"Accepting a literary prize in Ohio last year, the novelist Zadie Smith described feeling somewhat alienated from myself, experiencing myself as a posthumous entity. Smith is only 50, but there is indeed something of the afterlife about the material gathered in her new book, which bundles various odds and ends from the past nine years: speeches, opinion pieces, criticism and eulogies for departed literary heroes Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel."
"When Smith deploys a nonchalant IMHO in an otherwise stately meditation on historical fiction, it feels plausibly organic. But many of her flirtations with the vernacular are prefaced by awkward, vaguely apologetic disclaimers: as the youngs [sic] say; as the kids say; as the present cliche goes; To use one of the template phrases of the moment. The cumulative effect is a little embarrassing."
Material gathered over nine years includes speeches, opinion pieces, criticism and eulogies for Philip Roth, Martin Amis and Hilary Mantel. A reflection recalls the transition from a dreamy, slo-mo 1980s childhood to an anxious, permanent social-media now within a single generation. That temporal shift creates feelings of ancientness even among the relatively young and, when combined with ordinary ageing anxieties, renders cultural commentary tinged with self-pity. Identification with a once-revered, now-shunned conductor becomes existential: Our backs hurt, the kids don't like Bach any more — and the seas are rising! Attempts to adopt youthful vernacular produce awkward, apologetic disclaimers and occasional misuse of slang, generating cumulative embarrassment. Slightly being out of touch also brings relief from obligation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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