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maecaitlin's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Very Dickensian style of writing that made it difficult for me to get into, but I can appreciate how others would be drawn to this style. Smith utilises this style in quite a clever way for her narrative with her take being much more inclusive and critical of wider systemic oppression.
As someone with no prior knowledge of the Tichborne Trial, I was fully immersed in the complexities and scandal. Having read some of Smith’s Grand Union stories, I enjoyed her switch to historical fiction.
This was a freebie, but I would recommend to anyone with an interest in Victorian literature.
As someone with no prior knowledge of the Tichborne Trial, I was fully immersed in the complexities and scandal. Having read some of Smith’s Grand Union stories, I enjoyed her switch to historical fiction.
This was a freebie, but I would recommend to anyone with an interest in Victorian literature.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
dafni's review against another edition
Short and confusing chapters, difficult to follow. The stories are not very coherent and the characters have no depth so far, so it’s really hard to connect with the book at any level. Maybe it’s not a good period to read this book, or maybe it’s a poor example of Zadie Smith’s work. I certainly did not want to compulsively finish it without being as interested as I would hope to be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Fatphobia
knkoch's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
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
I confess myself disappointed. I was looking forward to this one because I’ve heard great things, but even more, heard that this was Zadie Smith’s nineteenth century novel acting as a sort of rebuttal to Charles Dickens. I’ve seen articles where she critiques his excess sentimentality, and discusses her choice to make Dickens a character in her book. I’m rather fond of Dickens’ work, and while that likely gives me some bias, I came to this with an open mind ready to hear her counterpoint.
The Fraud is laid out in very short chapters spread across many ‘volumes’ within the book, likely to echo the serialization that Dickens and other authors of his time employed to release their books piecemeal to their readers in monthly periodicals. The short (1-3 page) chapters made it very easy to keep reading, but the overall structure of the book felt difficult to follow. The narrative jumps back and forth constantly between the 1830s and 1870s, following MC Eliza in her life as housekeeper to her author cousin W. Harrison Ainsworth. I could see Smith was layering multiple meanings on the idea of frauds, which remains interesting, but the plot didn’t have a strong arc for me. Some of the ‘mysteries’ seemed pretty unmysterious fairly early on, or strangely buried and unresolved.
And so, falling back on the characters, I was further disappointed. Only about 4-5 had true depth and empathy, with most of the secondary characters painted as caricatures. They were stupid, loud, drunken, or, especially, fat. There was a disconcerting amount of fatphobia, with fatness made to be an indicator of negative or immoral qualities in multiple characters. The amount of poking and sneering at fatness here was on the level of JK Rowling’s treatment of the Dursleys in HP. I’ve been noticing this way more in writing lately and I just hate when authors do this. Maybe it was meant to indicate the MC’s judgmental view of others, but it was a bummer to read over and over.
Dickens wrote characters with shades of these and other negative qualities, but almost always with some warmth or humor and rarely with the sort of predetermined judgement Smith did here. You wouldn’t want to borrow money, overly rely on, or move in with some Dickens characters, but few come off so distinctly unpleasant and devoid of charm as many characters in The Fraud. I’d much rather make up my own mind about people than be told whether they’re of value or not.
I do appreciate that Smith built a story on race, slavery, the sugar trade, and money. Race in particular is not a subject I’ve yet to come across in Dicken’s work, and certainly his disinterest or plain unacknowledgment does not mean racism and Britain’s imperial role in the slave trade didn’t exist. I appreciate that Smith interrogates the British colonial impact on Jamaica and living conditions for enslaved and affected people of color at this time of British history. It’s a story worth investigating and illuminating. I just wish the novel had spent more time in that zone. Much more of it seemed to be about the central trial, naturally, and lampooning the triviality of the white literary scene of the time which, sure, easy pickings, but was not necessarily compelling or connected to the colonialism sections.
I am not so very interested in Dickens the man. I’ve no doubt his flaws and biases run deep, but I’m not interested in lionizing his character. I’m interested in how his work makes me feel: flayed and alive to the enormity of life. His work lived far beyond him, impacting not only his own time but echoing on through the decades. His stories, though they’re set in 1800s Britain, metaphorically and thematically remind me of the time I live in now, and the people I’ve met. The struggles his characters underwent can still occur in new forms, as Barbara Kingsolver so recently demonstrated in Demon Copperhead. The Fraud wasn’t terrible, though I would be very interested to discuss this book with someone for whom it resonated with more. The bleak characters and less than clear message wearied rather than stimulated me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
Moderate: Racial slurs and Slavery
kirstym25's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Rape
Moderate: Violence, Racial slurs, and Classism
oz2021's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery
Minor: Death of parent, Racial slurs, and Sexism
introvertsbookclub's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Trying to summarise this novel feels impossible because it is so rich and full. I don’t tend to reach for historical fiction but this was worth the exception. Only Zadie Smith could write a novel with so many interlocking characters and storylines and not only maintain interest and intrigue throughout, but also deliver a tidy and satisfying ending.
Smith’s character studies and the perspectives she writes from are always my favourite part of her novels, especially this one in which she favoured forgotten figures over the big names of the day. Her portrayals are nuanced and humorous, and she always seems to be winking to the audience at the expense of her characters. She revels in small details and contradictions, like her protagonist Mrs Touchet being a vocal abolitionist but hesitating to take a Black man’s hand, in a way that leads to bigger discussions about the society and period in which she is writing.
It is difficult to imagine how the experiences of enslaved people on a Jamaican plantation and the society that they creatr for themselves, and a literary circle of shoulder-rubbing and back-stabbing men, including Charles Dickens, could occupy the same novel. But Smith explores how colonial occupation of places like Jamaica is funding British society but keeing the poor out of work, and how debates in Britain over freedom, worker rights and land ownership, are shaping the lives of enslaved people around the world who are given no say in their own futures even after the abolition of slavery. The case of Mr Tichbourne, a man accused of falsifying his identity in order to claim a large inheritance, with the support of Mr Bogle, a former page to the family born on a Jamaican plantation, unites the novel’s various threads – the rights of men and women (black and white, enslaved and free), the tensions between the working and upper classes, colonial profiteering in the aftermath of slavery, the necessity of protective laws in place of individual morals and religious leanings, and the question over which stories get to be told and who gets to tell them.
There are so many elements to this novel, and even more ways in which they are influencing one another. It is a triumph, an all-consuming read that keeps you asking questions beyond the final page.
Smith’s character studies and the perspectives she writes from are always my favourite part of her novels, especially this one in which she favoured forgotten figures over the big names of the day. Her portrayals are nuanced and humorous, and she always seems to be winking to the audience at the expense of her characters. She revels in small details and contradictions, like her protagonist Mrs Touchet being a vocal abolitionist but hesitating to take a Black man’s hand, in a way that leads to bigger discussions about the society and period in which she is writing.
It is difficult to imagine how the experiences of enslaved people on a Jamaican plantation and the society that they creatr for themselves, and a literary circle of shoulder-rubbing and back-stabbing men, including Charles Dickens, could occupy the same novel. But Smith explores how colonial occupation of places like Jamaica is funding British society but keeing the poor out of work, and how debates in Britain over freedom, worker rights and land ownership, are shaping the lives of enslaved people around the world who are given no say in their own futures even after the abolition of slavery. The case of Mr Tichbourne, a man accused of falsifying his identity in order to claim a large inheritance, with the support of Mr Bogle, a former page to the family born on a Jamaican plantation, unites the novel’s various threads – the rights of men and women (black and white, enslaved and free), the tensions between the working and upper classes, colonial profiteering in the aftermath of slavery, the necessity of protective laws in place of individual morals and religious leanings, and the question over which stories get to be told and who gets to tell them.
There are so many elements to this novel, and even more ways in which they are influencing one another. It is a triumph, an all-consuming read that keeps you asking questions beyond the final page.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, and Violence
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