So, after Autumn, Winter, and Spring, Summer is finally here. The first novels dealt (sideways) with Brexit, Trump and immigration, big themes of our times. I don't know what the original theme for the fourth novel was going to be, but with the corona pandemic and lockdown going on around us, this kind of became the theme. Or one of them. I read somewhere that Ali Smith always wanted to end the quartet with summer, to be sure she'd end on a high note, but with it becoming somewhat of a 'lockdown novel', I'm not sure this went exactly how she'd planned it. But then again, that is the story of 2020 in a nutshell.
Like the other novels, Summer consists of several interwoven stories. We meet Sacha, who tries to save the world from global warming, and her brother and mother who each have troubles of their own. Their father has moved next door with his new girlfriend, but is somehow still part of the family. They meet Art and Charlotte and go on a journey together before the lockdown takes hold.
The other main storyline concerns Daniel, an elderly man in a care home who alternates between this time and his memories of being interred on the Isle of Man during WWII. I really loved his storyline; his thoughts were one fluid motion between his memories and the present day, which made for interesting transitions. The two story lines meet at some point, but I won't spoil that for you. Apart from that, there are several references to the other storyline, sometimes in the simple form of a word such as 'letterbox'. Thinking that Ali Smith has written this book on such tremendous speed and was still able to intersperse these little references, to weave the web of this novel so finely, amazes me. She really is an amazing writer.
Now there are supposedly many, many links between the four novels of this quartet, as I mentioned in my very short review of Spring. Recurring characters, recurring references to art, recurring themes. For me, most of these went way over my head. When one of the characters walked past the fence of an immigration centre, I realised that I'd read about that same fence before. I knew there was something to do with a fence in Autumn, and people chaining themselves to a fence in Winter, and something to do with an immigration service in Spring. Was this all the same fence? Really? This realisation came about three quarters through the book. At that point, I belatedly realised that yes, all of these novels are interconnected, but at so many more levels than I'd thought. Somehow I'd missed that completely. But thinking about it, the name SA4A rang a bell somewhere, as did Art in Nature.
Then I went back to my review for Autumn, and lo and behold, Daniel is one of the main characters in that novel too. And Summer apparently explained several untold mysteries from that novel, mysteries I'd already completely forgotten about. Art and Charlotte are some of the protagonists of Winter, who apparently I'd also forgotten all about. That may be the trouble with these novels; the main themes stick, the examples and ideas that you need to think about for days after finishing one of these novels, but the characters and plot elements are gone pretty quickly. If I were to read all four novels back to back (which I will definitely do at some point in the future), I'd probably see a lot more of these neat little connections, these wires that not just connect the stories within the novels, but all the novels into one big story.
So what is Summer about? This is one of the hardest questions to answer with Ali Smith, she has so many themes and ideas and storylines that they all bundle together to create one whole. The blurb tells us; "People on the brink of change. They're family, but they think they're strangers." I think that applies not only to the characters in Summer, but to all the characters in Ali Smith's novels. "So: where does family begin? And what do people who think they've got nothing in common have in common?"
The whole series is about divisions, groups of people being set against each other for no particularly good reason. For the final novel to function as a bringer-together of people is a hopeful note. This must be the high note she mentioned in that review.
Of the four novels, Autumn is still my favourite, although apparently I can't quite remember what it is about. Summer felt a bit too rushed in places, too much trying to be current, with sideway references to events that don't really fit in the main theme. But Ali Smith did an amazing job writing this quartet that feels so current and still so universal. I'm sure if you were to reread these novels in about 10 years, you would get a pretty accurate picture of what the main events of the time did to people's lives. But I would strongly suggest reading all four novels closer together than I did, so you can actually see the full magic at work.
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