Books Within Winter: Background information when reading Winter

Books Within Winter

This article relates to Winter

An integral part of Ali Smith's Winter are the frequent allusions and references made to other excellent works of literature. Though it would be nearly impossible to catalog them all, here are a few.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Dickens' famous work is referenced from the very outset of Winter in the opening line: "God was dead; to begin with," which is a play on the opening line of A Christmas Carol: "Marley was dead; to begin with." In fact, an entire list could likely be made consisting only of Smith's references to Dickens' novel. If you've read A Christmas Carol before, reading Winter will certainly make you want to revisit it, and if you haven't, I highly recommend picking it up regardless, if only to catch all of Smith's references to the timeless holiday classic.

Cymbeline by William Shakespeare

Cymbeline is mentioned for the first time in a conversation between Lux and Arthur's family, when Lux describes the plot of a play that she can't remember the name of, but is sure was written by Shakespeare. Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays. I'll admit that I hadn't heard of it before reading Winter, but having read it since, I can heartily endorse it as being able to stand up to even his best works. Full of intrigue, poisonings, and affairs, it is certainly one of his more complicated plays plot-wise and definitely something to check out if you're a Shakespeare fan.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Though Klein's book is never explicitly mentioned, many of her philosophies are espoused by Sophia Cleves' sister, Iris, a woman who places little faith in the government prioritization of the well-being of its citizens. Klein's non-fiction book makes for interesting supplement material for Winter in terms of its connections to the issues Smith deals with in her novel.

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond

Paddington is referenced in a line of Ali's novel: "Please look after this head." This is a play on the classic note pinned to Paddington's jacket: "Please look after this bear." Though this is an example of Ali Smith showing the reader how interconnected past and present literature is, it also adds another layer of storytelling; Paddington is inspired by the child evacuees of the second World War, making him a refugee. In a story like Winter, which focuses heavily on the refugee crisis, picking up on small notes such as these make reading the novel even more enjoyable.

Silent Spring by Robert Carson

Midway through Winter, a passage from Carson's treatise on the effects of pesticides on the environment is read aloud by one of Iris' activist friends: "In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and lawns, the fields and streams. No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves." One of the characters listening thinks that it sounds like the opening to a simple Christmas story, failing to recognize its deeper concerns. This mirrors how the subtext of Winter's larger real-world issues could be lost within its surface story.

Picture of Posthumus and Imogen from Cymbeline by John Faed

Filed under Reading Lists

This "beyond the book article" relates to Winter. It originally ran in March 2018 and has been updated for the November 2018 paperback edition. Go to magazine.