Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Three strong women are viewed through the prism of a fourth

The unnamed narrator recalls her childhood escapades with Tracey, her similarly biracial friend.  They meet in dance class where it is quickly discovered that the narrator has flat feet, but Tracey is truly talented, though dragged down by the ignorant working class values of her white mother, and scarred by the abandonment of her father.  In adulthood, Tracey’s fate is entwined with her enraged insanity.  The narrator’s Jamaican mother is a big fan of self-improvement, the course of which takes her to Parliament.  Meanwhile, the narrator gets a job as a personal assistant to a Madonna-like rock star.  The rock star establishes a school in a small West African country, and the narrator travels to the village to help establish the school.  In the course of that journey, she learns some lessons about who she really is. 

I was disappointed in this.  Zadie Smith’s previous novels had deep structural flaws which consistently resulted in unsatisfactory rushed endings, but in which the reader also was rewarded with deeply moving scenes and brilliant observations and dialogue.  In comparison, Swing Time had long stretches of dullness, as well as long stretches of mildly interesting reportage.  Part of the problem is the passive first person narrator.  Her conflict wasn’t clearly articulated or compelling.  She didn’t seem three dimensional, not in the way that the ambitious mother or even the unambitious father felt three dimensional.  The narrator is joined in that flat universe by the Aimee-Madonna character.  Aimee is not even really a charming egomaniac, she’s just grating.

There are numerous good scenes in here – the scenes in Africa and with the mother and the early childhood scenes are good.  It’s just that the story never comes to a dramatic peak.  The main plot twist doesn’t feel correctly established or supported by the desultorily doled out plot points.  The narrator keeps referring to some event that changed everything, but that gimmick feels hoary, and the actual event, once revealed, is stupid. This book might contain the world’s most half hearted love triangle.  Also, for no apparent good reason, Darryl Pinckney is thrown in.

NW by Zadie Smith

Voices from the old neighborhood

Zadie Smith tells the story of four people who grew up on the same council estate; two females, two males; one spectacular success, two middling successes and one spectacular failure. The novel also describes the period of time from the Nineties to the beginning of the Great Recession. The four main characters are: Leah Hanwell, red-headed only child, happily married, secretly resisting her husband’s and mother’s desire that she become pregnant; Felix Cooper, the ex addict, optimistic child of lackadaisical parents, who has big plans for himself and his new love; Natalie Blake, aka Keisha, the ambitious smart girl who isn’t quite sure who she is; and Nathan Bogle, derelict. These four lives intersect in different ways, giving the reader a flavor of contemporary London, the differing expectations of modern women, and the craziness of the human heart. The book also serves as reportage and a recreation of voices from different social classes. The Jamaican, the Pakistani, the Irish, and the African.

This was the second time I read this and it was a fruitful rereading as many details and delights only became apparent on a second reading.  The opening paragraph works on so many levels, in its lyricism and in its establishment of the plot elements. The authorial voice also has many wise insights. The prose is beautiful, and the plot points are inserted smoothly, barely discernible. The expository dialogue is not in the least intrusive. I read this voraciously.

What is with the number 37? Is that their ages? I think it has a mystical significance. There are more than a few Chapter 37s and they sometimes reach to something beyond. Another thing I want to know more about is the how the story fits into the map of London.

The Felix section is exquisite, a recreation of this ordinary man’s ordinary world. Slowly the details of his life build, perhaps even tediously.  There's a great scene when he says goodbye to an old lover.  Or at least means to say goodbye.  Felix's, however, concludes with a deep emotional punch. The first time I read it I cried.  On the other hand, its self contained beauty maybe derails the novel, as it felt like a fully developed novella with little connection to the more mundane problems of Leah and Natalie. The narration at the end, the old feet on the subway seat dilemma, is great, increasing the tension to a high pitch.

The Natalie section, which tells the story of her life in entertaining comical chunks, is also wonderfully written, although here the plot falters. The biggest (maybe only) problem is that the end of the novel doesn’t work – the threads of the plot feel forcibly fused together and it turns into a detective story at the end, but more of the Nancy Drew variety. The causes of this problem, perhaps, are the motivations of the two heroines. Leah does really not want a baby, to the point of having an abortion without telling her much loved, most baby desiring husband. Leah seems like an easy going people pleaser so the strong need to do something so drastic I didn’t quite get. And then she seems to be in some catatonic sunburn situation at the end. Why? She’s sad about her dog? And Natalie, the extremely cautious high achieving workaholic, whose prime motivation seems to be being superior to everybody, suddenly starts cruising for anonymous sex. This might have worked if lust had played any part in her personality before this. The characters come to implausible unsupported realizations just to bring the book to a halt.

NW by Zadie Smith

A glimpse at modern day London 

NW presents the interior lives of three characters in their mid-30's: Leah, Keisha/Natalie and Felix, the success stories of Caldwell, a London housing project. A fourth character, drug addict Nathan, drifts in and out of the plot like lightening. The writing was stupendous, imaginative and entertaining, although the book didn’t quite feel like a fully integrated novel, but more like three and a third novellas.  The individual stories never seemed to merge and the book fell apart at the end with implausible midnight hysterics.  However, a failed novel of Zadie Smith is many times more interesting than a perfect novel by someone else.

One of the themes is betrayal. The novel even starts with a con. The women betray their husbands, and Felix is betrayed by the neighborhood, or Fate, or his hopes of escaping.  The motivations for the two women’s actions are embedded in their characters, but are not supported strongly enough to justify the really unforgiveable betrayals each inflict on their husband. Yes, Leah likes being childless, and Keisha/Natalie likes orgasms but these likes don’t seem powerful enough to derail Leah's inherent kindness and Natalie’s inherent caution. Out of all the sections, Felix’s is written the most traditionally, it actually gets a little dull, then gets very interesting.  The reader begins to care about him and his struggles, then whomp. Betrayal. (Of the reader?)

Another theme is class and race, about striving to get ahead, about trying to become someone different, an affluent stranger.  Can it actually be done?  Or have you only succeeded in being an imposter in both worlds?  Each section devoted to a particular character is written in a particular style. The Keisha/Natalie section (an intellectual/sexual history) is made up of numbered paragraphs and is really funny. (Though full of references which in coming years will need to be footnoted.) The number 37 has a magical meaning in this book I couldn’t figure out. In the numbered section it’s missing. But there are many thoughtful observations on the way we live now. I definitely plan to reread.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Two academic families, one liberal, one conservative, both black, keep encountering each other while disaster ensues.

Only the mothers connect – they have no interest in staking out a philosophical position like the men are. But what a novelist! What characters! This book is ambitious and offers opinions about political correctness, liberal pieties, America, marriage, young men, sex and love. And art too – poetry and painting. The fresh take is that there is a black perspective – the rich black conservative academic, the middle class black hospital administrator, the poor Haitian waiter – we see things from their side, as we usually don't.

The only problem is the ending – these big themes and big characters don’t resolve in a big significant scene rather I felt like the bloody stumps of the plotlines were cauterized to wrap everything up, and we end up with a beautifully written paragraph, rather than an ending that fits the architecture of the book. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this novel.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

What does it mean to be English?

This book starts out so memorably – so full of energy and funny. A breath of fresh air. This novel works on so many levels – the prose is rollicking and the themes are IMPORTANT –the immigrant experience, colonialism, racism, the thoughtless tinkering of science, Islamic fundamentalism, the past impinging on the present. This is the story of three families, the mixed Jones, the immigrant Iqbals, the intellectually superior Chalfens. It’s not just about teenagers smoking cigarettes. I loved the characters – they were very passionate, quirky, fully realized, the kind Archie, the outraged Samad , the yin yang twins. However, a problem is that the book never quite hit the very superior high point of the opening section. And then, disappointingly, the ending feels forced, too many brilliantly colored threads to be wrapped up. Doesn’t quite work – the last section felt hurriedly written and tacked on.