“Like no lectures you’ve ever encountered. Part ghost story, part love story, part mystery, part ode, they weave a narrative that feels more urgent, more naked than academia commonly allows. This is good. Good because exciting; it hooks us. And good because in taking this approach, Smith goes a long way toward restoring the arid subject of comp lit to its more rightful state, something vital and raw.”
New York Times
In 2012, Ali Smith delivered the Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Those lectures, presented here, took the shape of discursive stories that refused to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form. Thus, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted—literally—by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. A hypnotic dialogue unfolds between storytelling and a meditation on art that encompasses love, grief, memory, and revitalization. Smith’s heady powers as fiction writer harmonize with her keen perceptions as reader and critic to form a living thing that reminds us that art and life are never separate.
Artful is a celebration of and meaningful contribution to literature’s enduring worth in the world. There has never been a book quite like it.
Praise