{"id":9201,"date":"2018-02-24T11:57:20","date_gmt":"2018-02-24T10:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9201"},"modified":"2018-02-24T11:58:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T10:58:02","slug":"feel-free-zadie-smith-reviewed-by-gurnaik-johal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9201","title":{"rendered":"Feel Free<\/em>, Zadie Smith, reviewed by Gurnaik Johal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feel Free<\/em>, Zadie Smith, Pengiun Random House<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In her second collection of essays, Feel Free<\/em>, Zadie Smith proves once again to be an essential writer of our times. The wide-ranging subject matter of the book shows Smith as an acute observer of the world and an astute critic of culture and art. Each piece, whether book review or acceptance speech, personal essay or travel writing, is an example of a writer on top form, and improving.<\/p>\n

From Willesden to Manhattan via Rome, Smith examines both the avant-garde and the everyday. In over four hundred pages Smith ranges from Karl Ove Knausgaard to Key & Peele, from Billie Holiday to Beyonc\u00e9; she offers the same analytic eye to children\u2019s films as she does to the Old Masters, and her observations leave the reader looking a little closer at the world around them. The variety found in these pages is testament to Smith\u2019s breadth of interest \u2014 if not knowledge \u2014 and these essays are broadly interesting and informative. The book, split into five sections \u2014 In the world, In the audience, In the gallery, On the bookshelf and Feel Free \u2014 is centred around essays on film, art and literature, and is bookmarked by more personal and, inevitably, more political pieces. There is a structural movement then, of starting broad \u2014 \u201cin the world\u201d as Part I is titled \u2014 and narrowing in, to come out by Part V, back in the world, a little changed, a little more \u201cfree\u201d.<\/p>\n

The clear prose-style that has made Zadie Smith\u2019s novels so successful is perfect in creating concise and convincing arguments in her non-fiction. Throughout there is the novelistic impulse to use one thing to discuss another; in \u201cMeet Justin Beiber!\u201d she uses Belieber meet-and-greets to discuss Martin Buber\u2019s theories on meeting. As contrived as it seems, it works. Where her early fiction has been criticised for overly moralising, and, to some critics, telling rather than showing, Smith is free in the essay form to tell the reader what she thinks and to show why.<\/p>\n

One of the things that makes these essays so fascinating and, dare I say it, readable, is Smith\u2019s position as the self-professed \u201cnon-expert\u201d. She refers to herself throughout as a \u201claywoman\u201d and goes as far as to \u201crecognise [herself] as an intensely naive person\u201d. Where her last collection of essays was called Changing My Mind<\/em>, this one can be thought of as Forming My Opinion<\/em>. For Smith does not lecture \u2014as an \u201cexpert\u201d would be inclined to do\u2014 but writes with a refreshing humility, never claiming to have the \u201cright\u201d opinion. In being a \u201claywoman\u201d interested in finding out more, Smith makes each essay a sort of journey, where the reader, like the writer, moves from interest to knowledge. <\/p>\n

For this reason, the section of the book I found least compelling was \u201cPart IV: On The Bookshelf\u201d, where Smith discusses literature. As a best-selling novelist, literature is definitely one area on which Smith can write with some kind of authority. Here, she is no laywoman, she slips from someone questioning what they think, to someone asserting it. While her literary observations are by no means boring, the section does seem to drag a little when seen in the context of the wider book\u2014 the 80 pages of Harpers Columns, for instance, act more as filler than anything else. However, Smith\u2019s role as a Creative Writing teacher at NYU can be seen in an essay like \u201cThe I Who Is Not Me\u201d, which dissects different forms of narration and should be on the reading lists of any aspiring writers.<\/p>\n

Smith has the writerly ability to render the academic and philosophical accessible and enjoyable. In \u201cWindows on the Will: Anomalisa\u201d, she uses animated films like Polar Express<\/em> to discuss Schopenhauer. Even more impressively, Smith manages to discuss the political without being divisive. In \u201cFences: A Brexit Diary\u201d she works through her own frustrations, but doesn\u2019t let them cloud her judgement; to me, at least, she is passionate without being accusatory, compassionate without being condescending. In her preface, which reads like a disclaimer, Smith makes a point of noting that these essays are \u201cthe product of a bygone world\u201d, having been written before the Trump election. They are, as the title suggests, essays filled with an optimism and a sense of freedom that \u2014to liberal readers anyway\u2014 may not exist in the same way after the Obama administration. In \u201cMan versus Corpus\u201d (a personal highlight), Smith notes that \u201cto any reader of 2013 the works of 1939 may seem innocent\u201d. Well readers in 2018 may find these essays, ranging from 2011 to 2017, a little innocent, a tad out-dated. Sadly books like this don\u2019t have the same instancy as tweets, but by no means does \u201cFeel Free\u201d lack relevance. If there is one thing that readers should take away from these essays it is \u201cto turn from the elegiac what have we done? to the practical what can we do?\u201d <\/p>\n

One thing that I love about novelists writing essays, is that they bring an empathy used in their fictional creations to the real world. Early on, Smith recognises that most issues are dealt with emotionally, rather than logically: \u201cnot with logos or ethos, but pathos\u201d. Compassion is a connecting thread throughout the thirty-one essays of this collection, Smith is not a detached intellectual but someone genuinely involved with the subject matter. This turns essays into page turners; her ever-present wit is punctuated with sincere moments of profundity and always \u201cpathos, pathos, pathos\u201d.<\/p>\n

In Feel Free, readers get to see Zadie Smith as more reader than writer, and through this can learn how to keep a keen eye on the world and on culture, how to protect your individual freedoms, how to \u201cstay woke\u201d. The title \u2014\u201cborrowed\u201d from Smith\u2019s poet-husband Nick Laird\u2019s brilliant poem\u2014 is particularly apt, especially when seen alongside the titles of each of the five parts. Through these titles, Smith is ultimately saying Feel Free \u201cOn the Bookshelf\u201d, Feel Free \u201cIn the Gallery\u201d, Feel Free \u201cIn the Audience\u201d and Feel Free \u201cIn the World\u201d.<\/p>\n

by Gurnaik Johal<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feel Free, Zadie Smith, Pengiun Random House In her second collection of essays, Feel Free, Zadie Smith proves once again to be an essential writer of our times. The wide-ranging subject matter of the book shows Smith as an acute observer of the world and an astute critic of culture and art. Each piece, whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nFeel Free, Zadie Smith, reviewed by Gurnaik Johal - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9201\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Feel Free, Zadie Smith, reviewed by Gurnaik Johal - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Feel Free, Zadie Smith, Pengiun Random House In her second collection of essays, Feel Free, Zadie Smith proves once again to be an essential writer of our times. 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