Our Book Of The Month for May is Spring by Ali Smith. For our online Book Clubbers we have some questions below for you to get involved with. Either answer in the comments section or use as discussion points at your next Book Club (whenever that may be!)
Spring – The Blurb
What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times?
Spring. The great connective.
With an eye to the migrancy of story over time, and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare’s most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tells the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown Smith opens the door.
The time we’re living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story?
Hope springs eternal.
Discussion Points
The following are written with the presumption you have read Spring. If you haven’t, bookmark the post and come back to answer the questions later.
- What did you think of Spring initially, especially after reading the first chapter? Did it make you want to read on?
- Numerous references were made to real life authors, works of art and poems. Were you familiar with Katherine Mansfield, Rilke, Tacita Dean, Percy Bysshe Shelly before reading Spring? Did your familiarity help with your understanding of the book and the characters? Did not knowing allow you to simply take things at face value? If you were not familiar did you research them afterwards? I did!
- How was ‘spring’ represented in the book? Was the title pushed enough?
- Rilke and Mansfield were apparently strangers yet were connected in a number of ways. Are there any other connections in the story that you picked up on?
- The twins relationship with Richard is complicated. He has clearly known them for a long time. Paddy (and the twins) rely upon him (the Seasons in the Sun record), yet they constantly tell him to leave when visiting Paddy. And try to minimise his involvement with the funeral, why?
- Richard also constantly refers to the twins as ‘twin one’ or ‘bedroom twin’ etc. Their actual names are only used once or twice, what is the significance of this?
- What affect does Florence have on Brit? Why does she start to hang out with Russell and not Torq at the end of the book?
- What is the significance of the pieces of hedge that Brit starts collecting? And of her mom putting them in the bin?
Get Involved
Feel free to answer as many of the questions as you want. Post your replies below, discuss with us on social media using @BookSocialUK, or pose some questions of your own. If you enjoyed the questions, have a go at last month’s Get Involved: The Salt Path
And come back tomorrow to read our #BigReview of Spring
