Features Books Published 2 September 2012

Zadie Smith: NW

With her fourth novel, Smith returns to London and attempts to pin ambiguity to the page.
Carmel Doohan

We are often given no depth of field. Sometimes this seems unnecessarily confusing, as when in an early chapter, song lyrics from The Kinks blend, undifferentiated into Woolfesque stream of consciousness and dialogue. Yet it soon becomes clear that it is far more than self-conscious quirkiness or posturing: Smith’s technique of non-differentiation is crucial; we are given this ongoing stream of advertisements, sights, sounds, speech, interior monologue and memory unfiltered so that we can witness the characters filtering; we get to know them by watching how they make the objective subjective; what they focus on, what they prioritize and what they ignore.

This is a book that begs to be re-read. You find yourself reading, looking forward to re-reading. On the first go, you don’t have time to suck out the meaning that is packed into every offhand observation because you want to find out what’s going to happen next. And what’s-going-to-happen-next doesn’t mean action or plot: In the hands of an author with this much fierce insight, a character simply walking down the street, thinking, is an epic battlefield.

The middle section follows Felix, and allows Smith to display her talent for dialogue. She can have a man breathing in front of you with one line and have you caring about what happens to him in two. Smith’s people do not speak to illuminate their character, describe their predicament or voice their authors opinions. They speak because it is what people do. They speak because they are trying to live their lives.

The final section is almost an essay. Like her non-fiction (Changing my mind: Occasional essays (2009)) it takes on complex issues with wit and fights hard to address them with the rigour they deserve.  It is in this section where Smith drops any of the ‘rules’ and goes into freeform; her voice mingles with Natalie’s and the concept of character itself becomes an idea to be interrogated. Numbered paragraphs lay out random episodes in Natalie’s life like riddles and the reader must do what they will with them. Critics have found this section cold or unnecessarily stylized, but surely this is a more realistic shape for  back-story than a  string of cause and effect? This said, the section has its flaws: ‘The listings’ Natalie keeps checking are left unexplained for too long- it is one of the few visible plot devices in a book reassuringly free of such annoyances- and her related actions also seem slightly forced.


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Carmel Doohan

Carmel is an arts journalist and writer who lives in Hackney, London.

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