{"id":1756,"date":"2012-10-19T19:52:48","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T18:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1381"},"modified":"2016-02-05T19:47:34","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T18:47:34","slug":"review-of-the-manchester-sermon-ali-smith-by-gemma-fairclough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1756","title":{"rendered":"The Manchester Sermon<\/em>: Ali Smith, reviewed by Gemma Fairclough"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018The Manchester Sermon: Ali Smith\u2019, Thursday 18th<\/sup> October 2012, 7pm, Manchester Cathedral<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

It is already dark outside when I arrive at the Manchester Cathedral for this year\u2019s Manchester Sermon delivered by author Ali Smith, which is part of the Manchester Literature Festival. The only light inside the cathedral comes from the spotlights high in the ceiling and the soft glow of a few candles, which cast a warm light on the stone arches and pillars surrounding the audience; beyond the rows of seats are shadowed spaces. I notice the musty, sweet smell that I always notice in churches and cathedrals, so much so that this scent has become embedded within my concept of spirituality. As Ali Smith will mention after her sermon during the Q&A session, the cathedral is a \u2018special place\u2019 where we feel reverent, and this smell triggers this reverence for me.<\/p>\n

The event is introduced by the Canon Theologian, Andrew Shanks, who explains the Manchester Sermon as an \u2018experimental event\u2019 to explore the potential uses of the sermon and to question whether or not it can be reborn in the twenty-first century. The audience are asked not to applaud immediately after Ali Smith\u2019s sermon, but to wait in a moment of meditative quiet. Following Shanks\u2019 speech the Manchester Cathedral choir gives a stunning and atmospheric performance of two pieces, including William Henry Harris\u2019 \u2018Strengthen Ye the Weak Hands\u2019.<\/p>\n

After this, Ali Smith, whose novels Hotel World <\/em>(2001) and The Accidental <\/em>(2005) have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, begins her sermon. She starts by reading an extract from John Donne\u2019s poem, \u2018A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy\u2019s Day\u2019. This is Donne\u2019s response to the shortest and darkest day of the year, when it is physically most difficult to see; yet the name Lucy is derived from Lux, Lucis<\/em> meaning \u2018light\u2019. And Smith remarks that our own present is a dark time which we \u2018light with the screens of our smartphones\u2019. <\/strong>Smith informs us that St Lucy is the patron saint of blind people who is frequently depicted holding a plate with eyes in it (which makes me think of the monster with eyes in its hands in Guillermo del Toro\u2019s film \u2018Pan\u2019s Labyrinth\u2019). Through this dichotomy of blindness and darkness against sight and light, Smith suggests that we find new ways to see the world through the power of imagination.<\/p>\n

Smith then draws attention to Donne\u2019s expression \u2018rebegot\u2019 and how it might refer to new beginnings of beginnings, a kind of \u2018progenesis\u2019. Throughout the rest of her sermon, in between her quick, witty speech, at several points she interrupts her own train of thought to reintroduce herself: \u2018Hello, I\u2019m Ali Smith; it\u2019s lovely to be here\u2019. In turn the structure of her sermon conveys this sense of \u2018rebegetting\u2019. Smith argues that the power of our imagination gives us the responsibility of what we beget through our imagination, and in turn, how we \u2018rebeget\u2019 our world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Though the form of the \u2018sermon\u2019 has become associated with haranguing, (\u2018and I\u2019ve not got round to haranguing you yet\u2019, jokes Smith) she suggests that the sermon joins voice and language together in an act of making connections. And with the request for the audience to pause and quietly reflect once Smith has finished speaking, the sermon seems to invite a cooperation of imaginative thought. Smith sets up a cooperation of imaginations within her sermon by reading quotes from the works of various writers. Smith states that \u2018every <\/em>writer is an active verb\u2019, from John Donne to Charles Dickens to Angela Carter, which illustrates how we continue to actively deal with the imaginations of these writers from the past in the present; we continuously \u2018rebeget\u2019 them.<\/p>\n

There are so many layers of complexity to Ali\u2019s sermon that not only is it both difficult for me to scribble notes and to summarise her nuanced language in a short review, but the sermon really does<\/em> demand a pause for reflection after she has finished; an audience member behind me who feels it too mutters \u2018wow<\/em>\u2019. In the Q&A session led by broadcaster Edward Stourton and with contributions from the audience, Smith discusses her approach to writing her sermon, her thoughts on religion and also on writing. Smith returns again to her idea of the power of the imagination when asked about writing fiction: she argues that \u2018fiction is made-up truth\u2019, suggesting that fiction has a responsibility to continuously interrogate our present world and in turn to develop the future.<\/p>\n

Both Smith\u2019s powerful sermon and her witty responses during the Q&A session earn her a loud and enthusiastic applause at the end of the event. But during the applause I am still thinking about her answer to the final question from Stourton, who asked what Smith wanted her audience to take away from her sermon. Smith answered that she wanted people to take away \u2018the feeling of an open eye\u2019. I know that for me the musty sweet scent of cathedrals is what spirituality smells like. But the \u2018feeling of an open eye\u2019 \u2013 isn\u2019t this<\/em> what spirituality feels like?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018The Manchester Sermon: Ali Smith\u2019, Thursday 18th October 2012, 7pm, Manchester Cathedral It is already dark outside when I arrive at the Manchester Cathedral for this year\u2019s Manchester Sermon delivered by author Ali Smith, which is part of the Manchester Literature Festival. The only light inside the cathedral comes from the spotlights high in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[16,283],"tags":[26,171,225],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Manchester Sermon: Ali Smith, reviewed by Gemma Fairclough - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=1756\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Manchester Sermon: Ali Smith, reviewed by Gemma Fairclough - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2018The Manchester Sermon: Ali Smith\u2019, Thursday 18th October 2012, 7pm, Manchester Cathedral It is already dark outside when I arrive at the Manchester Cathedral for this year\u2019s Manchester Sermon delivered by author Ali Smith, which is part of the Manchester Literature Festival. 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