The first of two new interconnected novels from bestselling, Booker Prize-shortlisted author Ali Smith
O brave new world, that has such people in’t.
Once upon a time not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling the outside of their house.
What does it mean?
It’s a truism of our time that it’ll be the next generation who’ll sort out our increasingly toxic world.
What would that actually be like?
In a state turned hostile, a world of insiders and outsiders, what things of the past can sustain them and what shape can resistance take?
And what’s a horse got to do with any of this?
Gliff is a novel about how we make meaning and how we are made meaningless. With a nod to the traditions of dystopian fiction, a glance at the Kafkaesque, and a new take on the notion of classic, it’s a moving and electrifying read, a vital and prescient tale of the versatility and variety deep-rooted in language, in nature and in human nature.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 240
Imprint: Hamish Hamilton UK
Publication date: 19/11/2024
Gliff
By Ali Smith
Review by Renata
'Gliff', a word from Scottish vernacular, can mean a glance, a touch of illness, or a sudden fright - as well as many other definitions. Here, it is the name given to a horse that becomes a symbol for resistance and freedom in a more dystopian world than Smith has explored in previous novels. Her young protagonists, the fairytale inflected Briar and Rose, are 'Unverifiables' - those deemed by a totalitarian state to have no rights or status.
Their world is an uncomfortably familiar version of the surveillance capitalism we already know, in which biometric iris scanners and personalised algorithmic propaganda are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Bri, the narrator of the story, is a classic Smith creation: a child/adult who views the world with keen clarity from a liminal place between life stages, between genders, and, here, from the dangerous hinterland of statelessness. There is darkness in this story, but it's leavened by Smith's ever-playful storytelling, and by her characters' capacity for resistance and hope.
For fans of Italo Calvino, Namwali Serpell, and Sandra Newman.
SCORPIO BOOKS
Five Lanes, The BNZ Centre
120 Hereford Street
Christchurch Central City
Ph: (03) 379 2882
TELLING TALES
Five Lanes, The BNZ Centre
101-111 Cashel St
Christchurch Central City
Ph: (03) 741 3309
FREE NZ SHIPPING FOR ORDERS OVER $100
