Shortlisted for 2013 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
| NW by Zadie Smith | |
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| Category: Literary Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Robin Leggett
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| Summary: Zadie Smith has made us wait a long time for her next book in which she returns to the issues of urban multi-culturalism that she addressed in her brilliant debut. Four people brought up on a poor council estate in NW London try to make their way in the world - can they overcome their backgrounds or will is always drag them back down? | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 304 | Date: September 2012 |
| Publisher: Hamish Hamilton | |
| ISBN: 9780241144145 | |
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Fans of Zadie Smith have had a seven year wait since her last book On Beauty. In NW, Smith returns to more of the issues addressed in her brilliant debut novel White Teeth. Set in parts of London that should be obvious from the title, the book takes the lives of four people who grew up on a rough estate and looks at how they have moved on - or not. All four still live nearby the estate where they grew up. There's multi-cultural tension and the have and have nots of power and money and Smith looks at how much individuals are in control of their destiny and ability to rise out of their upbringing, and how chance encounters can bring you back to your past with a bump.
Structurally, the book is uneven but that is undoubtedly intentional. It is the two girls, Leah and Natalie, who command the greatest share of the book both in terms of page count and focus. Childhood friends on the estate, Leah is arguably the more grounded and it is her story that kicks off the book when she is duped into helping a young girl who is conning her for drug money. Like Natalie, Leah is university educated and now works for a local charity. In this first part, Leah and her partner visit Natalie and her husband whose middle class existence is now a world away from their experience. Leah studies philosophy at university and the philosophical point of the book seems to be between moments and instants - the point where lives can change dramatically.
When Natalie's story kicks in though, we see a different slant on things. Natalie has climbed the highest, now working as a barrister, and so potentially has the furthest to fall. Both Leah and Natalie have secret issues of their own but Natalie's is the one that will have the most dramatic repercussions.
Interwoven with these two dominant threads are the stories of Felix and Nathan. Again, Felix's life has been the more moderate of the two, with Nathan now drug dealing and homeless. Both have interesting stories but like the urban experience, the girls only encounter these people in glimpses. For me though this is the strength of the book - it's more than the sum of its parts.
Style-wise, the book is mixed. Leah's story is told in the most conventional, with Felix's being told in chapters based on his location throughout a fateful day, Natalie's being told in short almost diary type entries, and Nathan's being told as conversations on a series of journeys taken with Natalie.
It's not as easy to fall in love with NW as it was with say White Teeth or The Autograph Man. It's an altogether more challenging reading experience due to the mixture of styles and uneven structure, but equally it's a book that demands re-reading more so than either of her first two novels. What Smith does so well is to capture people who seem real and rounded and whose dialogue is wholly believable. It's a book where the characters sit in your mind after you've read it. The same is true of the ending. At first I was frustrated by it but in the city, things are messy and don't all get tied up nicely at the end. Perhaps it is, after all, the only way it could have ended.
Much like life in the modern city, the story can be complicated and strands and lives cross over in unexpected ways. There's beauty and darkness as these people struggle to make a life against the backdrop of a poor council estate upbringing. Some will rise, some will fall. Smith captures this perfectly. I'm already looking forward to re-reading this book.
Huge thanks to the kind people at Hamish Hamilton for sending us a copy of this book.
Any self-respecting Londoner will tell you that North and South London are very different places. So read this in conjunction with Capital by John Lanchester to get the full picture. Having lived in both parts, the differences in the books reflect well on the differences in the locations too.
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You can read more book reviews or buy NW by Zadie Smith at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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