Authors: Zadie Smith
Changing My Mind (45 page)
Magic Flute, The
(Dickinson)
(Dickinson)
Magnani, Anna
Malinke tribes
Mamba Point Hotel
Mansfield, Katherine
Mansfield Park
(Austen)
(Austen)
Man’s Search for Meaning
(Frankl)
(Frankl)
Marshall, Rob
Martin, Steve
Matrix
trilogy
trilogy
Maugham, Somerset
Maurice
(Forster)
(Forster)
Mayer, Louis B.
Melville, Herman
Memoirs of a Geisha
(film)
(film)
Men in Space
(McCarthy)
(McCarthy)
metafiction
Micro Managers
Middlemarch
(Eliot)
(Eliot)
authorial attention in
subjectivity of
Milton, John
Miss Brooke
(Eliot)
(Eliot)
Mittal Steel
Monroe, Marilyn
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
(film)
(film)
Morecambe and Wise
Moss, Annie
Motion, Andrew
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Munich
(film)
(film)
Murrow, Edward R.
Nabokov, Vera
Nabokov, Vladimir
artistic style of
authorial privilege and
on Gregor Samsa
on inspiration
on knowledge of reality
on subjectivity
Naipaul. S.
“Natural Woman” (song)
Negative Capability
neorealismo
Netherland
(O’Neill)
(O’Neill)
Neugroschel, Joachim
Newbolt, Henry
New Yorker
New York Times Book Review
Nimba
Ninotchka
(film)
(film)
“No More Parades” (Amis)
Normandy
nouveau roman
novels:
architecture of
editing of
first twenty pages of
future of
middle of
proofs of
scaffolding of
Obama, Barack
Oblivion
(Wallace)
(Wallace)
obsessive perspective disorder (OPD)
Ocean’s Eleven
(film)
(film)
Ocean’s Twelve
(film)
(film)
“Octet” (Wallace)
Office, The
(TV show)
(TV show)
“Old Fools, The” (Larkin)
On Beauty
(Smith)
(Smith)
One Day in September
(film)
(film)
“On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand” (Wallace)
Oscars
Oxfam
Pale King, The
(Wallace)
(Wallace)
Paltrow, Gwyneth
Parker, Dorothy
Pat and Mike
(film)
(film)
Paynesville School
Perec, Georges
Père Goriot
(Balzac)
(Balzac)
Perkins, Maxwell
Pervert’s Guide to Cinema
(iek)
(iek)
Pessoa, Fernando António Nogueia
Philadelphia Story, The
(film)
(film)
“Philosophical Investigations” (Wittgenstein)
Phoenix, Joaquin
Picasso, Pablo
Pickering, Colonel (char.)
Plath, Sylvia
Plato
Pleasure of the Text, The
(Barthes)
(Barthes)
Pnin
(Nabokov)
(Nabokov)
Pniniad
(Diment)
(Diment)
Pope, Alexander
Portman, Natalie
poshlust
Pretty Woman
(film)
(film)
Pride and Prejudice
(Austen)
(Austen)
Princess Casamassima, The
(James)
(James)
Proof
(film)
(film)
Pygmalion
(Shaw)
(Shaw)
Pynchon, Thomas
Queen Christina
(film)
(film)
Queen Victoria
(Strachey)
(Strachey)
Ramkissoon, Chuck
readers, reading:
as creative
ideal
pleasures of
Rear Window
“Reenactor” (char.)
Remainder
(McCarthy)
(McCarthy)
self-ridiculing humor of
space in
“Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, The” (Coleridge)
Robbe-Grillet, Alain
Romance & Cigarettes
(film)
(film)
Room with a View, A
(Forster)
(Forster)
Roth, Philip
Rush, Geoffrey
Sade, Marquis de
Saga of Gosta Berling, The
(film)
(film)
Samsa, Gregor (char.)
Samways, Phil
Sartre, Jean-Paul
Saving Private Ryan
(film)
(film)
Scaife, Bert
Scudder, Alex (char.)
See It Now
(TV show)
(TV show)
“Self’s the Man” (Larkin)
Selznick, David O.
Sentimental Education, A
(Flaubert)
(Flaubert)
Seraph on the Suwanee
(Hurston)
(Hurston)
Shakespeare, William
Shaw, George Bernard
Shopgirl
(film)
(film)
Sierra Leone
“Signifying Nothing” (Wallace)
“Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” (Eliot)
Smith, Ben
comedy act of
Smith, Harvey
ashes of
background of
comedy enjoyed by
death of
fatalism and pessimism of
in World War II,
Smith, Luke
Smith, Perry
solipsism
Spielberg, Steven
Spinoza, Baruch
Starks, Joe (char.)
Stewart, Jimmy
Stiller, Mauritz
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
(film)
(film)
Strong Opinions
(Nabokov)
(Nabokov)
Suddenly, Last Summer
(film)
(film)
“Suicide as a Sort of Present” (Wallace)
Sunday Telegraph
Sylvia Scarlett
(film)
(film)
Syriana
(film)
(film)
S/Z
(Barthes)
(Barthes)
Szymborska, Wislawa
Tapestry
(album)
(album)
Taylor, Charles
text:
codes in
indeterminacy of
readerly
writerly
Thalberg, Irving
Their Eyes Were Watching God
(Hurston)
(Hurston)
Theron, Charlize
“Think” (Wallace)
Thirlwell, Adam
Tolbert, William
Tolstoy, Leo
“Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” (Wittgenstein)
Tracy, Spencer
Traffic
(film)
(film)
Transamerica
(film)
(film)
Treadwell, Timothy
Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head, The: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay
(Begley)
(Begley)
Trial, The
(Kafka)
(Kafka)
“Triple Dream, The” (Lermontov)
“Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko” (Wallace)
True Whig Party
Tsotsi
(film)
(film)
Tubman, William
Turturro, John
Two-Faced Woman
(film)
(film)
Two Ronnies
Unity Temple
Valentino, Rudolph
Valéry, Paul
Vallon, Annette
van den Broek, Hans (char.)
van den Broek, Rachel (char.)
Van Eyck, Hubert
vdokhnovenie
(recapture)
(recapture)
V for Vendetta
(film)
(film)
Vincy, Fred (char.)
Vincy, Rosamund (char.)
Virgil
Visconti, Luchino
Vitti, Monica
vorstog
(initial rapture)
(initial rapture)
Vyas, Nazrul Ram (char.)
Wade, Aubrey
Walker, Alice
Walk the Line
(film)
(film)
Wallace, David Foster
commencement speech of
difficulties of
insistence on awareness in work of
Larkin’s poetry and
linguistic specialization in work of
MacArthur won by
parables of
“self” in work of
Wasteland, The
(Eliot)
(Eliot)
Watanabe, Ken
“Water” (Larkin)
Waugh, Evelyn
Weil, Simone
Wells, H. G.
Werfel, Franz
West Point
“What I Believe” (broadcast)
Where Angels Fear to Tread
(Forster)
(Forster)
White Teeth
(Smith)
(Smith)
Wide Sargasso Sea
(Rhys)
(Rhys)
Wilcox, Henry (char.)
Wilkerson, Mr.
Willesden
Wilton, Penelope
Witherspoon, Reese
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
Wodehouse, P. G.
Women and Children Development Association of Liberia (WOCDAL)
Women Love Diamonds
(film)
(film)
Woods, Vergible “Tea Cake” (char.)
Woolf, Virginia
Wordsworth, William
World Is Not Enough, The
(film)
(film)
World War II
World Wildlife Fund
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston
(Boyd)
(Boyd)
Wright, Frank Lloyd
writers, writing:
inspiration of
pleasures of
Wyllie, David
Yates, Richard
Yeats, William Butler
Yeoh, Michelle
“Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XI)” (Wallace)
“You’ve Got a Friend” (song)
Zaltzman, Andy
Zellweger, Renée
Zhang, Ziyi
Zikeh, Nyan P.
Zischler, Hanns
Ziek, Slavoj
Zora Neale Hurston: A Life Letters
Zurer, Ayelet
1
But I still resist “limp and languid.”
2
Again,
Middlemarch
is an interesting comparison. Readers often prefer Lydgate and are disappointed at Dorothea’s choice of Ladislaw.
Middlemarch
is an interesting comparison. Readers often prefer Lydgate and are disappointed at Dorothea’s choice of Ladislaw.
3
The (very good) biography is
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neal
e
Hurston
by Valerie Boyd. Also very good is
Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters
, collected and edited by Carla Kaplan.
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neal
e
Hurston
by Valerie Boyd. Also very good is
Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters
, collected and edited by Carla Kaplan.
4
Dust Tracks on a Road
is Hurston’s autobiography.
is Hurston’s autobiography.
5
All the critical voices quoted above can be found in
Zora Neale Hurston’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God:
Modern Critical Interpretations
, edited by Harold Bloom.
Zora Neale Hurston’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God:
Modern Critical Interpretations
, edited by Harold Bloom.
6
Hurston, by contrast, wanted her writing to demonstrate the fact that “Negroes are no better nor no worse, and at times as boring as everybody else.”
7
Not least of which is Alice Walker’s original introduction to
Their Eyes Were Watching God
. By championing the book, she rescued Hurston from forty years of obscurity.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
. By championing the book, she rescued Hurston from forty years of obscurity.
8
A footnote for the writers in the audience:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
was written in seven weeks.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
was written in seven weeks.
9
See chapter 16 for a sad portrayal of a truly color-struck lady, Mrs. Turner.
10
I think this was the point my mother was trying to make.
11
As Kafka’s
The Trial
plumbs that ancient buildup of cultural residue that is called “Jewishness.”
The Trial
plumbs that ancient buildup of cultural residue that is called “Jewishness.”
12
Down on the muck, Janie and Tea Cake befriend the “Saws,” workers from the Caribbean.
13
Until they read books featuring nonwhite characters. I once overheard a young white man at a book festival say to his friend, “Have you read the new Kureishi? Same old thing—loads of Indian people.” To which you want to reply, “Have you read the new Franzen? Same old thing—loads of white people.”
14
At its most common and banal: catching a beat, following a rhythm.
15
In the
Oxford English Dictionary:
“
Schmaltz n
. informal. excessive sentimentality, esp. in music or movies. ORIGIN 1930s: from Yiddish
schmaltz
, from German
Schmalz
‘dripping, lard.’ ”
Oxford English Dictionary:
“
Schmaltz n
. informal. excessive sentimentality, esp. in music or movies. ORIGIN 1930s: from Yiddish
schmaltz
, from German
Schmalz
‘dripping, lard.’ ”
16
Is there anything less soulful than attempting to define soulfulness?
17
In literary terms, we know that there is a tipping point at which the cultural particular—while becoming no less culturally particular—is accepted by readers as the neutral universal. The previously “Jewish fiction” of Philip Roth is now “fiction.” We have moved from the particular complaints of Portnoy to the universal claims of Everyman.
18
The book in question is
The BBC Talks of E. M. Forster, 1929-1960
, University of Missouri Press.
The BBC Talks of E. M. Forster, 1929-1960
, University of Missouri Press.
19
He refers to the narrative version by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson.
20
The book recommended is
The Social Substance of Religion
by Gerald Heard.
The Social Substance of Religion
by Gerald Heard.
21
Next to the phrase “into her dream he melted” was written “You mean he fucked her, do you?”
22
The other panelists: Desmond MacCarthy, Rose Macaulay, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Philip Toynbee.
23
“I don’t belong to any club or group. I don’t fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations.”
24
His translated poetry reader of 1944,
Three Russian Poets: Selections from Pushkin, Lermontov and Tyutchev
, takes care to include three sparklingly written mini-biographies of the poets.
Three Russian Poets: Selections from Pushkin, Lermontov and Tyutchev
, takes care to include three sparklingly written mini-biographies of the poets.
25
Another way of thinking about the distinction might be: there is a style that believes writing should mimic the quick pace, the ease, and the fluidity of reading (or even of speech). And then there is a style that believes reading should mimic the obstruction and slow struggle of writing. Raymond Carver would be on that first axis. Nabokov is
way out
on the second. Joyce is even further.
way out
on the second. Joyce is even further.
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