NW: A Novel

by Zadie Smith

One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2012

Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals—Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan—as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. In private houses and public parks, at work and at play, these Londoners inhabit 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. Depicting the modern urban zone—familiar to city-dwellers everywhere—NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.

• ISBN10: 1594203970
• ISBN13: 9781594203978
• Publish Date: 4 September 2012 (first published 1 September 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 416
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781594203978

Reviews

[clementine]

Oh, this is a tricky one. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts on it! What I know for certain is that I liked it, but not nearly as much as Smith's first novel, White Teeth.

I found a lot to admire about Smith's writing. I really like her style; to me, it's the perfect balance - a bit poetic, but not flowery. Her dialogue is great; she signifies things like accent and class so well. She has a sardonic tone that I really like; the narrator is a bit cheeky, never taking things too seriously. Though the style and form of the novel shifts a bit with the different perspectives, this essential playfulness is retained throughout them all, and reconciles them believably. I really enjoyed the characters of Felix and Natalie. But I did not like Leah, whose perspective starts the novel - I found her uninteresting and unlikeable. And by the end, I felt a bit ripped off, because usually multi-strand novels like this are my shit precisely because of how seamlessly all the narratives converge at the end. But this novel just sort of ended. I don't mind an ambiguous ending, or one that just ends in a general sense of ennui without any real development (as is the case here). That's fine. It just seemed... anticlimactic, especially given the narrative structure, which sort of begs for some sort of revelation related to all the strands. And I felt like we were denied that, unfortunately. Which is such a shame, because White Teeth is such a great example of a novel with an ensemble cast that was just magical.

So, I really appreciate Smith's technical skill here, but I didn't love the story itself. I think if this had been the first of her novels I'd read, I might not be inspired to pick up any more. But I did love White Teeth so much, so I'll press on with her.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Living in the Caldwell housing estate found in North West London, the only plan was to get out and go somewhere else. Thirty years later, Caldwell kids have all moved on with their varying degrees of success. Living streets apart, their worlds collide, showing them that the people they once were and are now, can suddenly unravel.

NW has been labelled as a tragicomedy, which means the author will try to cut overly dramatic and tragic lives will a bit of humour and possibly a happy ending. I felt like this revealed too much about the novel; I always expected everything to turn out well for these four Londoners. The term recherché postmodernism (or hysterical realism) was coined by literary critic James Wood to describe this type of contemporary fiction, in particular the works of Zadie Smith. Has states, this is “a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterisation and careful, detailed investigations of real specific social phenomena.”

This gives us a sense of what to expect in a Zadie Smith novel “[and] turn fiction into social theory” (James Wood, 2000). I have to admit that this is the first of Smith’s novels that I read and picked this as my first simply because it was the first time I heard of her and it was available at my local library. In hindsight, maybe starting with White Teeth might have been a better choice but at least I know I’ve experienced Smith’s style without going to her most celebrated novel.

This felt like an experimental novel that had a lot to offer and has some interesting insights into a low social economical part of London. It tried to analyse the social progress of the four main protagonists as they try to be successful in life. Not the easiest book to read while I was struggling to remain focused and climb out of a slump. There are a lot of ideas jammed into a novel full of ever changing styles; yet NW remained lyrical and poetic through it all.

I wish I had better focus through this book, I feel like there was a lot I missed out, what I did get from the book was enjoyable. It is a weird experience enjoying a book but not feeling like reading at the same time. I think it does affect my opinion of NW but I’m trying hard to avoid letting personal opinions cloud my judgment on great writing. Sure, reviewing and enjoyment of a book are based on person opinions but I feel that I need to remove emotions and read more critically. NW was interesting and I hope to read more Zadie Smith in the future.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/12/06/book-review-nw/