Ali Smith: There but for the

It once occurred to me that the best books are those which absolutely divide opinion. I no longer think thats necessarily true if I ever did, beyond finding it a neat shorthand but it came to mind when reading Ali Smiths new novel. Look at the Amazon ratings for her last novel proper, the Booker-shortlisted The Accidental: an almost even spread from one to five stars. Yet I was a mixed sample myself with regard to that book: defending it from those who thought it too complex or (the red mist word) pretentious; but unconvinced by those who considered Smith the great white hope of contemporary British literature.

There but for the carries its fragmented intent from the title, so no one should be misled. The broken sentence suggests its own missing parts. That in itself something unsaid... [via Asylum]