Girl Flows Into Boy

[commonpeople1]

Ali Smith, Girl Meets boy: The Myth of Iphis, 2007
Ali Smith's work is poetic and lyrical even if it is often about the mundane: offices, supermarkets, overpasses, high street stores, people stuck in dead-end lives. She mixes current trends like Facebook with big political issues, like the preference for male babies in certain cultures or the impending global fight for water resources.

This story revolves around two Scottish sisters - Midge and Anthea - and the different ways they end up finding love. Both work for a corporation intent on making a fast buck with bottled water. Anthea, the first sister to realize there's something shady about the corporation, falls in love with an androgynous activist who was in school with Midge, leading Midge to question her own views on gender, masculinity and love.

This novel's mood seems to have been lifted straight out of The Cure's back catalogue: the disappearance of Midge and Anthea's grandparents while sailing the oceans made me think of "Just Like Heaven"; and the sisters nostalgic and romantic yearning for ideal relationships was a sweet combination of the band's greatest hits from the 80s. Too bad the story flows away as soon as the last page is read.

"Girl meets boy" is based on one of Ovid's Metamorphosis, as part of Canongate's Myth Series. Other authors who have taken up the challenge to re-interpret an ancient myth include Margaret Atwood with "The Penelopiad" and Jeanette Winterson with "Weight".