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Zadie Smith

Start date: April 15, 2013

Finish date: May 15, 2013

Discussion: Reading List

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Jan 06, 2013 David rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2013

If I had to describe the experience of reading Zadie Smith's books in mathematical terms, I would say that she is almost always locally charming, but somehow globally disappointing. Sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, she is never less than smart and beguiling, so reading her books is usually pretty enjoyable. Her writing skill reminds me a bit of David Foster Wallace, which is to say that she can generally manage to pull off any stylistic challenge and make it look effortless. Like DFW, s If I had to describe the experience of reading Zadie Smith's books in mathematical terms, I would say that she is almost always locally charming, but somehow globally disappointing. Sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, she is never less than smart and beguiling, so reading her books is usually pretty enjoyable. Her writing skill reminds me a bit of David Foster Wallace, which is to say that she can generally manage to pull off any stylistic challenge and make it look effortless. Like DFW, she is also extraordinarily smart, though not quite as ostentatiously so (which is a relief). So one is rarely bored by what she has to say.

I read NW in January. Upon finishing it, I was motivated to read her earlier novels -- White Teeth, which I had around the house for ever and never gotten to, and The Autograph Man, which I had picked up somewhere for three dollars. I read "On Beauty" last summer, and her superb essay collection, "Changing My Mind", a few years ago (link to review))

Of the four novels, the least known (The Autograph Man) was the one I liked best. White Teeth was impressive, amazingly accomplished for a debut novel, fun to read, but ultimately it left me unmoved. This could be just a failure on my part to engage with a key character who we first see in the process of botching his suicide. Though I do think that the characterization in White Teeth was weak (a flaw that is not repeated in the subsequent novels).

In On Beauty Smith was apparently working out some kind of convoluted homage to EM Forster's Howard's End. It was skillfully executed, but I never managed to care, even remotely, about the extra-marital adventures of the adulterous academics. Nor about the idiocies perpetrated in the name of political correctness in the academy, a target so obvious it fails to be interesting.

Why I liked The Autograph Man: the characters had just the right level of weirdness to be convincing, without giving the impression each one was there to express a specific point of view, and I enjoyed the somewhat rambling, shaggy-dog, nature of the story.

In the essay " ", Smith gives a lengthy analysis of two different
(saving this for now, more later) ...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Katy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

While I loved White Teeth, I was very disappointed with this novel. It was written in a meandering, stream-of-consciousness style that only occasionally offered insight into its characters. While I liked Felix and was definitely rooting for him to make something of himself, I thought the actions of Keisha/Natalie were utterly implausible given her strong motivation and personal self discipline. I agree that it was a great portrait of today's polyglot multi-racial London, but on the whole, it did ...more

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Jun 05, 2014 Melissa rated it really liked it

Shelves: directed-reading

My first Zadie Smith - I enjoyed the ins and outs of her four main characters. Fox was particularly poignant to me.

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Apr 28, 2013 Jane rated it really liked it

An intellectual read. I actually did connect with Leah, at least as much as with Natalie. I don't think the author wants us to connect with characters. I think she wants us to understand a place, lives affected by poverty, by prejudice. ...more

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