Ali Smith’s <em>Companion Piece</em> and the Value of Close Reading

Abstract

Ali Smith’s Companion Piece (2022) expands on the exploration of apathy and anomie undertaken in the Seasonal Quartet, further connecting these experiences to a pervasive sense of despair in contemporary society. Once again, Smith reflects on the role of the arts, seeing in them a vehicle for hope and change. In an interesting twist, Companion Piece focuses specifically on the effects of close reading, pointing to the way it opens opportunities for unexpected connections that can escape the divisive competitiveness of contemporary neoliberalism. I suggest that the novel’s preoccupation with close reading responds to the intense debates in literary studies about post-critical methods of reading, while entering a dialogue with I. A. Richards’s notion of practical criticism. Yet Companion Piece revises Richards's framework, extending the target of close reading to include a variety of artworks, material objects and natural phenomena. It also widens the focus from individuals to the relationships between them, depicting close reading as a catalyst for intersubjective bonding. The transposition of Richards’s argument to a contemporary neoliberal context broadens the role of close reading, granting it greater relevance and urgency. For Smith, the aimless attentiveness of close reading becomes an act of rebellion against the market imperatives of speed and efficiency. As it highlights the anomaly of close reading in the neoliberal milieu, Companion Piece implies that it can unsettle the neoliberal profit-maximizing paradigm, boost the imagination, and enable new ways of connecting with people, animals, and even the environment.