delighting in the joy of language itself.” –Lucy Scholes, Daily Beast
“Ambitious, rambunctious, and poetic. . . . [Smith] makes use of what have become her trademarks—a narrative trickiness in which any given story may be incomplete, and a certain linguistic playfulness, which in this case includes puns, Lewis Carroll-like absurdist banter, and conversations that read like transcripts, a trick that has the interesting effect of making them sound familiar and odd at the same time. . . . Smith is good at pulling a surprise, especially a tragic one, out of nowhere, to get you in the gut. . . . Smith’s people sound real when they talk, and so do the thoughts as they flow through their heads. . . . Contains all the real, solid stuff of a novel. It satisfies, it enlightens, and there’s a surge of wonderment and poignancy beneath the narrative that continually springs up.” –Katie Heagele,
Philadelphia Inquirer “Exceedingly clever and subtly wrenching. . . . Structurally, this novel is a marvel. Smith has interwoven multiple points of view before, but this time her shifts in perspective are just disorienting enough to keep readers on their toes. And she slyly slips in significant information, at times before we’re ready to understand its full import, an approach that makes the eventual aha moments especially satisfying. “There but for the” packs an emotional wallop in part because it engages us to read more actively. Smith prompts readers not just to connect the dots of her story but to assemble the pieces of her title and supply the implied words: …grace of God go I.’ –Heller McAlpin,
The Washington Post “Ali Smith’s weird and wonderful puzzle of a fifth novel is ostensibly about a dinner-party guest who locks himself in a spare bedroom and refuses to come out, inadvertently sparking a media frenzy. But the book—packed with jokes and random facts—is really about small stuff like life and death and the meaning of human existence, all told with sharp humor and real insight. The novel itself is a riddle with no solution, which is exactly the point: When you reluctantly come to the end, you can’t help going back to the beginning, trying to unravel this beautifully elusive book’s mysterious spell.” –A-,
Entertainment Weekly “Masterful. . . . Rapidly gains momentum, turning a simple tale into something ambitious and grounded. . . . As much as
There But For The is about the connection and memory in a narrative sense, its love of language is even more impressive. Smith uses a constant internal monologue to depict her characters, without external narration, and they jump from word to word, pun to pun, or in one case, conversation with the imagined dead to conversation with the living. The wordplay is often a delight on its own, but Smith also uses it to great effect for revelations in the story.” –The A.V. Club
“A marvel of a novel, sweeping in purpose (what is the meaning of life, of history, of our presence or our absence) and magnetic in both the presentation of its cast and characters and the unfolding of its deceptively simple plot. . . . The writing in
There But For The is lovely, the imagery sharp and moving, and the flow unstoppable. . . . I simply could not put this book down, other than to place it on my lap while I worked out the pieces of the puzzle. . . . Smith is also unabashedly aware and even proud of the quirks and thrills of the human mind, of how we can make up songs and puns and jokes, create connections out of chance meetings, and care, really really care, about both our history and our future.” –Nina Sankovitch, Huffington Post
“Quirky. . . . As intriguing—and clever—as its title.” –Counterpunch
“Ali Smith loves words. She loves playing with them, calling attention to them, listening to them as if they were members of a vast extended family, each precious in its own right and she their fair-minded parent, determined not to play favorites. She can give the word ‘but’ such a star turn that you wonder why you’d ever taken it for granted. Smith’s love of language lights up all her books. . . . Smith’s wordplay never comes at the expense of the many other facets in her complicated creations—characters, places, ideas. . . . . A witty, provocative urban fable. . . . If you enjoy surprising, often comic insights into contemporary life, she’s someone to relish. . . . When the narrative turns to the elderly May, Smith’s expansive humanism returns in a wonderful, complex account of this vibrant character, one that touches on aging, family ties, death and ‘the intimate.’ . . . [A] lively, moving narrative. . . . . All the likabl...
