spiderfelt's review
4.0
Why must every book written by an award winning author be compared to the most successful work in their canon? If we knew nothing of Zadie Smith, would this book be enjoyable on its own? Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this book is complex, original and required my careful attention throughout the story. Zadie Smith crafts characters whose motivations are opaque, who act in unpredictable and sometimes despicable ways. Perhaps it is her knack for diaglogue and transcribing dialect that captivates me, or just the beauty of the phrases. I enjoyed this book because I love Zadie Smith, and didn't realize until it fell into my hands that there was another work of hers that I had yet to discover. Now that I'm done, I am reminded of all the reasons I love her writing.
bethvance's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
siobhanward's review
reflective
medium-paced
2.0
I'm torn on this book, mostly because I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. I found it to be complex and convoluted, which made it boring. Alex had great potential to be a great main character, but he was boring and hard to like, which is not great for an author whose stories are as character-driven as Smith's. The secondary characters were much more interesting and I would have loved more time with them and less with Alex.
I'm also very conflicted on Smith writing a story that is so filled with Judaism. There is just too much "Jewishness" (to borrow a term from Smith) in the book for something written by a non-Jew. Judge Judy once said to RuPaul "Incorporating Judaism into your personality is maybe something you don't need" and I feel like that is really just my feeling here...
I'm also very conflicted on Smith writing a story that is so filled with Judaism. There is just too much "Jewishness" (to borrow a term from Smith) in the book for something written by a non-Jew. Judge Judy once said to RuPaul "Incorporating Judaism into your personality is maybe something you don't need" and I feel like that is really just my feeling here...
smartcassart's review
2.0
Let me start by acknowledging Zadie Smith's intelligence, wittiness and "razor-sharp" observations that can only come from someone with deep empathy and interest with humans, and a touching concern with the human condition as a whole. This is why though her characters might be super ordinary, even below average or straight-up losers, she spends a lot of time meticulously crafting them, exploring their thoughts and emotions, describing their interactions and seeing the world through their eyes, but in the same sardonic voice and loquacious, high-brow language. As a result, they come across as secret psuedo-philosophers no matter who they are. I can see this bothering some readers, but for me it shows that every person is getting the attention they all equally deserve and possibly crave. This is also Smith's style and a testament to her understanding (and perhaps patience) with people we normally might not give the time of day. They are certainly fun and intriguing to read about. After all, why would we want to read about perfect, flawless, put-together people all the time?
However, this also means that if you don't like a character, you are still very much stuck with them and it is not a pleasant experience. It's not supposed to be, since her protagonists tend to be eccentric individuals who live mundane lives and are plagued with some manner of loneliness, alienation or self-loathing, but the endless details she puts in her writing, whether it is a character description, a setting or even a single action or moment, makes these scenes seem to stretch on far longer than necessary. In this novel, I think the hero Alex took two chapters to get out of the house to meet a friend in his video store, and this is after a "prologue" that goes on for... 4o pages? (I returned the book to the library yesterday so can't verify). There is a lot of jumping back and forth in the timeline of Alex Li's 27 years of life here- in fact, that is in a large part the focus of the plot: mapping out what a mess he is after the death of his father at age 12.
I enjoy maximalist literature and am a fan of flamboyant language and clever wordplay, but if the story is not appealing then this kind of writing makes what could have just been a 'meh' experience into mental torture. Smith does a great job conveying Alex Li's pain, loneliness and dejection exceedingly well for the reasons I highlighted above, and shows through the concerns of his loyal friends that his behavior is recognized to be destructive and toxic. However- he does not learn from it. I feel like he gets away with it much of the time with not much more than a verbal slap on the wrist. His friends are absolutely wonderful with their own problems that in my opinion, deserve as much if not more attention than Alex's, but because he is the east functional one he ends up being the one who needs to be saved. Never mind that he causes them himself. If I was his poor best friend or girlfriend, I would have cut him out of my life a while ago. Alex is literally guy I briefly befriended in college who doesn't want to commit to anything because he's "figuring shit out" and still trying to get over memories of a rough childhood... which is perfectly legitimate, except that I have the same problems and I don't use them as an excuse to treat people around me like garbage.
If it sounds like I am giving this book a low rating because of personal bias, then...yes... but I assure you I have very objective reasons to do so as well. Like I said, the pacing, structuring and prosaic language in combination with the fact they are describing things and people I DON'T CARE ABOUT, made this reading experience feel longer than it is, and these elements Smith adds to the narrative that are emblematic of the maximalist literary style and which she does fairly well in White Teeth, to me feel slapped on like appendages in Autograph Man. White Teeth also was a drag but that's because it goes across at least 4 different cultures and 3 generations (if not more)- Autograph Man follows Alex Li over one week. And I have to know everything about his sex life, callous treatment towards every lover, his "Jewishness" and "Chineseness", and the book he is trying to write on Jewishness, which does not go anywhere in the end?? That's the other thing - it is clear that being Jewish is an integral part of Alex's identity, or rather his identity crisis. The edition of this book that I read (not sure about other versions) comes with a thoughtful visual design and a series of graphics and illustrations with a lot of references to the Torah. Furthermore, the chapters of the second part of the book are titled with the chapters of the Torah (if I'm not mistaken. I don't know these things very well- I don't even know if they are called chapters in the Torah, as they are in the Bible). Yet it pretty much seems forgotten towards the end when Alex finds other things to brood over.
And the ending. Oh the fucking ending. If it's Smith's idea of ending things poetically - it's not working. It was so disappointing and abrupt it really felt like I suffered all the internal dialogue and pondering for nothing. I won't go into anymore detail other than to say that I appreciate the author's dedication to a set poetic or literary structure constant throughout the book, but it baffles me how something so obsessively planned out can come across as messy and not put-together.
However, this also means that if you don't like a character, you are still very much stuck with them and it is not a pleasant experience. It's not supposed to be, since her protagonists tend to be eccentric individuals who live mundane lives and are plagued with some manner of loneliness, alienation or self-loathing, but the endless details she puts in her writing, whether it is a character description, a setting or even a single action or moment, makes these scenes seem to stretch on far longer than necessary. In this novel, I think the hero Alex took two chapters to get out of the house to meet a friend in his video store, and this is after a "prologue" that goes on for... 4o pages? (I returned the book to the library yesterday so can't verify). There is a lot of jumping back and forth in the timeline of Alex Li's 27 years of life here- in fact, that is in a large part the focus of the plot: mapping out what a mess he is after the death of his father at age 12.
I enjoy maximalist literature and am a fan of flamboyant language and clever wordplay, but if the story is not appealing then this kind of writing makes what could have just been a 'meh' experience into mental torture. Smith does a great job conveying Alex Li's pain, loneliness and dejection exceedingly well for the reasons I highlighted above, and shows through the concerns of his loyal friends that his behavior is recognized to be destructive and toxic. However- he does not learn from it. I feel like he gets away with it much of the time with not much more than a verbal slap on the wrist. His friends are absolutely wonderful with their own problems that in my opinion, deserve as much if not more attention than Alex's, but because he is the east functional one he ends up being the one who needs to be saved. Never mind that he causes them himself. If I was his poor best friend or girlfriend, I would have cut him out of my life a while ago. Alex is literally guy I briefly befriended in college who doesn't want to commit to anything because he's "figuring shit out" and still trying to get over memories of a rough childhood... which is perfectly legitimate, except that I have the same problems and I don't use them as an excuse to treat people around me like garbage.
If it sounds like I am giving this book a low rating because of personal bias, then...yes... but I assure you I have very objective reasons to do so as well. Like I said, the pacing, structuring and prosaic language in combination with the fact they are describing things and people I DON'T CARE ABOUT, made this reading experience feel longer than it is, and these elements Smith adds to the narrative that are emblematic of the maximalist literary style and which she does fairly well in White Teeth, to me feel slapped on like appendages in Autograph Man. White Teeth also was a drag but that's because it goes across at least 4 different cultures and 3 generations (if not more)- Autograph Man follows Alex Li over one week. And I have to know everything about his sex life, callous treatment towards every lover, his "Jewishness" and "Chineseness", and the book he is trying to write on Jewishness, which does not go anywhere in the end?? That's the other thing - it is clear that being Jewish is an integral part of Alex's identity, or rather his identity crisis. The edition of this book that I read (not sure about other versions) comes with a thoughtful visual design and a series of graphics and illustrations with a lot of references to the Torah. Furthermore, the chapters of the second part of the book are titled with the chapters of the Torah (if I'm not mistaken. I don't know these things very well- I don't even know if they are called chapters in the Torah, as they are in the Bible). Yet it pretty much seems forgotten towards the end when Alex finds other things to brood over.
And the ending. Oh the fucking ending. If it's Smith's idea of ending things poetically - it's not working. It was so disappointing and abrupt it really felt like I suffered all the internal dialogue and pondering for nothing. I won't go into anymore detail other than to say that I appreciate the author's dedication to a set poetic or literary structure constant throughout the book, but it baffles me how something so obsessively planned out can come across as messy and not put-together.
jmiae's review against another edition
3.0
Zadie Smith's unusual and engaging prose was the only thing that carried me through this. The Autograph Man feels largely skeletal, more a collection of bullet pointed plot twists that never quite connect to each other than a cohesive narrative. I never quite knew where she was going with the story until suddenly I found myself in the middle of an event. Although the main thrust of the story is apparently Alex-Li's existential crisis as an autograph man, there is a plethora of other conflicts that are only briefly touched upon or, in some cases, merely hinted at, but never get fully resolved. The result was a rather unsatisfying read.
Bottom line: if you have never read anything by Zadie Smith before, don't start with this one. Whilst it is a great showcase of her abilities to write beautiful sentences and build intriguing syntax structures, the complex web of characters and conflicts introduced are only flimsily held together.
Bottom line: if you have never read anything by Zadie Smith before, don't start with this one. Whilst it is a great showcase of her abilities to write beautiful sentences and build intriguing syntax structures, the complex web of characters and conflicts introduced are only flimsily held together.
jendella's review against another edition
3.0
First of all: this book is much too long and it has a weird white-man-colonial-anthropological tone that I tried view as “ironic” but as the book went on, it became clearer to me that it wasn’t?? But yeah, if you can stick with the excessively long first third and then get past reading descriptions such as someone being “blue-black” in skin tone or having “hair like an Indian”... on a craft level, there are few that can match Zadie. I’m sorry but it’s true (in my opinion ofc). Even with all its problems (I’ve not even mentioned the Jewish thing yet) I kept reading. At first it was to see where exactly the tone/approach was going, and then because I’m just a fan of Zadie’s writing and there was enough of wit, curious characters and interesting turns to keep me involved.
bibliobethreads's review
Hmm, not that impressed with this one... too disjointed and not interesting enough to hold my attention I'm afraid, will give her other books a go though.
bryanfarmer's review
4.0
Zadie Smith is and will always be my favorite author. I loved The Autograph Man, but it honestly felt like two separate books to me. The second half was way more interesting.
hannahsonia's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0