[Review] How to Be Both - Ali Smith

Title of Book: How to Be Both
Author: Ali Smith
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Year: 2015
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 372

How To Be Both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real - and all life's givens get given a second chance.

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How to Be Both is a novel by Ali Smith which told from two perspectives, a 16-year-old girl named George and an Italian renaissance artist named Francessco del Cossa. George's story set in modern England and follows her as she's mourning the death of her mother. While Francessco's set in the 15th Century Italy, following a woman who disguised herself as a man to be a painter. These two stories are interconnected when George reminisced her trip with her mother to see a fresco in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy. The fresco was painted by del Cossa.

As I explained before, this book is told from two perspectives so basically it's divided into two sections. Rather than a book with two parts, I'd like to say that it's actually two novellas in which one references another. The thing is, this book is published in two versions with the same cover. You could get the one with George's story first or Francessco's first. I think which one you read affects the way you perceive the whole story. My copy is the one with Francessco story first.

Francessco's narrative is written in the stream-of-consciousness style. I've never read that kind of narrative before but I heard most people don't like it because it can be confusing. Now I can see why. To be honest, I tried reading this book before but only got to a few pages. The narrative put me off and I don't think I can handle that kind of writing at the time. This time, I actually enjoyed reading it once I'm used to the writing style. It's not that bad actually. However, sometimes it can jump around in time so that can be disorienting.

With George, her narrative is easy and fun to read. She's witty and although her story is actually heartbreaking, her banter with people around her is fun to read. George's narrative is more in the traditional style of story telling. Perhaps if I read her section first I could get into this book easily the first time. However, since I read Francessco's section first I understand right away when she's being referenced by George's mother.

Another thing that I want to point out is the duality and the gender bender in this book. First of all, the painter Francessco in this book was a woman but disguised herself as a man. George and her mother, not knowing much about said painter, assumed that Francessco was a man. Yet, at one point George's mother suspected that the painter could be a woman because of the way the fresco being painted. Also, when I read this book I initially assumed that George is a boy because of her name. As it turns out George is a girl.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this book even though it didn't happen right away. It's new and original in a sense I've never read anything like it before. But I'm afraid the stream-of-consciousness style could scare some readers. It scared me the first time. Other than that, I recommend trying reading this book. I'm actually considering to reread this book in the future.