Summer

  ‘'No point in asking anyone else to hold your world.''
In the last instalment of the monumental Seasonal Quartet, Ali Smith introduces to families that have to fight their own demons, siblings who view the world differently, mothers whose vocation was lost somewhere in the process of having a family, couples that can't decide what they want from their lives, ideas that have gone awry, evils of the past that are still pretty much alive and kicking. People thrown into the tides of forces that can bring us all down.
‘'It's just what happens, she says. A sad tale's best for winter. So Shakespeare injects sadness, like a device, a playwright's device, he infects things with winter precisely so that he can have  summer, make a merry tale come out of a sad one.''
Ali Smith comments on populism, Anti-Semitism, hatred, the terror of war, climate change and all the themes I've encountered on Winter and Spring. There are quite a few absolutely striking, absolutely breathtaking moments of beauty, serenity and poignancy. References to the myth of Artemis and Actaeon (But someone confused Prometheus with Loki and I am not a fan...), Art, Shakespeare's Pericles (again...), Dickens and Kafka. Frightening scenes of the persecution and massacre of the Jews by the Nazi monsters, instances when language becomes a field where absurdity and common sense begin a futile battle. The beauty of Smith's writing is undeniable. But Summer felt like a book I had read before. Repeatedly.
I don't know and I am not capable of explaining why there was something lacking when compared to Winter and Spring. The German sibling subplot didn't really work for me and the non-linear narrative within the same chapters was unexpectedly tiresome. In addition, certain themes grow repetitive after two instalments, to the point of obsession. And I am tired, really, really tired of politics and politics and politics and a discussion that leads nowhere. I never discuss politics, I never read about it. I am exhausted and sick and tired. 
I was heavily disappointed with the characters. The only ones I found remotely interesting were Grace, Charlotte and Mazzetti whose personality went to utter waste by Smith. In my humble opinion, she should have been granted a significant portion of the story. The rest of the dramatis personae seemed to me either indifferent or (more often than not...) a bunch of fanatic idiots that enjoy parroting Twitter mottos. Not impressed, I am sorry to say.
Obviously, I am glad I read it but I was far from thrilled. Someone stated that the Seasonal Quartet is actually a long novel. Well, yes, obviously. But not every chapter in a novel is interesting or impeccably written. And in my opinion, Summer fell short. I hope that Autumn will ‘'speak'' to me in a thundering manner.
‘'But that's summer for you. Summer's like walking down a road just like this one, heading towards both light and dark. Because summer isn't just a merry tale. Because there's no merry tale without the darkness.''
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/
 

Weakest of the 4

Words are never enough for me to express my feelings about this immaculate book.
As a lover of books in series, and keen of the idea of a Vivaldi seasonal quartet alike compilation, this book, the finale to a grandiose one, was an isolate read which I had not come across of any other books in the series before.
Being titled Summer, the theme of that radiant energy emitted from the sun, hoping for a everlasting primal time, warmth, the optimal season in the year, as written in the book “how we overload summer most out of all the seasons, I mean with our expectations of it”...all come together to formulate an exceedingly outstanding novel on which summer is the chief theme with the bringing up of several current topics, COVID-19, Black Lives Matters, Brexit, lives of the immigrants, etc. The strong sense in its catching up with the trends, on the globe, things that are seemingly local but global, worrying and devastating in their development, which somehow give the brightest season of all a new definition—the light in the darkness, grieving but with possibilities around, bringing about changes.
Yet, if this book only revolves around the cheerfulness of the summer days, the best weather guaranteed in the year, it would turn out to be rather a disappointment given that the dreamy features of summer does not get into accordance with the reality, especially a world full of turmoils that we are in now. To my surprise, it didn't, and was instead bonding in a close proximity to the vast arrays of emotions we are all feeling now: thinking that 2020, start of a new decade would have done us good; thinking that Brexit might bring the country up to an independent economic force, competitive enough for the US and China; thinking that COVID-19 was nothing prevalent and till the summer it would all be normal and at ease again... Let's not forget about these thoughts we had had during these last 18 months and yet, what did happened was that none of the good things seemed to sway its way into our lives, and everything was in recession—the equal to that of summer. The extent of relatability of the events and emotions are as surreal as it is now happening to us. Speaking only of how resonating the book is would already urge me to give a perfect score to it.
And time, the other dominant element in this novel. From the world war 2 to midsummer in 2020, which exhibits as a parallel of timeline, regarding the changing atmosphere, panic, all sorts of negativity. Yet this is never going to ruin summer, the eternal season withholding all sorts of expectations. “Because summer isn't just a merry tale. Because there's no merry tale without darkness.” This hopeful emotion, persisting from the very beginning of the book towards the end, in changing times we can still find laughter around our family and loved ones; in separations things can still be done without much ado; in hard times help can be brought to make a change in someone else's life... I am completely awed by such a message being put forth in this book, being some sort of an identity for us to grip onto, so we will not fall apart and being beaten because of how the world is now.
In memories, past would be the exact experience we want to relive again, but does a slightly off, less merry summer fail our expectations as to what summer should have been? Is that so in the season we are living in that carries no meaning at all? Or is that once the good old days are gone and they will never be lived again?
As summer never changes, this would be the one that reminds me of the times even if they are desperately in need of a promising future.

Possibly the best of the Seasonal quartet. But I just may have to read them all again to be sure.