Artful

Artful
ISBN: 9780241959572
Publication Date: 13 November 2005

Artful presents, in book form, four lectures given by Ali Smith at Oxford University.
Refusing to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form, 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. Full of both the poignancy and humour of fiction and all the sideways insights and jaunty angles you would expect from Ali Smith's criticism, it explores form, style, life, love, death, mortality, immortality and what art and writing can mean.
Part fiction, part essay, Artful is a revelation of what writing can do and a reaffirmation of Ali Smith's unmatched literary powers.
'Playful, full of insight and humanity, constantly surprising . . . another genuine attempt to bust open the boundaries of literary form' Jonathan Coe, Metro
'Joyful and optimistic. Will be entertaining reading for anyone interested in the art of writing, also of living, well' New Statesman
'Glittering inventiveness. Not just a ghost story, but also a love letter. As emotionally freighted as a piece of storytelling, as intellectually rigorous as an academic's essay' Independent
'An insight into an author who is in love with books, invention and words in all their depth and shiny surface' Herald
'A revelation, a new kind of book altogether, a book that defies categorisation and leaps out of every box anyone could try and put it in; a book that marries fiction to nonfiction, literary criticism to essays; a book that is as serious as it is witty, as light as it is enlightening. Artful makes you glad to be alive' Observer, Books of the Year
'One of the marvelous things about this book is its reconciliation of the serious - both in the form of this crumbling, smelly guest and in its ar...