In Ali Smith’s latest novel, “Gliff,” a brother and sister befriend a horse in a dystopian future. NPR’s Scott Simon explores the issue of authoritarianism with the novelist and playwright.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Bri and their sister, Rose, are unverifiables. Red line is painted around their house after their mother leaves on a family emergency. But they find a place in which to squat where the horses that graze in an adjacent field lift their eyes and hearts to someplace else. “Gliff” is the name they give a horse and is the title of a new novel from Ali Smith, the novelist and playwright. Won the Orwell Prize for political fiction for her novel “Summer,” and she is sometimes called Scotland’s Nobel laureate in waiting.
ALI SMITH: Oh, don’t say that (laughter).
SIMON: Thanks so much for being with us.
SMITH: Yes, it’s such a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Scott.
SIMON: Who are and what are the unverifiables in this society?
SMITH: Oh, in the society in the book. People, like these two kids, who are, like, 11 and 13, who come home and find that something or someone has painted around their house, a red paint line. They have no idea what it means, but the chap who’s looking after them – that’s their mother’s partner – gathers them up, loads them into their camper van. They drive off to think, well, what will we do next? And they park in one of those supermarket car parks – 24-hour supermarket. And when they wake up in the morning, there’s a red painted line round their van, and they find that they are now designated unverifiable.
SIMON: Unverifiable, meaning devices and data can’t ID them.
SMITH: Unverifiable, meaning that they’re unverifiable. They’re called the UVs – the unverifiables. And these kids are – they’re not very tech savvy. Their mother has kept them away from tech for much of their lives against their will, especially Bri, the older of the kids, who loves tech and wants to use it. But their mother has decided that they should use books and dictionaries and try and look things up, not just on a screen.
SIMON: In this society in which your characters live, and we accompany them, there are no libraries. The environment seems to be falling apart. Somebody, someone seems to know everything. Do people take that for granted? Are they kind of reconciled to what we see as authoritarianism?
SMITH: Oh, hey. Well, this is a book about exactly that. There’s been an incredible loss of libraries in the U.K. I don’t know. I presume it’s the same in the U.S., that there’s a fading away of a library culture. People have decided that information is what libraries are for, if anything. Information, it’s not the same as knowledge. And the thing about libraries was that knowledge was at any single person in the world’s fingertips as soon as they entered a library. And it was free. And it was for everyone. And it was that democratically open.
SIMON: But I mean, that’s what the internet’s supposed to be too, isn’t it?
SMITH: So, yeah, the internet is a great source of information until there’s the information that it doesn’t have on it that you go to look for, and it isn’t there. And what control do we have over that? And plus, you know, the difference between information and knowledge is the difference between an ice covering across a really deep loch and the depth of that loch. That’s the difference between knowing information and having knowledge. It is dimensional. And my God, as human beings, we need dimension. We are dimensional, and we live by our dimensionality rather than the things which suggest to us that we are simply surface.
SIMON: One point, we turn the page and you hit us with the words brave new world. Authoritarian states always come in with the promise that they will make life brighter and better, don’t they?
SMITH: Oh, that’s the lovely thing about authority, isn’t it? Doesn’t it feel like someone’s in charge? It’s very attractive – authoritarianism. It seems safe. It seems like, yeah, that’s it. There’s a code. There’s a way to live, and that’s the way, and we go with that leader. Until that authority doesn’t suit the life that many people or some people or anyone would like to live, then you’re up against authority – authoritarianism.
SIMON: I, of course, mentioned the – you know, that big literary prize of which you are often spoken about, but I also see you were once an advertising copywriter.
SMITH: (Laughter) I was. How did you find that out?
SIMON: From the internet.
SMITH: From the internet. See what I mean (laughter)?
SIMON: Do you remember any lines from ads that you wrote?
SMITH: I so do. My brother, in his earlier incarnation in his life, he ran an advertising company. He started working in advertising and eventually had his own company, and he asked me to do some work for him repeatedly. So I wrote copy for Scottish banks, and I wrote copy for Paterson Bronte biscuits. I wrote little poems for them. The poem for – I think it was November, ran – the autumn leaves are falling fast. The winter’s almost back. Buy Paterson Bronte Golden Crunch, the perfect fireside snack.
SIMON: (Laughter) I’m deeply moved.
SMITH: Oh, you see the effect advertising has in us? You know what? The word slogan is a version of a Scottish Gaelic word. Do you know what it means?
SIMON: No.
SMITH: It’s connected to the English word slughorn, because it comes from a Gaelic word that sounds more like sluggern. And sluggern and slughorn meant a war cry. So slogans are directly descended from warfare and war cries – the noise that one tribe makes when it’s facing another and it blows its horn going (imitating horn blowing). Buy Paterson Bronte Golden Crunch, the perfect fireside snack. (Imitating horn blowing). Almost everything about slogans can be connected to the tribal in us, which is why they work so well in us.
SIMON: Yeah. Do you find people read your books, including, of course, notably, this one, “Gliff,” because they want a view of the future or a view of the future they want to avoid?
SMITH: I honestly don’t know. I really don’t know. I mean, I know I read books because I love reading – fiction, in particular. There is a kind of truth that can’t be said any other way. I think it finds a way to say the things which are either inarticulable or being stopped from being said or are very, very, very difficult to articulate. I love that about fiction. It is ever, ever hopeful, regardless of its sometimes very dark subject matter.
SIMON: Ali Smith, her new novel, “Gliff.” Thank you so much for being with us.
SMITH: Thank you, Scott, and what a pleasure to talk to you.
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