Zadie Smith’s NW or the art of line-crossing
The purpose of this paper is to examine NW, Zadie Smith’s fourth novel, through the notion of crossings, which can be viewed as ethical connections between characters but also as geographical journeys across London, movements along the social scale, multicultural encounters, weavings of various lite...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)
2014-07-01
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| Series: | E-REA |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/erea/3892 |
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| Summary: | The purpose of this paper is to examine NW, Zadie Smith’s fourth novel, through the notion of crossings, which can be viewed as ethical connections between characters but also as geographical journeys across London, movements along the social scale, multicultural encounters, weavings of various literary traditions and lineages, as well as intertwining of high and popular culture. In each of these areas, the question that is raised in relation to Smith’s novel is whether it is possible to step across the lines that strictly divide people, districts, races, social classes and cultural objects into separate categories and come up with an invigorating mélange, or if rigid lines of separation still persist. The argument will draw from David Lodge’s metaphor of the crossroads (when he wondered which directions the novelist of the second half of the twentieth century could take), as well as from Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of lines of “segmentarity” and lines of flight, along which individual and collective lives are ordered or fractured. The aim will be to try and delineate the contours of British contemporary society and identity as depicted in NW. |
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| ISSN: | 1638-1718 |