Ali Smith - How to be both: A novel

Excerpt from Introduction by Hannah Arendt from Illuminations by Walter Benjamin. Introduction copyright 1968 by Hannah Arendt. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Lyrics from Being Boring Written by Neil Tennant and Christopher Lowe, published by Sony/ ATV Music Publishing (UK) Ltd.

Excerpt from The Eel from COLLECTED POEMS19201954 by Eugenio Montale, translated and edited by Jonathan Galassi. Translation copyright 1998, 2000, 2012 by Jonathan Galassi. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Excerpt from Le Testament (lyrics by Gilles Thibaut) Socit dditions Musicales Internationales (S.E.M.I), 5, rue Lincoln, Paris (8e) France. By courtesy of Socit dditions Musicales Internationales (S.E.M.I).

Et ricordare suplicando a quella che io sonto francescho del cossa il quale a sollo fatto quili tri canpi verso lanticamara :
Francesco del Cossa

green spirit seeking life

where only drought and desolation sting;

spark that says that everything begins

when everything seems charcoal

Eugenio Montale / Jonathan Galassi

Jai rv que sur un grand mur blanc je lisais mon testament
Sylvie Vartan

Although the living is subject to the ruin of the time, the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallization, that in the depth of the sea, into which sinks and is dissolved what once was alive, some things suffer a sea-change and survive in new crystallized forms and shapes that remain immune to the elements, as though they waited only for the pearl diver who one day will come down to them and bring them up into the world of the living

Hannah Arendt

Just like a character in a novel, he disappeared suddenly, without leaving the slightest trace behind.

Giorgio Bassani / Jamie McKendrick

one

Ho this is a mighty twisting thing fast as a

fish being pulled by its mouth on a hook

if a fish could be fished through a

6 foot thick wall made of bricks or an

arrow if an arrow could fly in a leisurely

curl like the coil of a snail or a

star with a tail if the star was shot

upwards past maggots and worms and

the bones and the rockwork as fast

coming up as the fast coming down

of the horses in the story of

the chariot of the sun when the

bold boy drove them though

his father told him not to and

he did anyway and couldnt hold them

he was too small too weak they nosedived

crashed to the ground killed the crowds

of folk and a fieldful of sheep beneath

and now me falling upward at the

rate of 40 horses dear God old

Fathermother please spread extempore

wherever Im meant to be hitting

whatever your target (begging your

pardon) (urgent) a flock of the nice

soft fleecy just to cushion (ow) what the

just caught my (what)

on a (ouch)

dodged a (whew) (biff)

(bash) (ow)

(mercy)

wait though

look is that

sun

blue sky the white drift

the blue through it

rising to darker blue

start with green-blue underpaint

add indigo under lazzurrite mix in

lead white or ashes glaze with lapis

same old sky? earth? again?

home again home again

jiggety down through the up

like a seed off a tree with a wing

cause when the

roots on their way to the surface

break the surface they turn into stems

and the stems push up over themselves into stalks

and up at the ends of the stalks

there are flowers that open for

all the world like

eyes :

hello :

whats this?

A boy in front of a painting.

Good : I like a good back : the best thing about a turned back is the face you cant see stays a secret : hey : you : cant hear me? Cant hear? No? My chin on your shoulder right next to your ear and you still cant hear, ha well, old argument about eye or ear being mightier all goes to show its neither here nor there when youre neither here nor there so call me Cosmo call me Lorenzo call me Ercole call me unknown painter of the school of whatever you like I forgive you I dont care dont have to care good somebody else can care, cause listen, once an old man slept for winters tucked in a bed with my Marsyas (early work, gone for ever, linen, canvas, rot) stiff with colours on top of his bedclothes, he hadnt many bedclothes but my Marsyas kept him warm, nice heavy extra skin kept him alive I think : I mean he died, yes, but not till later and not of the cold, see?

No one remembering that old man.

Except, I just did, there

though very faint, the colours now

can hardly remember my own name, can hardly rememb anyth

though I do like, I did like

a fine piece of cloth

and the way the fall of a ribboned bit off a shirt or sleeve will twist as it falls

and how the faintest lightest nearly not-there charcoal line can conjure a sprig that splits open a rock

and I like a nice bold curve in a line, his back has a curve at the shoulder : a sadness?

Or just the eternal age-old sorrow of the initiate

(put beautifully though I say so myself)

but oh God dear Christ and all the saints that picture hes its mine, I did it,

whos it again?

not St Paolo though St Paolos always bald cause balds how youre supposed to do St Paolo

wait, I yes I, think I the face, the

cause where are the others? Cause it wasnt just it, it was a piece belonged with others : someones put it in a frame

very nice frame

and the stonework in it, uh huh, the cloakwork good, no, very good the black of it to show the power, see how the cloak opens to more fabric where youd expect flesh to be, thats clever, revealing nothing and ah, small forest of baby conifers tucked on the top of the broken column behind his head

but what about that old Christ at the top of it?

Old?

Christ?

like He made it after all all the way to old man when everyone knows Christs never to be anything other than unwrinkled eyes shining hair the colour of ripe nut from the hazel tree and parted neatly in the middle like the Nazarenes straight on top falling curlier from the ears down countenance more liable to weep than laugh forehead wide smooth serene no older than 33 and still a most beautiful child of men