Status
Missing
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Hamish Hamilton Ltd. (an Imprint of Penguin Books) (2012), Edition: First Edition
Description
"Four Londoners - Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan - try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end."--From publisher's information.
Media reviews
Half sentences, fragments, broken syntax and line, dialect, sometimes no punctuation. The linear narrative under reconstruction, jackhammer to the fourth wall of fiction, the suspension bridge of disbelief like the London Bridge of the nursery rhyme, falling down. Busting the glass
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ceilings....Nobody is going to accuse Smith of being straitlaced or staid, of pandering to her huge audience or of writing a “perfect” novel. Instead, Smith seems to be out to undo the conventional novel. Do the narrative hijinks pay off? Smith derails the reader from the worn ruts of what to expect, provokes surprise. She tests the support beams of plot, knocking them down when she can....Lisa Moore’s stage adaptation of her novel, February, premieres at the Alumnae Theatre in Toronto from Sept. 21 to Oct. 6.
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At these times and others it’s hard to shake the sense that all the experimentation is more fun for the author than illuminating for the reader. Why exactly, for example, are those vignettes numbered? And what’s the significance of the number 184? The mere asking of such questions is an
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annoyance, taking up energy that would be better spent savouring the novel’s strengths...Here, then, is a tricky case. This reviewer finds himself in the strange position of calling NW one of his favourite books of the year, yet being unable to recommend it wholeheartedly. Like John Lanchester’s Capital, another recent novel that sought to capture the ever-shifting essence of today’s London between two covers, NW proffers a rich and varied banquet yet leaves the reader’s hunger ultimately unsatisfied.
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As a writer, Smith finally seems perfectly at ease: less like she’s trying to please and more like she’s delighting in her jaw-dropping mastery of language and dialect. This is, hands down, her best novel to date.
The trailing plot threads aren't exactly tied off, more tucked back in. The real mystery of NW is that it falls so far short of being a successful novel, though it contains the makings of three or four.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Cariola
Let me say first that I listened to the audio version of NW, and while it was masterfully read by Karen Bryson, it's the kind of book that probably is better read in print, due to the various stylistic devices that Smith employs. So I will definitely be reading it again.
Smith does an outstanding
Although these two women are the heart of the novel, two young men, Nathan and Felix, also figure prominently and perhaps reflect the darker side of Leah's and Natalie's efforts to change themselves and the neighborhood. Nathan, once the bad boy every girl had a crush on, has gone over to the dark side, dealing drugs and pimping prostitutes. Felix, on the other hand, is cleaning up his act, due mainly to the love of a good woman that he hopes to marry. Their stories intersect with those of Leah and Natalie and with one another's in unexpected ways.
There are moments of humor in NW, but it is a more mature, more serious novel than Smith's first, White Teeth (which I also loved). Here, the consequences of the characters' choices are more severe, and the abiding influence of life in NW more bleakly inescapable. Overall, NW is a brilliant portrayal of life in London's multicultural community. Smith has given us an original and compelling story. I'm happy to see her back on top of her game.
Smith does an outstanding
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job of recreating the multicultural community of northwest London in all its grimness and glory. This is a district whose residents reflect African, Caribbean, Irish, Polish, Italian, Indian, Pakistani, Eastern European, you-name-it backgrounds, as well as a large number of mixed race and multi-ethnic persons. For most, life in NW has been hardscrabble, but two longtime friends, Leah and Keisha (who now calls herself Natalie), have somewhat broken out of the neighborhood. Leah, whose narrative opens the novel, has earned a degree in social work, and her decision has been to return to the neighborhood where she grew up. Long on empathy but perhaps a little short on common sense, Leah finds herself in the opening scene giving 30 pounds to Char, a former schoolmate and obvious junkie who knocks on her door with a story about her mother being taken to hospital. Leah's story reflects her confusion about who she is, where she belongs, what she wants out of life--and her marriage to Michel, a Jamaican immigrant. Natalie, on the other hand, has left the neighborhood and seems to have it all: a law degree, handsome husband, beautiful children, big house, trendy wardrobe. Yet she, too, finds that the ties to NW indeed do bind.Although these two women are the heart of the novel, two young men, Nathan and Felix, also figure prominently and perhaps reflect the darker side of Leah's and Natalie's efforts to change themselves and the neighborhood. Nathan, once the bad boy every girl had a crush on, has gone over to the dark side, dealing drugs and pimping prostitutes. Felix, on the other hand, is cleaning up his act, due mainly to the love of a good woman that he hopes to marry. Their stories intersect with those of Leah and Natalie and with one another's in unexpected ways.
There are moments of humor in NW, but it is a more mature, more serious novel than Smith's first, White Teeth (which I also loved). Here, the consequences of the characters' choices are more severe, and the abiding influence of life in NW more bleakly inescapable. Overall, NW is a brilliant portrayal of life in London's multicultural community. Smith has given us an original and compelling story. I'm happy to see her back on top of her game.
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LibraryThing member kidzdoc
Zadie Smith's latest novel is set in contemporary NW London, a section of the capital populated by different ethnic and socioeconomic groups living uneasily and not always peacefully with each other in an area that is less 'up' and more 'coming'. The main characters are four thirtysomethings who
NW is divided into four parts, each based on the viewpoint of one of the four characters, starting with Leah, followed by Felix, Keisha/Natalie and Nathan, although Natalie is equally present in the last chapter. Their lives are fragmented, isolated and uncertain, in keeping with the instability and occasional danger that surrounds them at home and with friends, on the streets, and in the workplace. Each of them resorts to substance abuse at some point to quell their fears and provide escape from their anxieties, and none find personal satisfaction, not even Natalie, seemingly the most stable and successful of the four characters. The narrative in each section is also fragmented, fluid and at times difficult to grasp, with Natalie's section being the most cohesive and satisfying.
I found NW to be both brilliant and maddening, a book I had a hard time getting into at first, but one I couldn't put down once I did. It is a very modern novel which is simultaneously rooted in a past stream of consciousness technique, which for this reader took away some of the enjoyment of the book and my ability to connect with its deeply flawed characters. It is her most accomplished book since [White Teeth], her debut novel, and I suspect that it is a novel that will be more rewarding on a second reading. Although I enjoyed it, I would only guardedly recommend it.
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grew up in the impoverished fictional council estate of Caldwell: Keisha, a first generation Caribbean who grows up with an overly protective mother, a largely absent father and wayward siblings, and rejects her strictly religious upbringing, her bland relationship with a boy from a similar background, and her birth name to become Natalie, a lawyer who serves poor clients that she is attracted to yet wary of; Leah, Keisha's best friend in childhood, a ginger haired community activist who works alongside Afro-Caribbean women that are jealous of her attractive and seemingly stable African husband; Nathan, a handsome and bright boy who was the heartthrob of Keisha, Leah and most of the girls in school, who is living on the streets alongside other drug addicts; and Felix, a former drug addict with a fierce temper who seeks to reject his former life and companions, in the manner of a crab attempting to escape from a barrel while the others seek to pull him back in.NW is divided into four parts, each based on the viewpoint of one of the four characters, starting with Leah, followed by Felix, Keisha/Natalie and Nathan, although Natalie is equally present in the last chapter. Their lives are fragmented, isolated and uncertain, in keeping with the instability and occasional danger that surrounds them at home and with friends, on the streets, and in the workplace. Each of them resorts to substance abuse at some point to quell their fears and provide escape from their anxieties, and none find personal satisfaction, not even Natalie, seemingly the most stable and successful of the four characters. The narrative in each section is also fragmented, fluid and at times difficult to grasp, with Natalie's section being the most cohesive and satisfying.
I found NW to be both brilliant and maddening, a book I had a hard time getting into at first, but one I couldn't put down once I did. It is a very modern novel which is simultaneously rooted in a past stream of consciousness technique, which for this reader took away some of the enjoyment of the book and my ability to connect with its deeply flawed characters. It is her most accomplished book since [White Teeth], her debut novel, and I suspect that it is a novel that will be more rewarding on a second reading. Although I enjoyed it, I would only guardedly recommend it.
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LibraryThing member brenzi
It is entirely possible that I will not do Zadie Smith’s new novel justice in this review. It’s highly questionable whether anyone could do it justice. In true Zadie fashion, it is a big, heart-felt, sprawling novel that tries to define a place in ways that will make the reader feel the big,
”From A to B redux:
Sweet stink of the hookah, couscous, kebab, exhaust fumes of a bus deadlock. 98, 16, 32, standing room only---quicker to walk! Escapees from St. Mary’s, Paddington: expectant father smoking, die hard holding urine sack, blood sack, smoking. Everybody loves fags. Everybody. Polish paper, Turkish paper, Arabic, Irish, French, Russian, Spanish, News of the World. Unlock your (stolen) phone, buy a battery pack, a lighter pack, a perfume pack, sunglasses, three for a fiver, a life-size porcelain tiger, gold taps. Casino! Everybody believes in destiny. Everybody…Everybody loves fried chicken. Everybody. Bank of Iraq, Bank of Egypt, Bank of Libya. Empty cabs on account of sunshine. Boom boxes just because. Lone Italian, loafers, lost, looking for Mayfair…Open top, soft-top, drive-by, hip hop. Watch the money pile up. Holla! Security lights, security gates, security walls, security trees, Tudor, Modernist, postwar, prewar, stone pineapples, stone lions, stone eagles. Face east and dream of Regent’s Park, of St. John’s Wood. The Arabs, the Israelis, the Russians, the Americans: here united by the furnished penthouse, the private clinic.” (Page 42)
Can’t you just feel the frenetic energy that IS northwest London? This book just teems with it. And yet so poetic.
We meet four Londoners---Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan---who grew up in Caldwell, the council estate and now are making their way, as adults, outside of their childhood homes. But life is so hard, “innit”?
Smith uses all kinds of devices to put across the characters’ struggles and I urge you to work your way through the initial stream-of-consciousness that engulfs Leah’s introduction. It doesn’t constitute much of the book and really does help to get to know what kinds of demons she is facing. Smith utilizes smaller type to indicate overheard conversations. But these are not something that prevents enjoyment or understanding of the text so don’t get caught up in concentrating too hard on their impact. Once you get into the flow of the book it’s the intense characters, their isolation and loneliness, as they attempt to live their disparate lives and the city itself, with its diverse population teeming, and heaving. Not a comic novel in the mode of White Teeth but a novel that sets out to depict a city and does so in incredible style Oh and an ending that was absolutely perfect. Highly recommended.
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surging cheek by jowl, packed intensity of the widely diverse population that occupies northwest London.:”From A to B redux:
Sweet stink of the hookah, couscous, kebab, exhaust fumes of a bus deadlock. 98, 16, 32, standing room only---quicker to walk! Escapees from St. Mary’s, Paddington: expectant father smoking, die hard holding urine sack, blood sack, smoking. Everybody loves fags. Everybody. Polish paper, Turkish paper, Arabic, Irish, French, Russian, Spanish, News of the World. Unlock your (stolen) phone, buy a battery pack, a lighter pack, a perfume pack, sunglasses, three for a fiver, a life-size porcelain tiger, gold taps. Casino! Everybody believes in destiny. Everybody…Everybody loves fried chicken. Everybody. Bank of Iraq, Bank of Egypt, Bank of Libya. Empty cabs on account of sunshine. Boom boxes just because. Lone Italian, loafers, lost, looking for Mayfair…Open top, soft-top, drive-by, hip hop. Watch the money pile up. Holla! Security lights, security gates, security walls, security trees, Tudor, Modernist, postwar, prewar, stone pineapples, stone lions, stone eagles. Face east and dream of Regent’s Park, of St. John’s Wood. The Arabs, the Israelis, the Russians, the Americans: here united by the furnished penthouse, the private clinic.” (Page 42)
Can’t you just feel the frenetic energy that IS northwest London? This book just teems with it. And yet so poetic.
We meet four Londoners---Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan---who grew up in Caldwell, the council estate and now are making their way, as adults, outside of their childhood homes. But life is so hard, “innit”?
Smith uses all kinds of devices to put across the characters’ struggles and I urge you to work your way through the initial stream-of-consciousness that engulfs Leah’s introduction. It doesn’t constitute much of the book and really does help to get to know what kinds of demons she is facing. Smith utilizes smaller type to indicate overheard conversations. But these are not something that prevents enjoyment or understanding of the text so don’t get caught up in concentrating too hard on their impact. Once you get into the flow of the book it’s the intense characters, their isolation and loneliness, as they attempt to live their disparate lives and the city itself, with its diverse population teeming, and heaving. Not a comic novel in the mode of White Teeth but a novel that sets out to depict a city and does so in incredible style Oh and an ending that was absolutely perfect. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
Zadie Smith's new novel tells the story of two friends, who grew up together in a housing estate in London, but have since gone on to live very different lives. Leah went to college up north and then on to work for a local government agency. She's the only white woman working there and she's
There's an odd self-consciousness to this book, as though Smith is aware on every page that she's writing an important novel about class and ethnicity in today's Britain. It takes away from the characters and the story itself as actions, thoughts and events all carry the weight of representation. Something happens partway through the novel and it takes off despite itself, making for a very good book for a long stretch of its middle. There are some stylistic choices, too, that seem less organic for this particular novel than as ideas the author is trying out. Smith is an intelligent and observant writer, which makes what she writes very good indeed, but that very intelligence and awareness get in her way at times. This is a better book than White Teeth and I suspect that in a few more years, no one will be able to surpass her. She's just not there yet.
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married to Michel, a French-African hairdresser who really wants to start a family, while Leah still isn't sure, isn't ready and can't see why everyone else is speeding ahead with adulthood. Keisha renamed herself Natalie sometime before law school and married a guy with a public school education and money. She's doing very well for herself with her beautiful house and children as well as a successful career. But she's uncertain of herself, worried about whether she has a personality and genuine desires of her own. The two women still see each other, but it's been years since they were close.There's an odd self-consciousness to this book, as though Smith is aware on every page that she's writing an important novel about class and ethnicity in today's Britain. It takes away from the characters and the story itself as actions, thoughts and events all carry the weight of representation. Something happens partway through the novel and it takes off despite itself, making for a very good book for a long stretch of its middle. There are some stylistic choices, too, that seem less organic for this particular novel than as ideas the author is trying out. Smith is an intelligent and observant writer, which makes what she writes very good indeed, but that very intelligence and awareness get in her way at times. This is a better book than White Teeth and I suspect that in a few more years, no one will be able to surpass her. She's just not there yet.
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LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
I looked forward so eagerly to reading this book, led on by my on recollectios of "White Teeth" and "On Beauty" the rave reviews in all the papers, that I was probably bound to be disappointed. And I was!
Early on in the book one of the principal characters, Leah Hanwell indulges in an inner
There has been an annoying trend recently for publishers to append the first few chapters of the writer's next novel to the end of paperback books, as a sort of taster. I generally find that annoying because one thinks one has another fifty pages or so to go - enough to tide one over on the journey home from work, only to find that it actually ends five pages later, giving way to the opening pages of a totally different book and leaving one high and dry but bookless for the rest of one's commute. Sadly I started to hope that this book was blocked out with about 120 pages of ephemeral padding but no such luck! My hopes that a tsunami might flatten Willesden (just in the book, of course - not in real life ... though, now I come to think of it ...) or that a serial killer might take out all the protagonists in one swift bloodfest. Quite frankly 120 pages of blurb would have come as a relief!
Early on in the book one of the principal characters, Leah Hanwell indulges in an inner
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soliloquy which culminates in her telling herself "I AM SO FULL OF EMPATHY" (her capitals, not mine). Sadly, she's on her own there. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't find a shred of empathy for any of the characters in this book.There has been an annoying trend recently for publishers to append the first few chapters of the writer's next novel to the end of paperback books, as a sort of taster. I generally find that annoying because one thinks one has another fifty pages or so to go - enough to tide one over on the journey home from work, only to find that it actually ends five pages later, giving way to the opening pages of a totally different book and leaving one high and dry but bookless for the rest of one's commute. Sadly I started to hope that this book was blocked out with about 120 pages of ephemeral padding but no such luck! My hopes that a tsunami might flatten Willesden (just in the book, of course - not in real life ... though, now I come to think of it ...) or that a serial killer might take out all the protagonists in one swift bloodfest. Quite frankly 120 pages of blurb would have come as a relief!
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LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
Alas, I had to Pearl rule NW. My resting heart rate is normally in the high 50's. After 2 chapters I took my pulse and it was 82. I continued on through 16 chapters and found myself interested in the characters and story, but I couldn't get over feeling the style was unnecessarily aggressive. Zadie
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Smith punches her words into the reader's gut, and I think the effect is just what she has in mind. Maybe I'm too old for the game, but it seemed to me like encountering a teenager with a face full of piercings. Point made, she's too cool for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member Laura400
What an excellent book, managing to be enjoyable but wrenching. Smith gives us a portrait of northwest London through the eyes of four characters in their thirties who grew up in the projects there. The narrative technique reminds me a little of Virginia Woolf, but the voice is totally different
It's an excellent piece of modern fiction that ranks among the best novels I've read this year.
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and of course the characters are, too. It's a book about today.It's an excellent piece of modern fiction that ranks among the best novels I've read this year.
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LibraryThing member Larou
Zadie Smith’s debut novel White Teeth has been part of my TBR pile (actually, it’s more a TBR mountain range) for quite a while now, but I never got around to reading it. I’m going to have to dig it out though, because finishing her latest left me with the urge to read more of her work. NW -
NW is a novel in parts, four to be precise, each with a different protagonist and each told in a quite distinctive voice. It’s mostly the story of Keisha, though, not only because her part (the third) is by far the longest but because the others are all told in relation to her story, making her the central figure of the novel – or the central human figure at least, as it might be argued that NW is mostly a novel about place and about people only insofar as they are inhabitants of that place. But of course people shape a place and in turn are shaped by it, and this novel is very conscious of that, down to the literary devices it employs.
One chapter presents an excerpt from Google Maps, plain directions that describe the way from A to B in an orderly, structured fashioned. The chapter immediately following gives us the exactly same route as it is experienced (on ground level, so to speak) – a jumble of sensory impressions, of thought fragments and unrelated bits of sentences, all the messy chaos that is a busy street in a big city on any given day. Unlike most other novels promising to give us a slice of life, Zadie Smith does not just boast of it, only to then give us the same detached, bland and politely restrained prose most so-called literary fiction never gets beyond, but uses her writing to indeed cut a generous slice out of life in London today and to drop it on our plate bleeding, still warm and twitching.
But that does not mean that NW is lacking in structure or trying to obfuscate its status as a work of literature. While Zadie Smith does aim for (and successfully achieves) a sense of almost physical directness, of vie brut, with her writing, she uses quite an array of literary devices to achieve that effect and never attempts to camouflage their use in favour of a pretended immediacy. The most prominent technique in the novel’s first part (which overall is probably my favourite of the four) is that of stream of consciousness – which is a very traditional device, already used by (among others) Joyce and Döblin to capture the fragmentation and disjointedness of modern urban life, but also one that never quite made it into the mainstream, that readers apparently never could get quite accustomed to. It is on the one hand a highly artificial technique that requires quite some skill on part of the author to handle successfully as well as an intellectual effort on part of the reader to decipher, but on the other hand this refined technique serves to give as close a glimpse of the raw workings of the human mind as is possible; and this ambiguity seems to me almost emblematic of NW as a whole.
On a sidenote, there are some interesting comparisons to be drawn between NW and the German novel Söhne und Planeten that I read just a few weks before Smith’s novel. Both consist of four interconnected, but independent parts, but the way they shape that interconnectedness is very different in each of the two – where Söhne und Planeten adds each novella like a layer, NW places them in a constellation to each other.The former makes for a much denser web of relations and connections, the latter for greater individuality and variety of the parts, with NW’s sections being far more distinctive in tone and technique than the novellas that form Söhne und Planeten.
At times, I could not help the feeling that I was missing out on things like cultural connotations and other nuances for not being British (or even not being a Londoner), but I suppose that is the inevitable price you pay for enjoying a work that so vividly and densely evokes a sense of place like NW does. Like other modernist novels in whose tradition Zadie Smith firmly places herself here, the apparent restriction to the merely regional also deepens their symbolic significance, and while NW isn’t Ulysses or Berlin Alexanderplatz it constantly plays with and around themes and motifs of self and identity, on a cultural, local and personal level.
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as it is called after the London District where most of it takes place – grips readers right from the start – not by drawing them in with its plot, but by assaulting them with a burst of almost raw sensory data, by pouncing them with the sheer, overwhelming wealth of sights, sounds, smells of North West London, by sinking its claws into them and never letting go until the end.NW is a novel in parts, four to be precise, each with a different protagonist and each told in a quite distinctive voice. It’s mostly the story of Keisha, though, not only because her part (the third) is by far the longest but because the others are all told in relation to her story, making her the central figure of the novel – or the central human figure at least, as it might be argued that NW is mostly a novel about place and about people only insofar as they are inhabitants of that place. But of course people shape a place and in turn are shaped by it, and this novel is very conscious of that, down to the literary devices it employs.
One chapter presents an excerpt from Google Maps, plain directions that describe the way from A to B in an orderly, structured fashioned. The chapter immediately following gives us the exactly same route as it is experienced (on ground level, so to speak) – a jumble of sensory impressions, of thought fragments and unrelated bits of sentences, all the messy chaos that is a busy street in a big city on any given day. Unlike most other novels promising to give us a slice of life, Zadie Smith does not just boast of it, only to then give us the same detached, bland and politely restrained prose most so-called literary fiction never gets beyond, but uses her writing to indeed cut a generous slice out of life in London today and to drop it on our plate bleeding, still warm and twitching.
But that does not mean that NW is lacking in structure or trying to obfuscate its status as a work of literature. While Zadie Smith does aim for (and successfully achieves) a sense of almost physical directness, of vie brut, with her writing, she uses quite an array of literary devices to achieve that effect and never attempts to camouflage their use in favour of a pretended immediacy. The most prominent technique in the novel’s first part (which overall is probably my favourite of the four) is that of stream of consciousness – which is a very traditional device, already used by (among others) Joyce and Döblin to capture the fragmentation and disjointedness of modern urban life, but also one that never quite made it into the mainstream, that readers apparently never could get quite accustomed to. It is on the one hand a highly artificial technique that requires quite some skill on part of the author to handle successfully as well as an intellectual effort on part of the reader to decipher, but on the other hand this refined technique serves to give as close a glimpse of the raw workings of the human mind as is possible; and this ambiguity seems to me almost emblematic of NW as a whole.
On a sidenote, there are some interesting comparisons to be drawn between NW and the German novel Söhne und Planeten that I read just a few weks before Smith’s novel. Both consist of four interconnected, but independent parts, but the way they shape that interconnectedness is very different in each of the two – where Söhne und Planeten adds each novella like a layer, NW places them in a constellation to each other.The former makes for a much denser web of relations and connections, the latter for greater individuality and variety of the parts, with NW’s sections being far more distinctive in tone and technique than the novellas that form Söhne und Planeten.
At times, I could not help the feeling that I was missing out on things like cultural connotations and other nuances for not being British (or even not being a Londoner), but I suppose that is the inevitable price you pay for enjoying a work that so vividly and densely evokes a sense of place like NW does. Like other modernist novels in whose tradition Zadie Smith firmly places herself here, the apparent restriction to the merely regional also deepens their symbolic significance, and while NW isn’t Ulysses or Berlin Alexanderplatz it constantly plays with and around themes and motifs of self and identity, on a cultural, local and personal level.
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LibraryThing member Pennydart
Situated in northwest London (postal code: NW), Smith’s novel focuses on two women, Leah Hanwell and Natalie (formerly Keisha) Blake, who have been friends since Keisha saved Leah from a drowning accident when they were both very little girls.
The first section of the book is told from Leah’s
The second section focuses on a different character, Felix Cooper, following him as spends a day first visiting his aging father and talking with his father’s neighbor, next traveling to an appointment to see a vintage car he’s thinking of purchasing, and finally stopping in to see an old girlfriend, before becoming the victim of a terrible crime. This section, in which the prose is more traditional, is by far the most successful in the book: indeed, I really wished that Smith had turned the story of Felix Cooper into a novel on its own.
In the third section, we learn the story of Natalie’s life, starting with the drowning incident mentioned above, and progressing through her adult life, during which her deepening unhappiness and sense of emptiness threaten to consume her. This section is told again in an experimental style, with 185 numbered, very short mini-chapters. And it is this section that I found most frustrating and difficult to read: I kept thinking that if I were just a little smarter, I would have appreciated the whole thing much more.
The first section of the book is told from Leah’s
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perspective. Now an adult, Leah has an administrative job with a charitable organization and shares a modest home with her hair-dresser husband, while Keisha, who has renamed herself Natalie, has become a successful lawyer and the wife of a rich banker, with two perfect children and an expensive house. When the book opens, a stranger is knocking at Leah’s door, asking for money to go see her mother in the hospital. Leah “lends” her 30 pounds, only to be chastised for her foolishness in this later by her husband and her mother. The story continues with a dinner party at Natalie’s expensive house, where the psychological distance between Leah and Natalie becomes clear. The writing in this first section is experimental, with short, truncated sentences and a stream of consciousness flow, which works reasonably, though not perfectly well.The second section focuses on a different character, Felix Cooper, following him as spends a day first visiting his aging father and talking with his father’s neighbor, next traveling to an appointment to see a vintage car he’s thinking of purchasing, and finally stopping in to see an old girlfriend, before becoming the victim of a terrible crime. This section, in which the prose is more traditional, is by far the most successful in the book: indeed, I really wished that Smith had turned the story of Felix Cooper into a novel on its own.
In the third section, we learn the story of Natalie’s life, starting with the drowning incident mentioned above, and progressing through her adult life, during which her deepening unhappiness and sense of emptiness threaten to consume her. This section is told again in an experimental style, with 185 numbered, very short mini-chapters. And it is this section that I found most frustrating and difficult to read: I kept thinking that if I were just a little smarter, I would have appreciated the whole thing much more.
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LibraryThing member maryreinert
I'm a traditionalist and like my stories in good old-fashioned narrative form. Being curious about the attention this author has received, I decided to give it a try (although I got a "back-up" novel from the library, just in case it was unbearable). After about 10 pages, I almost reached for the
Then I came to the end - what? I admit I had trouble piecing that together.
Zadie Smith is unquestionably a really good writer. There were times I felt very connected to the story and the surroundings. The lifestyle, location, and people are far different from where I live; yet, I felt I had a chance to peak into a very different world and come away with some understanding of it.
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"back-up" but decided to push on, and then I was caught. I actually couldn't put it down especially through the long portion of the short vignettes portraying the past lives of Keisha and Leah. I just put judgment aside and enjoyed the ride.Then I came to the end - what? I admit I had trouble piecing that together.
Zadie Smith is unquestionably a really good writer. There were times I felt very connected to the story and the surroundings. The lifestyle, location, and people are far different from where I live; yet, I felt I had a chance to peak into a very different world and come away with some understanding of it.
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LibraryThing member alexrichman
It's hard to like a lot of the characters, but it's even harder not to like the book . So brilliantly, brutally London; one minute I was chuckling at some recognisable slang - chirpsing at a bus stop was a particular favourite - and the next something gritty or gruesome shoved me back into the
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gutter. The protagonists aren't pretty, and their fates are rather grim, but the writing is so expert, the sound of the capital so beautifully captured, that this makes for an easy recommendation. Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
Apparently Professor Higgins was very diligent. He transcribed patterns of speech into his notebooks. He recorded as varied examples of dialect and pronunciation as possible. We all know the risks involved with those wax cylinders. Poor, poor, Professor Higgins.
Ms. Smith undertook a similar project
Ms. Smith undertook a similar project
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with a similar intensity. She proved likewise pitch perfect. Speech pattern and intonation reign in NW. The remaining obstacle was plot. Everyone wants to be Trollope, no? Zadie is sage. She stuck to her money move. Ms. Smith penned another White Teeth, this one with Ipads, Brick Lane and The Wire. Her updated novel isn’t all that compelling. The silences are the most daunting. No mention of the tube bombings, the Tottenham riots, the Olympics. I’m not being critical of her not writing a social history. I just find these maneuverings odd. Despite such opacity, her research does shine through. There is a delicate beauty in her dialogue. It is only enhanced by the frenetic circumstances under which it is expressed. Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
Writing as vibrant and complex and irreducible as the city it evokes and the characters it follows. This is truly remarkable work. The kind of novel you read and wish you had read years ago.
Leah Hanwell and Keisha (now Natalie) Blake have been best friends since childhood. They are bound together
Zadie Smith has a good ear for dialect and dialogue and the local idioms that arise and depart. So the years pass seamlessly and the reader always feels in touch with the real. The narrative takes different forms, including a long section of brief numbered segments that move Keisha from precocious youth to work in the Inner Temple as a pupil barrister, by which time she is known as Natalie. Leah is less fully explored but perhaps rightly since Keisha/Natalie is more difficult as a character. It is hard for even Natalie herself to get past her own defences. Little wonder then that Smith needs to approach her obliquely. And when we do get through, it may be hard to accept what we find. Yet, I think that makes Natalie all the more believable.
Smith brings real affection for her characters and their mix of unrequited hopes and self-critique. I could easily, having just finished reading the novel, sit down and read it again immediately safe in the knowledge that I would undoubtedly pick up far more on a second or a third reading. Highly recommended.
Leah Hanwell and Keisha (now Natalie) Blake have been best friends since childhood. They are bound together
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through fate and accident. And while the novel sometimes follows Leah and sometimes Natalie, the real object here is the milieu in which they grew up, London’s northwest quadrant — poor, ethically and racially mixed, burdened by crime and drugs, but suffused with hope.Zadie Smith has a good ear for dialect and dialogue and the local idioms that arise and depart. So the years pass seamlessly and the reader always feels in touch with the real. The narrative takes different forms, including a long section of brief numbered segments that move Keisha from precocious youth to work in the Inner Temple as a pupil barrister, by which time she is known as Natalie. Leah is less fully explored but perhaps rightly since Keisha/Natalie is more difficult as a character. It is hard for even Natalie herself to get past her own defences. Little wonder then that Smith needs to approach her obliquely. And when we do get through, it may be hard to accept what we find. Yet, I think that makes Natalie all the more believable.
Smith brings real affection for her characters and their mix of unrequited hopes and self-critique. I could easily, having just finished reading the novel, sit down and read it again immediately safe in the knowledge that I would undoubtedly pick up far more on a second or a third reading. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Nickelini
The story of two thirty-something women, Leah and Natalie (formerly Keisha) who grew up in the NW6 area of London. This novel is very disjointed, requires concentration by the reader, and has little plot, but I loved it. Great voice, highly original, paints a vivid picture of this section of London
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I wrote that two days ago. I'm still thinking about this novel and how much I enjoyed it, even though at times I didn't understand it. I really want to go out and read something else by Zadie Smith.
If you're hesitating about reading this, I say that you give it a chance. I can see it's not for everyone, but maybe, like me, it's awesome for you.
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life.--------
I wrote that two days ago. I'm still thinking about this novel and how much I enjoyed it, even though at times I didn't understand it. I really want to go out and read something else by Zadie Smith.
If you're hesitating about reading this, I say that you give it a chance. I can see it's not for everyone, but maybe, like me, it's awesome for you.
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LibraryThing member dawnlovesbooks
read a hundred pages and put it down. kind of confusing. didn't like the way it was written. very disappointed
LibraryThing member Doondeck
Got tired of the rasta after about 20 pages. Then the plot disappeared and the story became incomprehensible. What a waste of time.
LibraryThing member emma_mc
All I can say about NW is that I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I liked it, I'm not sure who the characters really were, I'm not sure what "happened." Can you say anything actually happened? Zadie Smith employed a literary style I'd never seen: frantic, discombobulated, wild. I certainly felt
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discombobulated. Show Less
LibraryThing member picardyrose
She's famous and everything, and has a very distinct style, but there wasn't enough there there.
LibraryThing member AramisSciant
Hmm. Not sure about this one. The experimentation in styles (stream of consciousness at the beginning, short third-person micro chapters in the largest, third part of the book, more conventional narrative in other parts) didn't bother me but I didn't get its purpose either. I also felt that many of
It was interesting to see the development of Leah and Nat from a childhood in a housing project (or, in British, a council estate) where they were race-blind to young women that are so far apart despite their closeness. I thought the book has interesting perspectives on race and class in London, without being preachy. However, I can't say I really liked or connected with he characters. The one I loved the most, Felix, whose story is told in the section of the book I liked the most, meets a totally random and befuddling end...
In short, too much work. I barely made it through the first part, Visitation, and had to restart twice. In the end, I'm not quite sure it was worth the effort. Maybe I just didn't get her point.
One thing I'll say, the writing in the more conventional parts is terrific. The way she captures all kinds of different people's voices/perspectives is truly amazing. Perhaps, in a less complicated structure it could be awesome but NW didn't do it for me I'm afraid.
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the references really called to be googled (song lyrics, an interview with Amy Winehouse, The Wire) and I found that annoying. It was interesting to see the development of Leah and Nat from a childhood in a housing project (or, in British, a council estate) where they were race-blind to young women that are so far apart despite their closeness. I thought the book has interesting perspectives on race and class in London, without being preachy. However, I can't say I really liked or connected with he characters. The one I loved the most, Felix, whose story is told in the section of the book I liked the most, meets a totally random and befuddling end...
In short, too much work. I barely made it through the first part, Visitation, and had to restart twice. In the end, I'm not quite sure it was worth the effort. Maybe I just didn't get her point.
One thing I'll say, the writing in the more conventional parts is terrific. The way she captures all kinds of different people's voices/perspectives is truly amazing. Perhaps, in a less complicated structure it could be awesome but NW didn't do it for me I'm afraid.
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LibraryThing member JenneB
I avoided reading this for a while because it was kind of a crazy summer and I thought it would need some effort. Not true! It's absolutely a page-turner and so engrossing that (for you Harry Potter fans out there) it's like putting your face in a Penseive.
Each character's story is written in a
The other thing I was impressed by is the way she was able to show up the hypocrisies and prejudices of her characters without being contemptuous of them. It's a very humanistic book and I highly recommend it.
Each character's story is written in a
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different style, but not in a show-offy way--they're simultaneously innovative and still perfectly natural. I hate "look at me I'm a writer!" tricks and this really is not that. The other thing I was impressed by is the way she was able to show up the hypocrisies and prejudices of her characters without being contemptuous of them. It's a very humanistic book and I highly recommend it.
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LibraryThing member kgib
I got into it once we switched from Leah's perspective to Natalie's -- and then later, I appreciated the first section more. I liked how she played with the structure and how in general the book was a little chaotic.
LibraryThing member Samchan
At the beginning of NW, I felt as if I had pried open the door to Smith’s world and was peeking into the colorful scenes that passed quickly by me. I was convinced that eventually, someone from that world would grab me by the collar, pull me over the threshold, through the door, and fully into
I understood what Smith was trying to do as she teased out issues of class, social mobility, and identity. The picture that she painted of her beloved northwest corner of London was sharp and alive. And, unsurprisingly, her ability to capture the language as people speak it in real life seemed on point as ever. The prose was stripped down—there were no unnecessary words; at times she’d just throw out single adjectives at you or barely complete sentences (even in the less stream-of-conscious sections). This economizing lent a poetic quality to much of the book. When every single word counts like that, you have to pay attention—this is not a book to read when you’re distracted.
Yet even as I appreciated the artfulness at play, there was an arms-length distance that I felt toward the stories of Leah, Felix, Natalie, and Nathan. Sure, we got into the heads of at least those first three characters, but that distance endured. I could never overcome it enough to arrive at a point where I could care about the characters’ motivations and actions or what happened to them. The closest I came to that was in Natalie’s section, but even then my indifference softened only a tiny bit. These characters just didn’t seem entirely real and ‘knowable.’ I ended each section asking, “So what?” I’m not sure that I can attribute this disconnect to the different styles in which each section was written; Leah’s stream of consciousness section (though unengaging) wasn’t as distracting for me as it seemed to be for other readers, and neither was Natalie’s section with the numbered vignettes. But somehow the prose didn’t add up to anything substantive and fulfilling enough. Perhaps it was too impressionistic and subtle for me to appreciate fully.
I’m completely comfortable in conceding that the failure to connect was likely a failure on my end. It pains me to give anything by Zadie Smith less than three stars because I have a lot of respect for her. In the end though, it came down to how NW just didn’t resonate with me.
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that world. If only I continued to read on, I reasoned, I’d eventually become immersed in the lives of the characters, gain new insight into their (and our) world, or be struck my some observation that got to the heart of things. Instead, I closed the book at the end feeling empty and dissatisfied; I never really did make it over that threshold.I understood what Smith was trying to do as she teased out issues of class, social mobility, and identity. The picture that she painted of her beloved northwest corner of London was sharp and alive. And, unsurprisingly, her ability to capture the language as people speak it in real life seemed on point as ever. The prose was stripped down—there were no unnecessary words; at times she’d just throw out single adjectives at you or barely complete sentences (even in the less stream-of-conscious sections). This economizing lent a poetic quality to much of the book. When every single word counts like that, you have to pay attention—this is not a book to read when you’re distracted.
Yet even as I appreciated the artfulness at play, there was an arms-length distance that I felt toward the stories of Leah, Felix, Natalie, and Nathan. Sure, we got into the heads of at least those first three characters, but that distance endured. I could never overcome it enough to arrive at a point where I could care about the characters’ motivations and actions or what happened to them. The closest I came to that was in Natalie’s section, but even then my indifference softened only a tiny bit. These characters just didn’t seem entirely real and ‘knowable.’ I ended each section asking, “So what?” I’m not sure that I can attribute this disconnect to the different styles in which each section was written; Leah’s stream of consciousness section (though unengaging) wasn’t as distracting for me as it seemed to be for other readers, and neither was Natalie’s section with the numbered vignettes. But somehow the prose didn’t add up to anything substantive and fulfilling enough. Perhaps it was too impressionistic and subtle for me to appreciate fully.
I’m completely comfortable in conceding that the failure to connect was likely a failure on my end. It pains me to give anything by Zadie Smith less than three stars because I have a lot of respect for her. In the end though, it came down to how NW just didn’t resonate with me.
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LibraryThing member Phil-James
I loved this book.
I loved "White Teeth" but with genius debuts you never know if the experience will be repeated. Her second "Autograph Man" I didn't really enjoy, too much abstruse Kabbalah and obscure symbolism, trying too hard.
The third "on Beauty" i enjoyed but found a bit of a slog in parts,
This one is a masterpiece.Dialogue driven, every word counts to drive the story on. Each part, as in poetry, has resonances and undercurrents, but none of it seems contrived, it looks effortless. A joy.
I loved "White Teeth" but with genius debuts you never know if the experience will be repeated. Her second "Autograph Man" I didn't really enjoy, too much abstruse Kabbalah and obscure symbolism, trying too hard.
The third "on Beauty" i enjoyed but found a bit of a slog in parts,
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maybe again writing too many words, too much Writing.This one is a masterpiece.Dialogue driven, every word counts to drive the story on. Each part, as in poetry, has resonances and undercurrents, but none of it seems contrived, it looks effortless. A joy.
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LibraryThing member nikkihall
SCRATCH THAT : For me, NW started off as one of the greatest novels written about 21st century London life. Ended up a shoddy mess. Feel like Zadie wrote several short stories and mushed them together. However,
I can see where she's coming from but not sure where she's going. Ironically, a bit like
AFTERTHOUGHT : I loved it. Smith celebrates the multiplicity and strength of the black female as clearly shown through Keisha /Natalie Blake.
I can see where she's coming from but not sure where she's going. Ironically, a bit like
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Natalie Blake...AFTERTHOUGHT : I loved it. Smith celebrates the multiplicity and strength of the black female as clearly shown through Keisha /Natalie Blake.
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LibraryThing member catman46
I listened to this as an audio CD while traveling. Not an easy book to get into initially, nor one with a neat, satisfying ending. But the characters are drawn with utter, realistic clarity - so that as they age from a bunch of kids living in the 'projects', to adults with successful (or not so
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successful) lives, the choices they make along the way seem inevitable. Lives lived more or less ordinarily...but memorably. Show Less
Awards
Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2013)
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2014)
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2012)
British Book Award (Shortlist — 2012)
Maine Readers' Choice Award (Longlist — 2013)
CBC Bookie Awards (Nominee — 2013)
Ondaatje Prize (Shortlist — 2013)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction & Poetry — 2012)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction/Poetry — 2012)
Library Journal Top Ten Book (2012)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2012)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2012 (1e édition originale anglaise)
2014-04-10 (1e traduction et édition française, Du monde entier, Gallimard)
2015-06-05 (Réédition française, Folio, N° 5970, Gallimard)
Physical description
6.02 inches
ISBN
0241145554 / 9780241145555
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DDC/MDS
| 823.914 |