n-w (zadie smith)

I came back to Smith via an article she wrote about Tár, a lucid article which touched on the falsity of the world when you ascend to the stratosphere of fame. I say ‘come back to’, because twenty years or so ago Smith was, for a while, so ubiquitous it was impossible not to be aware of or read her. I recall reading or trying to read White Teeth in the bath in Vauxhall, before giving up on it, disappointed, for one reason or another. Once I walked past her at the perhaps predictable venue of the Frieze Art Fair. I say predictable, because it seemed like the perfect kind of framing for her detached elegance, a post-colonial jewel on the UK map. It felt as though Smith became a representative of the establishment, part of that British literary world that exudes a certain arrogance, the likes of Amis, Rushdie & co. This is what was fascinating about the article in question, which appeared to reflect on the paradox of first world success, the way it affects the relationship between the artist as creator and the artist as producer, or artist vs. product; one of the more insidious cultural crises of capitalism, although of course artists have always flogged their work, or had to weigh up how much energy they should be dedicating to flogging their work.

This is all context for the journey of this reader. Smith comes with baggage, and perhaps for this reason I have, ever since that bath time experience back in the day, shied away from her work. Which brings us to N-W, her fourth book. Firstly, it should be said that it is a fluid, easy read. Secondly that it is structurally playful, essentially comprising three books in one, each with their own chosen register. Thirdly, that it succeeds in representing a vision of post-colonial, diverse, London, with its range of characters, argots, and experiences. The common root of these experiences is the London housing estate where the characters grew up, a place not a million miles away from Gabriel Krauze’s more hard-edged Who They Was. The other side of the literary coin might be Lanchester’s bland Capital. The great modern urban novels (as opposed to the great urban character-driven novels), such as Ulysses or Berlin Alexanderplatz, employ an approach which isn’t afraid of alienating the reader. N-W flirts with this, with its fragmented structure. The third section is composed of 180 sequences, telling the story of Natalie/ Keisha from childhood to motherhood. The first section employs a similar device to describe a more specific temporal moment in her friend, Leah’s midlife crisis. But there’s always a sense of close-cropped control in the text. Even when Natalie goes rogue, and starts responding to personals where couples are looking for a black woman to have sex with, breaking away from her tightly-corseted life/career path, it feels like an aesthetic device, on part of writer and character. The danger is held at arm’s length as they observe the details of the random houses Natalie finds herself visiting.

Strangely, as the bookending sections of Natalie and Leah feel like they have a personal element to it (the philosopher’s hand on the prodigy’s knee, the crisis around motherhood), the section where it feels as though the most visceral content spills over is the central section. This is more classically composed, as the happy-go-lucky Felix spends a fateful day cruising around his London, more extensive than the N-W of the title. Everything in this central sequence feels both more expansive and more nuanced, in particular a vivid and complicated interlude with his over-privileged ex-lover who lives in Soho. The city’s interaction between second-generation immigrant and old money is laid bare, in a manner that succeeds in being ugly and affecting at the same time. Again, this is an entirely personal view, but it feels as though Felix’s peregrinations capture the city in a vertical fashion, where the other sections remain horizontal, skating over the surface of the teeming city, notes from the overground.

Having said all of which, N-W feels like a novel which is seeking to engage, to get in there, to ask what is this city/ country that is being invented, in the light of the history that precedes it and which its characters are caught up in.