RaveThe MillionsEach book [in the quartet] pokes relentlessly at our consciences with accounts of people, including ourselves, affected by climate change, Brexit, immigration, homelessness, social indifference, the lethal missteps of public health authorities during the Covid-19 pandemic ... Each book has rants, often out of the mouths of children, about the mangling of human discourse in social media and in the mouths of politicians ... Most of all, the Seasonal Quartet is a foursome of togetherness and apartness, life and death, brought close by memory ... Ali Smith’s Summer tends toward comedy. Though unable to turn her face from the suffering happening right now, right here in our world, Smith can’t resist…To say she can’t resist seeing the bright side is to invoke a phrase appealing, but long gone trite.
