Since reading White Teeth pretty soon after it came out - it was a gift, and of course I still have the copy, inscribed (inter alia) "this is the 'Book' that must be read. Will it live up to all its hype in your opinion?"), I've followed along with Zadie, at times quite closely and at others at more of a distance, but always feeling that kind of kinship that develops only with writers who seem to possess both a sensitivity and a sensibility that sits closely to one's own - heightened by the sense that her growing as a writer, visible through her writing, was in parallel to my own growth as a person (and reader).
And by now, I'm firm in believing that she is one of the finest voices going around today - remarkably sane, insightful and clear, and a beautiful user of words. In fact, I can't think of a writer who I like more than her when it comes to short-form critical non-fiction and analysis (e.g. - and I think she's continued to get even better since that collection). But it's her novels that I always think of as her main work, and oddly, there's never been one that I've unequivocally loved - White Teeth was a rush but very much a First Novel (albeit a very good one), The Autograph Man (which I have always, possibly excessively, been down on) and then On Beauty, which was very good and yet somehow didn't carry me away with it. Funny that.
And now NW, which came out several years ago but I've only just got round to it. And actually I think it's her best yet. It focuses on three main characters, or maybe four - Leah Hanwell, her best friend Natalie (born Keisha) Blake, Felix Cooper and Nathan Bogle. It's structured so that you get first one perspective and story, then another (somewhat overlapping), with back and forth in time and events and so on - but it works well, particularly opening with Leah and only later giving us the fragmentedly episodic version of Natalie's life (she was my favourite character).
It's a mark of Smith's skill and artistry that I could see a lot of conscious choices being made about how she put together those related stories and brings them to a close, and particularly the endings, which neatly - and aptly - evade traditional resolution of the kind that might satisfy anyone looking for conventional story or character arcs, even of the 'quiet and internal revelation' types - without finding it at all distracting. (There are certainly crises for Felix and Natalie in particular, as well as the extended struggle of all four, but the roles they play in the narratives - both each individuals' and the book's as a whole - resist the usual narrative function.) And similarly, that her adoption of different voices from section to section - sometimes jumping from one to another in the space of a page - feels natural and in service to the novel's concerns (indeed, integral to them), rather than a barrier to them.
In some respects, that gets taken too far - the pages teem with characters, little stories, voices, and many of them never 'go anywhere' as such. Their contribution to NW is to form part of a patchwork rather than anything more direct. But 'direct' isn't what Smith aims for here, and I think if her intended content is the lives of people like these and how it is experienced (rather than to tell a story with any really recognisable beginning, middle and end), then the form and content are well matched.
Is this the one that I can at last point to as a great novel written by Zadie Smith? I don't think so, but I do still think that it will come. And in the meantime, despite its imperfections, it is still something very fine and the best she's done yet.
An aside - a large majority of the characters are 'brown' and that's very relevant to the setting and (family and other) relationships, and it was a good reminder for me of the assumptions that we make that, despite that, my starting assumption for nearly every new character was that they were white before being reminded by some telling detail in the text.
And by now, I'm firm in believing that she is one of the finest voices going around today - remarkably sane, insightful and clear, and a beautiful user of words. In fact, I can't think of a writer who I like more than her when it comes to short-form critical non-fiction and analysis (e.g. - and I think she's continued to get even better since that collection). But it's her novels that I always think of as her main work, and oddly, there's never been one that I've unequivocally loved - White Teeth was a rush but very much a First Novel (albeit a very good one), The Autograph Man (which I have always, possibly excessively, been down on) and then On Beauty, which was very good and yet somehow didn't carry me away with it. Funny that.
And now NW, which came out several years ago but I've only just got round to it. And actually I think it's her best yet. It focuses on three main characters, or maybe four - Leah Hanwell, her best friend Natalie (born Keisha) Blake, Felix Cooper and Nathan Bogle. It's structured so that you get first one perspective and story, then another (somewhat overlapping), with back and forth in time and events and so on - but it works well, particularly opening with Leah and only later giving us the fragmentedly episodic version of Natalie's life (she was my favourite character).
It's a mark of Smith's skill and artistry that I could see a lot of conscious choices being made about how she put together those related stories and brings them to a close, and particularly the endings, which neatly - and aptly - evade traditional resolution of the kind that might satisfy anyone looking for conventional story or character arcs, even of the 'quiet and internal revelation' types - without finding it at all distracting. (There are certainly crises for Felix and Natalie in particular, as well as the extended struggle of all four, but the roles they play in the narratives - both each individuals' and the book's as a whole - resist the usual narrative function.) And similarly, that her adoption of different voices from section to section - sometimes jumping from one to another in the space of a page - feels natural and in service to the novel's concerns (indeed, integral to them), rather than a barrier to them.
In some respects, that gets taken too far - the pages teem with characters, little stories, voices, and many of them never 'go anywhere' as such. Their contribution to NW is to form part of a patchwork rather than anything more direct. But 'direct' isn't what Smith aims for here, and I think if her intended content is the lives of people like these and how it is experienced (rather than to tell a story with any really recognisable beginning, middle and end), then the form and content are well matched.
Is this the one that I can at last point to as a great novel written by Zadie Smith? I don't think so, but I do still think that it will come. And in the meantime, despite its imperfections, it is still something very fine and the best she's done yet.
An aside - a large majority of the characters are 'brown' and that's very relevant to the setting and (family and other) relationships, and it was a good reminder for me of the assumptions that we make that, despite that, my starting assumption for nearly every new character was that they were white before being reminded by some telling detail in the text.
