The Accidental

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Ali Smith is a Scottish author, born in Inverness in 1962. [5] She was a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow until she retired after contracting chronic fatigue syndrome, to concentrate on writing books. [6] Smith's first book, Free Love and Other Stories, was published in 1995 and praised by critics; it was awarded the Saltire First Book of the Year award. [5] Plot [ edit ] In describing her Genuine Articles, Eve Smart claims that “fiction has the unique power of revealing something true” [p. 82]. How is it that fiction can often deliver deeper truths than nonfiction? What truths does The Accidental reveal? Michael is a professor of English, but his main pursuit appears to be that of his young female students.

Why has Ali Smith chosen The Accidental as her title? What accidents occur in the novel? Are these events really accidents? What are their consequences? Amber is written with a punchy if sometimes preachy directness. Each of the Smarts, on the other hand, engages in some particular variety of interminable introspection. (...) Like an elaborately faceted lens, Smith's writing aims to magnify her story and its characters. Instead, angled as it is, it distends its creator." - Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times The Smart family, composed of Michael, the father, Eve the mother, Magnus, the son and the daughter Astrid, is a typical Western dysfuntional family. In the beginning of the book, the young girl Astrid brings with her, anywhere she goes, a camera and she has this habit of capturing sunrises and sundowns. My take on this is that Astrid tries to filter what she sees through her camera because it is through the lens where she can figure out things better. It's kind of metaphor and I loved it.This is the slim plot which Smith delivers with panache & rich stylistic variety but her brilliance here lies in how she is spinning quite a different yarn all the while, right under the reader's nose!

Reese, Jennifer (6 January 2006). "The Accidental (2006)". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 19 April 2008. Interspersed with the episodes on the family are segments told by someone who calls herself Alhambra, named after the movie theater where she was conceived. Her riffs on cinema history and the impact on our culture are marvelous. It seems likely this is Amber, based on what she says she gained from her parents: “ From my mother: grace under pressure; the uses of mystery; how to get what I want. From my father: how to disappear, how not to exist.” a b Caldwel, Gail (22 January 2006). "Perfect stranger". The Boston Globe . Retrieved 30 March 2008. But Amber isn't entirely harmless: she's not only completely independent, she has a destructive bent, and doesn't much care what she leaves in her wake.

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But the novel is saved by its skillful and touching rendering of the mental state of each family member. Smith’s well-honed, even obsessive prose gives a feeling of eavesdropping on her characters’ innermost thoughts." - The New Yorker Amber is the central catalyst of the book (little portions between each section are devoted to her voice, or what is assumed to be her voice), the one trigger that sends the story and characters into strange spirals, while their mundane domestic dramas continue undisturbed. She steps into the novel as an unrestrained, truly free individual and compromises the stifling repression rippling at the heart of this typical family. The narrative's heavy & repeated emphasis on the hermetic world of cinema— it's an artificial construct, a world within a world & the plot mirrors that, its constant preoccupation with images/photographs & their reality (the infamous human pyramid pic from the Iraq invasion of 2003 finds a place here), the ephemerality of the moment behind them, its interwoven motifs of light & darkness through which the characters fumble towards a clear-seeing perspective, all stress It is about actually seeing, being there. Are the readers alert enough to take the hint to pay attention to the artifice? Michael is a university lecturer in English literature and has regular affairs with his female students. Eva seems to be aware of this.

Her plots meander their way through the book but it’s the characters who make it really shine. Rarely do I read such deep character explorations, Smith examines every minute detail of their lives that you feel like a part of the family. It’s a very intense reading experience! The story is of a dysfunctional London family in summer residence in a rural town in Norfolk, with sections alternately told from the minds of an adult couple, Michael and Eve, and their kids, twelve-year old Astrid and seventeen-year old Magnus. Astrid is largely ignored by her parents and lives in a vibrant fantasy life and projects involving documenting the world with her videocam. Magnus is in a horrible limbo of probation pending investigation of his role in internet bullying of a girl that led to her suicide. Eve is enjoying success as a writer of a series based on ordinary real people who died in World War 2, whom she renders in a fictional rewrite of the life they might had lived. Michael is a professor of Victorian literature, failed poet, and perpetual philanderer targeting his students. Amber—thirtysomething and barefoot—shows up at the door of the Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer. She talks her way in. She tells nothing but lies. She stays for dinner. Words aren’t stable in Smith’s fiction: as in Shakespeare, everything is mutable. Illustration by Chloe Scheffe The Accidental has some marvelous characterizations -- Astrid is the book's crowning glory -- and the writing brims with wit, humor, and energy." - Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor

A flat-out triumph of structure, style, shifting narrative voices, rhythm and language. A pitch-perfect technical masterpiece. Split into three components—the beginning, the middle and the end—the story moves between four perspectives: daughter, son, father, mother. Each section describes various events around a holiday trip to Norwich and the arrival of Amber, a charismatic drifter who changes her behaviour to accommodate each person.

Derelict of parental and professional duty? Neither parent is engaged in their children's lives, to the children's detriment -- and both parents are engaged in unethical and legally questionable activities and in their respective work lives. This novel was shortlisted in the 2005 Booker. This and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go lost to John Banville's The Sea. I can't believe it! 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). a b Smith, Ali (2005). The Accidental. ISBN 978-0-241-14190-8 . Retrieved 19 April 2008. The Accidental. Compared to "The Sea", this book's storytelling is very innovative. Brilliantly fresh. My first Ali Smith and I thought I was reading the 21st century equivalent of my favorite James Joyce. The first half is alienating because it basically uses stream-of-consciousness with the main characters having their own POVs per chapter and Smith used terms and events that are basically known probably to people in England except when she used contemporary world-known lines from movies, e.g., "Love Actually" or songs, e.g., Streisand's "Love, soft as an easy chair". Then I saw myself singing while trying to figure out what was the book was trying to tell me. But I love it for its newness. I mean, Smith went everywhere with her narration especially in the first part, The Beginning. Then the plot started to take shape in the second part, The Middle before she finally tied all the loose ends and made herself clear in the last part called The End. On the criticism that the girl Amber's role seemed not to make sense, I think her role was just to let the family members realize their true selves.

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The Accidental takes a well-worn premise – in which the appearance of an enigmatic newcomer upsets the balance of a largely dissatisfied upper-middle-class family – and filters it through that inimitable freeform Ali Smith style. The family is staying in a rented cottage in Norfolk for the summer. Eva is not happy, as she feels the cottage is of a poor standard. Michael is not happy, not just because he has to commute to London for his job (and for his sex), but also because people just do not go to Norfolk any more, they go to Suffolk. Astrid is not happy, as there is nothing to do in the village.