Swing Time
Author: Zadie Smith
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Source: Penguin Random House UK
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Literary Fiction
My first Zadie Smith and perhaps not the best one to have started with. The prose itself was fine but the story left me cold. It started promising enough, our narrator and her friend Tracy, two brown girls dream about being dancers. Our narrator, however, has flat feet and little talent for dance, though she can sing. Tracy is the one with dance talent and her acceptance into a dance school with serve to start the separation of our two friends.
Forward to the future, our narrator is an assistant to popular dancer/singer, maybe a Brittany Spears type of entertainer who wants to build a girl's school in West Africa. We go back and forth in time, the past, the present in Africa. I should have loved this part but I found the characters flat, our narrator little changed from her youth, and the pacing incredibly slow. It is hard to overcome the fact that a secondary character, Tracy is so much more interesting, that the parts that include her pulled me in, while the other characters just seem wooden.
Cultural identity is explored, old movies, dance but not as much as the title of the book leads us to believe. I found myself skimming, never a good thing, and at the end there were finally a few noteworthy and redeemable events. I will try to read another of her books, as I said the prose itself was worthy, just wished for more interesting aspects in the plot itself. There are many four and five star reviews for this book, keep in mind, this is just my reaction to it and may not be yours.
Forward to the future, our narrator is an assistant to popular dancer/singer, maybe a Brittany Spears type of entertainer who wants to build a girl's school in West Africa. We go back and forth in time, the past, the present in Africa. I should have loved this part but I found the characters flat, our narrator little changed from her youth, and the pacing incredibly slow. It is hard to overcome the fact that a secondary character, Tracy is so much more interesting, that the parts that include her pulled me in, while the other characters just seem wooden.
Cultural identity is explored, old movies, dance but not as much as the title of the book leads us to believe. I found myself skimming, never a good thing, and at the end there were finally a few noteworthy and redeemable events. I will try to read another of her books, as I said the prose itself was worthy, just wished for more interesting aspects in the plot itself. There are many four and five star reviews for this book, keep in mind, this is just my reaction to it and may not be yours.
A distinguished thread that one may observe in this expansive narrative, is the non-linear time line. The narrator continues swinging among today and the day gone by, and day after tomorrow and day earlier than the day gone by. The casualty in such preparations is typically empathy, that's suspended a lot earlier than its formation due to the breckneck tempo of its beholders. however Smith’s skill lies in her clever writing, which bridges the gaps to a point. Her seamless fusion of cultural factors belies the sharp sting of race fallout: the friendships and relationships she depicts are not without the disjoint perspectives that emerge from exercising one of a kind racial hegemonies. there is a positive tenderness in her narrator’s call, nearly like an impervious actor defeated from interior. but the overdose of details robs a vast sheen off the analyzing pleasure. some quantities, mainly inside the center, are tediously drawn, in which the elements seem doing not anything else however fill the pages. possibly, the superfluity did what the overlapping timelines did now not – overshadow the narrator.
notwithstanding all, ‘Swing Time’ is a good trip; one that brings a few essential air, if no longer a chunk of clean memory to take again home.
Thank you Penguin Random House for sending over this book for review !
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