i.e., ... film offers a different hypothesis: that the possibility of two people's pleasure cannot override the certainty of other people's pain ... p 193 ( )

Loved the film pieces as well as the essay on British humor (I think I read this previously in the New Yorker). The literary essays were somewhat challenging to get through although I may now read Middlemarch. ( )

Zadie Smith salta da un argomento all'altro con leggerezza e ironia, toccando i poli estremi del mondo patinato (Hollywood) e dell'autobiografia (le pagine sulla sua famiglia). Il cinema è un interesse costante di cui evidentemente Smith sa e sa scrivere. Le parti in cui dà il meglio di sé sono a ogni modo i saggi letterari, dedicati alla scrittura e a specifici autori (su tutti spicca il lungo testo conclusivo su David Foster Wallace). ( )

"An interesting thought is trying to reach us here, but the ghost of the literary burns it away, leaving only its remainder: a nicely constructed sentence, rich in sound and syntax, signifying (almost) nothing."

Smith is at her best when writing about fiction writing. Few readers of Kafka go even as far as Agamben in reading K. against himself (a short aside in Homo Sacer). Zadie Smith does nearly as well in her essay in this collection. Wielding the gregarious, successful Franz Kafka, she repudiates some of his worst readers (the 'social-commentariat') including some critics who, despite otherwise good standing, appear to have a blind spot for his work (Calasso). Though she could go further in this analysis. In the final section choosing to take his stated "total alienation" from the "Jewish community" at its word rather than as an expression of anxiety regarding the possibility of this state.

One is acutely conscious of how many years separate the reader from the text - in a way one rarely feels with Susan Sontag. Smith's essays 'grapple with themes of authenticity', the desire to 'unmask the Hollywood phonies', and include a fawning tract on David Foster Wallace (okay, though overplays its philosophical hand), and the recording of a brief encounter with Bret Easton Ellis (ew). The vision being so self-centered (myopic), the stakes so miniscule, and the discussion of race so abbreviated, the collection feels like something out of the 1990's.

I would describe the section on Film as definitively "middle brow". Smith's ideal reader is someone who is aware of the early film stars, Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, etc. and guards this knowledge with a certain pride. He is dismissive of "low brow" films and longs for the days of the first King Kong the silver screen. On the other hand, he has minimal knowledge of technique in film, thinks of movies entirely in terms of plot and performance, and is completely ignorant of the Avant-guard film movement. It is difficult to find a critique from this perspective as being particularly authoritative (compare with Susan Sontag: Syberberg's Hitler).

Many of these problems may be the product of writing for a commercial audience, a quality of such writing being that it is impossible to communicate something the reader doesn't already know. ( )

Some very nice essays in this one. ( )