She homes in on her subject’s most minute details, unspooling layers of meaning in a way that perhaps only a literary critic can do. Mulling over that most over-plowed of topics - the autobiographical element in Roth's fiction - Smith pays homage to the liberating effect of Roth's ingeniousness and offensiveness.For Smith, anything is a potential text that she can subject to her talent for keen observation. This piece originally was a lecture on Philip Roth that Smith presented in 2016 at the Newark Public Library.
Smith is particularly sharp on topics of art and identity, which become linked in an essay called, "The I Who Is Not Me."
(Certainly, as of last year we have worse things to fear from Facebook - like Russian interference in our elections - than the shallowness of its "likes" and "friendships.")Ī good deal of what remains, however, is smart and distinctive. Other essays, like "Generation Why?," a 2010 review of The Social Network joined with a rant against the "only connect" ethos of Facebook, feel outdated. For instance, "Meet Justin Bieber!" - which imagines a meeting between the Biebs and the philosopher Martin Buber falls into what I think of as the "empty cereal grain" category of writing: in other words, forgettable filler often used to bulk up collections like this one. Most of these essays have been published previously and most, but not all, are worth reading.Īuthor Interviews Novelist Zadie Smith On Historical Nostalgia And The Nature Of Talent Smith's title, Feel Free, suggests a sane approach: We readers should "feel free" to follow our own curiosities, pluck essays out of different sections and skim or skip others. To quote a question Smith says she asks herself whenever she meets someone whose interests are deep, wide-ranging and, therefore, intimidating: " How does she find the time?" And, how, on earth, will we readers find the time to dig into all these subjects with her? Like her novels, Feel Free, Smith's massive new essay collection, is downright polyamorous in its objects of fascination: Smith here writes about Brexit and Facebook, the dancing Nicholas Brothers and Jay-Z, the art of 18th-century German portraitist Balthasar Denner and the novels of Paula Fox and Ursula K. Her characters run the gamut from aspirational working-class kids, self-important academics, pensioners, young dancers and, to date, one Chinese-Jewish Londoner with a fixation on Golden Age Hollywood. In novels like White Teeth and On Beauty she's ventured deeply into the lives of a multi-racial assortment of immigrants to Great Britain and the United States. Zadie Smith is justly celebrated for her chameleon-like gifts as a writer. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Feel Free Subtitle Essays Author Zadie Smith
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