NW: A Novel

It is my opinion that this is a very rare breed of novel, comparable really only to Joyce's Ulysses and its contemporaries; that is, it is a novel of enormous psychological and philosophical scope, an intimate observation of the utterly human, and the first notable literary depiction of life in this technological age. It is Post-Modern Proper, building on rather than abandoning the techniques and motifs of Joyce, Woolf, Kafka, Eliot and Camus, among others.NW blends stream of consciousness and third person narration almost seamlessly, reminiscent of Joyce and distinct from, say, Faulkner's more contrastive approach. It begins with Leah Hanwell, a Londoner living in the North West section of the city; she is a philosophy major that became a civil worker, a white woman in a predominantly black community, wife to a black Frenchman named Michel who cuts hair, and under pressure from her mother and husband to have a child. She is scammed by a former classmate, now a homeless addict, which is the triggering point of the plot, though by no means the subject of the novel.The second section narrates a day's events in Felix's life; Felix is black, the son of a Rastafarian not 17 years older than himself, and a father. Felix is a striking study in transience; his life is volatile and uncertain, with his semi-dependent father's most recent divorce and his attempt to break off a dangerous relationship with Annie, the real star of the section. A shut-in with dangerously self-destructive habits, she is a piece of theater come to life, breaking frequently into monologue or caricature. Having met one another under strange circumstances revolving around some unlikely film shoot is the only subtext reserved for the reader to infer from. Felix is trying to leave his mistress for his lover, and the episode ends in the shower of flames one would expect.The third section of the novel picks up with vignettes from Natalie's life, beginning with "the event", which is revealed to be Natalie (then Keisha) having saved Leah from drowning at the public pool when they were both four. It continues from here through 184 more vignettes, documenting her peculiar life up to the time frame of the novel (2012). It reads like a classic Modern coming of age story, invoking This Side of Paradise and A Portrait of the Artist, but is, excitingly, told from a woman's perspective.Hers could be any rags-to-riches story, except for her indomitable will and her carefully learned mimicry of "normal people"--an unfortunate distinction she's perceived all her life. The novel culminated in complete mental breakdown for Natalie, resulting in a fourth and final section spent wandering the streets back to her old neighborhood and happening upon Nathan, an old classmate, now homeless and addicted. He is on amphetamines or the like, lending the dénouement a resemblance to Lear and Tom o'Bedlam wandering in the storm.Too much didactic literature has polluted the last half century of art; Smith does us the courtesy of assuming we're neither racists, aristocrats nor chauvinists, and in doing so leaves only a very personal, very human encounter with such dangerous issues as race, poverty and women's issues. Where others are dogmatic, she is frank. She speaks with the assumption of her reader's complicity in this well-intentioned new cult of equality, instead of demanding it from them or berating them with its self-evident truth. That is what Smith does; she lets its obvious truth speak for itself. Leah conflicts with her own gender identity at her job, Felix is buffeted around by the color of his skin, and Natalie is haunted by her own success and the life she came from.Zadie Smith built a delicate model of reality in this book; if art imitates life, then this is simply some of the very highest art. There are dazzlingly complex environments in NW. She approaches fiction with a psychological eye as well as aesthetic, letting the characters (Leah and especially Natalie) crash into every sharp corner of confrontation, be it social, professional, or domestic, and be dented by the impact. These very deeply damaged characters correlate precisely with their experiences, adding a Deterministic bent to the piece and giving rise to paranoia, phobia, and general depression in the characters. It is a very cognitively violent book.There is a trace element of physical violence in the novel as well, miniscule but crucial, that I will forgo the details of--but suffice it to say that an entire spectrum of human experience unfolds in the synthesis of these characters' lives, and all of it receives due contemplation.This is a monumental literary achievement in an age dripping with information and scrambling for meaning. It's an aesthetic masterpiece, told in cleverer ways than one reading will fully reveal; she's tastefully not hindered her novel with her convictions and propelled it into dialogue with some of the greatest writers we've got. Smith is definitively a voice of our times, and a voice speaking with a pleasantly esoteric accent.

Zadie Smith wrote a masterpiece debut novel when she was under 30, a story that takes place in a Northwest London borough, (but the narrative also travels to Jamaica, Turkey, and Bangladesh). WHITE TEETH stands out as one of my favorite books of all time. While reading, I felt as if I were living with these characters--people who struggled with race, identity, assimilation, gender politics, the immigrant experience, and more. Smith's levity eases the weighty subjects without undermining them, and the sprawl of characters, subplots, and exotic locales saturated the novel with a bold and buoyant exuberance.The immigrant experience in a post-colonial world is also a central theme in her latest book, NW. Here, her style is more existentialistic. You feel as if you are eavesdropping on conversations, sometimes desultory, or streaming a character's thoughts. Each main character has his or her specific rhythm and patois, and soon I got into the groove. It seemed a bit more challenging to stay with than all her other novels, but I enjoyed the whole, actually, more than each individual part. I felt no less gripped by the end of the novel than I had in WHITE TEETH or ON BEAUTY, but the journey here was different, way more technique-oriented to arrange a pattern of sound or a flashing glimpse.Childhood friends Keisha Blake and Leah Hanwell grew up in the council estate housing area of Northwest London. Keisha, of Jamaican ancestry, becomes a lawyer, and marries up. Red-haired Irish (ancestry) Leah, who is also educated, marries a Nigerian hairdresser and has too much goodwill guilt to leave the council flats or seek a more lucrative employment. Nevertheless, she harbors some envy toward Keisha's yuppie lifestyle.It wasn't until near the last third of the novel that I knew I was on track with the characters. Many of them stroll, or walk, a lot, and the reader is challenged to go with the flow and not try to think too much about analyzing. For much of the book, it felt like I was trying to hold a cool, airy substance in the palm of my hand. Eventually, it comes together, becomes solid, and the frame holds a picture filled with color, light, and emotional clarity. In the meantime, every short, titled section gives a clue to a character's sensibilities, such as:"It's really an epidemic. That is, they were always there, in the same numbers as they are now, but now it is called an epidemic. A recent headline in The Standard, NORTHWEST FOX EPIDEMIC, and a photograph of a man kneeling in a garden surrounded by corpses he's shot. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them. Dozens and dozens! says Leah, and that's how we live now, defending our own little patch, it didn't used to be like that, but everything's changed, hasn't it, that's what they say, everything's changed."

I like Zadie Smith's work, but I found the lack of standard writing form distracting. Very distracting. I often re-read paragraphs to figure out which character was speaking and midway through - for no apparent reason - the chapters become one paragraph long; it was like reading a novel of tweets. I would much rather the creative effort that was placed on structure to have been channeled into the story. Overall, NW was a pleasant read, but I found myself wanting it to be over, which is never a good sign.

This book took me a long while to work through, but ultimately, I was astounded by Smith's story. I would pause frequently to catch my breath at some of her descriptions, because she manages to articulate things that I didn't know were articulable. This novel is raw (but readable), sad, profound, and full of humanity. I originally picked it up because it's set in London and I was aware of Smith being unconventional and Modern in her story-telling...but wow, what a gift she has! Her style alternately evoked Joyce and Woolf and Morrison and Atwood for me while reading, and in the end what emerges is a clearly well-read but totally original and multidimensional storyteller who matches style to substance. If that's the sort of literary fiction you might find compelling, I recommend reading NW.

prodotto conforme alla descrizione

Prix raisonnable et bon état

This book took me forever to a) read b) get into and c) comprehend.Honestly I’m still not really sure what happened, who anyone was or what the point was.It was like reading someone’s weird fever dream. Nothing made sense, the writing style was very difficult to understand and made it tricky to “get into it”.Some parts were interesting and I found myself following along but then the next chapter (or page - as the chapters weren’t really structured either) came along and I was back to square one with being confused.

Very nice item received from amazon.

Great read.