Swing Time

Sep 25

Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Reviewed by Linda
📒📕

Zadie's first novel in years, long-listed for the man booker prize, and critically acclaimed by several, was an odd and disjointed read which left me with mixed emotions. Yes, it covers important topics such as identity and heritage, racial and local status, starting in Willesden, heading over to New York and Africa, however, the constant jump from one era in the protagonist's life to another and the continuous flow of prose, with no initial logical link felt aimless. The latter third of the book was definitely the better part, but overall I just couldn't help but feel frustrated with the make-up of the main character. An idle individual with no aspirations, stuck in a mental time warp of her childhood years with her ex-best friend Tracey and inability to live in the present, and lack of purpose and self-belief plus the non-connection with her Jamaican roots was annoying. I'm usually a fan of Zadie Smith, and I was genuinely looking forward to this but was definitely deceived by the blurb and the media hype in this case. Maybe I'm missing something here, what did you think?

Swing TimeZadie SmithLindaFictioncontemporary fiction

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

Swing Time

Holding Up the Universe

Jemima J