#Gliff

[justforbooks]

Gliff by Ali Smith

Two children decode a dystopia, in a chilling and wistful novel that speaks to our times

Ali Smith has never been afraid to take cleverness seriously. It is a distinctly European sensibility, yet its fullest vindication came amid the xenophobic pageantry of Brexit. The Seasonal Quartet was the work of an intellectual first responder, urgently cataloguing the treasures of pluralism as the body politic celebrated its sweaty fiesta of insularity. Not many novelists could have pulled that off.

It’s not as if that crisis has passed; it’s just been subsumed by bigger ones, and Smith hasn’t been standing idly by. Gliff is to be followed in 2025 by Glyph, a sister novel that will further explore “how we make meanings and … are made meaningless”. As ever, Smith delights in sportive wordplay, but those obliquely iterating titles belie a frank clarity of purpose. The world is on fire, Ali Smith is here to tell us, and this emergency calls for some urgent semiotics.

It’s no accident that the proposition sounds facetious. Semiotics, the study of signs and their meanings, is exactly the sort of zero-stakes, language-adjacent discipline that writers, by convention, are allowed to be clever about. The Name of the Rose, by trained semiotician Umberto Eco, may have been formidably erudite, but it was also titanically inconsequential. Smith doesn’t have time for any of that. She has a crisis on her hands.

In the Brexit novels, that crisis was necessarily specific, requiring a substrate of contemporary realism. This time, though, Smith grants herself more speculative licence, presenting us with a grim extrapolation of our current trajectory. As Gliff opens, two children huddle before a loading dock at the hotel where their mother works. With them is a man called Leif, who confers with the woman in terse snatches before leading the children away. There are microphones and cameras. It isn’t safe to talk. For now, beyond the sparely dystopian vibes, this is all the exposition we get.

It’s all the children get, too. But like displaced children everywhere, Briar and Rose – see what she did there? – are possessed of a fanatical alertness. Leaving the hotel, they find their bearings using Google Maps, where salience is glowingly monetised and the only landmarks are luxury brands: “Now Gucci. Now Nike.” The very surfaces and textures of this world are encrypted, encoded with the brutish ciphers of money and power. But the signs, if you know how to read them, are everywhere.

Returning home, they find that a bright red line has been painted around their house, demarcating it from its neighbours. For Leif, the meaning of this is immediate and indelible: time to go. But negotiating with rule systems is what children do. Finding a gap in the line, they simply squeeze through.

It is a skill they will come to depend on. Separated from Leif, they find a house to squat in. Rose, the younger of the two, turns inwards, becoming besotted with the horses that graze in a nearby field. She names her favourite Gliff, a Scottish word whose many meanings – among them glance, trace and inkling – take a page and a half to enumerate. Here they do duty as both in-joke (polysemy is a big deal in semiotics) and incantation, as one lost child reconstructs her own oral tradition. When Briar tells her they are abattoir horses, she has no use for the designation. “You are bullying me,” she responds, “with words longer than my life.”

It’s a typically Smithian flourish, half wistful and half chilling, and in that it foreshadows a great deal. Growing anxious, Briar conducts reconnaissance missions, venturing to the corner shop and the train station, thinking to retrace their route. But the ticket machines are for people whose devices let them pass. In Smith’s refinement of the Orwellian vision, no boots are required. There’s just the computer saying “no”, for ever.

A workman with a line-painting machine is accosted by an elderly activist. Briar takes note of the model name, and as the scene unfolds toys with its components, its volatile freight of meanings. Again, that name – the “Supera Bounder” – is a typically Smithian gem, a little prism whose prettily refracted colours belie a totalitarian purity of purpose.

Befriended by Oona, the elderly activist, Briar acquires a kindly instructor in revolutionary praxis. Drawing on Oona’s store of memories, they begin sifting the cultural wreckage and decoding their own past. For the children’s mother, we learn, tried to play both sides, a corporate shill turned whistle-blower. Picking apart the antique metaphor, Briar grasps what their mother didn’t: that the gesture was empty not because it made no difference but because truth-telling itself is now obsolete.

Her choice left the children among the “unverified”, without status in the all-pervasive “system”, but what other choices are there? What modes of resistance are available, when a corporatized state controls the very currency of meaning? When the children are separated, Smith shows us one possibility and summons the ghost of another. Like Smith herself, children are born subversives, possessed of a radical plasticity. If they cannot save the world, they will “solve it by salving it”.

It helps in all of this that Smith’s natural mode of discourse, in the best way, resembles the questing and venturesome learning strategies of children. In semiotics, a sign is said to be overdetermined when it must accommodate many meanings. Smith is alert to such abstruse points, as when Rose objects to the idea that a passport proves she’s her: “We prove a passport’s it.” But the cleverness she celebrates is innate and ordinary. It is human, in other words, and Gliff is the mark of just such a native genius.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[lilianeruyters]

Time to Read

[watermotif]

Library just rejected my acquisition request WTFFF

[crying-over-cartoons]

sorry this looks like ass the file was too big originally lol

[juniperjellyfish]

[anon-skeleton]

☯️ Gliffe and Chai ?

Sure!

Este Gliffe es neutral, usualmente está haciendo nada y pasando el rato con sus amigos.

This Gliffe is neutral, he is usually doing nothing and hanging out with his friends.

Esta Chai es una chica amable perteneciente al imperio del sol, se preocupa bastante por todos en si bando y por sus hermanos.

This Chai is a kind girl belonging to the empire of the sun, she cares a lot for everyone on her side and for her siblings.

.

Empireverse belongs to @/lunnar-chan

Reblogs are appreciated<3

[officialjanetweiss]

Real ones remember the ORIGINAL Twilight tv series 😤

[explosionshark]

I'm on the last Friends at the Table King of the Castle stream vod and I'm low-key so bummed, I would watch like 20 more of these

[galina]

Starting my reading year with one of my favourite authors — Gliff, Ali Smith

[madam-kumo]

Hold Me Again

Sagau Dainslief x Female Creator Reader

"What... Stop!" Aether screamed and kicked at the ice holding him away as Lumine handed the final gnosis to the Cryo Archon, the final key to unlocking Celestia. Aether felt betrayed, like his sister stabbed him in the heart herself, but the ice shackles on his arms and ankles kept him from moving. "Please, she'll-" Aether was interrupted by his sister staring at him with pity or was it sympathy? "Trust me. Just this once." Lumine stated, but it sounded more like a beg than a command, her voice cracking and her expression saddened.

"I did not want to awaken Celestia this way with you, Aether, but it must be done." The tsaritsa said, standing from her throne and descending down the stairs, the line of the fatui harbingers lined along the long carpet that spanned across the room. The Tsaritsa, all seven gnosis's in hand, let them all float in her palm, all of them forming a circle of elemental symbols around her feet.

Every element in teyvat, even the long forgotten ones, created gliffs around her before expanding into pillars, each glowing their signature color. Aether knew he had to trust his sister with the look in her eyes alone, but he didn't want to. Gods, all that work for nothing. Every fatui and abyssal he fought- was all for nothing.

The pillars around the Tsaritsa then let out beams of light through the transparent roof of the palace, illuminating the heavens. Soon, as if an image dispersed, the once old- no, the true- Teyvat began to slowly mend and combine with the world around them. Kheanri'ahn symbols began to appear on the palace as the spirits of Kheanri'ah's forgotten people began appearing with bright smiles on their faces, some on their knees in prayer around the palace. They smiled as their home began molding to the new Teyvat around them. Mixes of both world combined into a beautiful display.

Books and letters in Kheanri'ahn lined the walls of the Cryo palace, like a mystical library. Astrology tools and stars glimmered even in the snowing skies of Snezhnaya. The harbingers too looked around in awe, even the stoic Arlecchino couldn't keep the wonder and amazement off her face.

The Tsaritsa's magic finally let go of Aether as her concentrations was focused on the place that was once her throne. A large, crystal structure was placed in the center of it all. The light blue casted a translucent haze over the figure of a woman inside. The Tsaritsa, as if touching glass, wiped the frost off the glass, revealing the face she had seen in her dreams so many times, begging the archon to release her from her slumber. Aether was seated on the floor looking around the place he thought was going to be his final battle; now turned into the place he once called a home. Lumine hugged him with tears of joy in her eyes, thanking him between laughs for trusting her again. Aether was speechless; what could he say?

His thoughts were interrupted when the doors to the palace and library slammed open, revealing a disheveled and beaten Dainslief. Lumine looked at the man in pity, but he didn't even look at them. The Tsaritsa, surprisingly so, moved aside from the crystal structure, allowing the Kheanri'ahn man to approach with wide eyes and his mouth agape. The diamond shaped jewel on his suit, one akin to a vision, for the first time in centuries, pulsed with a deep blue glow. Dainslief, without missing a beat, placed his hand on the crystal, right above the figure's heart. His palm began to glow and the crystal began to fade away. The woman's finger twitched as it was revealed to everyone in the room. Even the Kheanri'ahn spirits looked on in awe as the crystal slowly recede.

Simultaneously, the twins' eyes widened as the face of the woman was revealed. They rushed over, hand in hand, to help Dainslief hold the collapsing woman and guide her onto the cold floor. A quick snap of the Tsaritsa and Tartaglia was already rushing to grab a pillow and some blankets while Columbina grabbed food and water.

The woman's eyes slowly opened to be greeted by two golden pairs and another pair of blue, all of them with blonde hair. Her mind was in a daze, her vision still hazy. she was propped up on Dainslief lap as his tears began dripping onto her face. As if by instinct, her shaky, cold hands reached up to wipe the tears from his face. "Why... are you crying, my love?" She asked, her voice hoarse from centuries of not using it.

"Do not fret my dear, my goddess, my light, the air I breathe... how am I not to cry when I have missed you so?" Dainslief wept, before biting his lip and holding the hand on his face, he knew she would weep for centuries over the loss of her beloved city, but he needed her touch right now. That's all it took for the twins to join in, Lumine on one side of her while Aether cried into the other. "Do not cry... This is a time to celebrate... Not to drown in tears..." she murmured to them, retracting her hand from Dainslief to run her nails through the twins' hair. Lumine wept into her chest, her shoulders shaking, while Aether shook his head while covering his face in her stomach. "You were gone for so long... How could be not be to the point of tears?" Dainslief said, taking the words right out of Aether's mouth.

She laughed hoarsely, resting the back of her head against Dainslief's chest. "Yes... But if you are to weep, please... Let me hold you all, even if I run out of arms to do so..."

[betweendoctorsanddetectives]

You boy read gliff by ali smith NOW

[kylo-wrecked]

PEOPLE I’D LIKE TO GET TO KNOW BETTER

repost, don’t reblog!

LAST SONG LISTENED TO: Either Deathbed, Anna von Hausswolf, or Mou Pei Na.

LAST BOOK FINISHED: Leonora Carrington, Down Below. Again.

LAST FILM WATCHED: Glad||iator. I also watched the first episode of The Penguin, which was fun.

CURRENT OBSESSIONS: Body horror. I'm running out of movies here.

CURRENTLY READING: Gliff, Ali Smith.

CURRENTLY WORKING ON: Two creative projects, teaching, work, and everything else. Lifing. Laughing. Loving. Staying asleep. Staying awake.

LOOKING FORWARD TO: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Being level.

MEMES YOU RELATE TO RIGHT NOW: I have no sense of humor rn so... Ben Affleck smoking.

tagged by:// @valkxrie tagging:// new-ish folks- @petitsdieu, @wraekage, @kinomorebi, @whosxafraid, @nursc -and whoever else wants to partake. do it because i want recs. :~)

[gen-ai-pokemon]

Hi hi hi! I think you are cute! What is your favourite place you have ever been? Are there any places you never want to go back to? Where do you want to visit the most in all the world???

"Hi, wisp! Hi! I am cute!! You're right!" Neno chirps, doing a prancing little spin to show off her immaculate cuteness.

"My very most favourite place in the whole world is the muraille de falaise north of Roche-sur-Gliffe. I grew up there! I used to stare at the ocean alllllll day and I was so envious about all the inkays and drifloons 'cause they could go out on the water and I was stuck!! But then a human-" She falls short abruptly, but after a brief gap she continues with the same air of glee. "Then a human showed me how to use the special rocks, and now I can go anywhere I want forever!

"I haven't been to Paldea yet though. I'm gonna! But the humans don't speak Kalosian or Galarish so I have to... it's not safe to go places where you can't tell if a human is angry or happy!!"

She grins brightly at the wisp, and studiously pretends not to remember the middle question.

This image is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal

By marking the image with a CC0 public domain dedication, the creator is giving up their copyright and allowing reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes*.

*Vaporeon is a the registered IP of Nintendo and GameFreak, so commercial use is not recommended.

This image was generated by AI using all offline, open source models. The generation required less electricity than watching a 3 minute youtube video.

[ratwavekayla]

"I'm all my me's, she said. I am complete." - Gliff by Ali Smith

Three photos that feature throughout Transgender Deathmatch Legend II, and a selfie I took the day of release.

(Wrestling photo credit to Robert Brazier, the stand-up headshot was by Max Zadeh)

This book is written by the sum of every version of me.

[juniperjellyfish]

[icy-watch]

Thank you, Gliff.