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A review by literarianist
Feel Free by Zadie Smith
4.0
“In the real world we often want our judgments and moral decisions to be swift and singular and decisive. Fiction messes with our sense of what it is possible to do with our judgments. It usefully suspends our great and violent desire to be right on every question, and creates an unholy and ungovernable mix of the true and the false. It's the place where things are true and not true simultaneously: the ultimate impossibility. I think great novels free us into an understanding that the tension between true/not true might in fact be livable, might not have to be judged and immediately neutralized in the court of public opinion or in the oppressive conservatism of our social lives. A novel is fundamentally without real-world consequences, or so we think as we read them, and we can be bold in the spaces they create, braver, more able to tolerate our own uncertainties.”
——
Part I: In the World
Northwest London Blues – 3.5/5
Elegy for a Country’s Season – 3/5
Fences: A Brexit Diary – 4/5
On Optimism and Despair – 5/5
Part II: In the Audience
Generation Why? – 5/5
The House That Hova Built – 5/5
Brother from Another Mother – 5/5
Some Notes on Attunement – 5/5
Windows on the Will: Anomalisa – 4/5
Dance Lessons for Writers – 3/5
Part III: In the Gallery
Killing Orson Welles at Midnight – 4/5
Flaming June – 4/5
“Crazy They Call Me”: On Looking at Jerry Dantzic’s Photos of Billie Holiday – 4/5
Alte Frau by Balthasar Denner – 5/5
Mark Bradford’s Niagara – 3/5
A Bird of Few Words: Narrative Mysteries in the Paintings of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – 4/5
The Tattered Ruins of the Map: On Sarah Sze’s Centrifuge – 2/5
Getting In and Out – 5/5
Part IV: On the Bookshelf
Crash by J.G. Ballard – 2.5/5
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi – 3/5
Notes on NW – 4/5
The Harper’s Columns – 4/5
The I Who is Not Me – 5/5
Part V: Feel Free
Life-Writing – 5/5
The Bathroom – 5/5
Man Versus Corpse – 4/5
Meet Justin Bieber! – 3.5/5
Love in the Gardens – 5/5
The Shadow of Ideas – 5/5
Find Your Beach – 4/5
Joy – 4/5
——
Part I: In the World
Northwest London Blues – 3.5/5
Elegy for a Country’s Season – 3/5
Fences: A Brexit Diary – 4/5
On Optimism and Despair – 5/5
Part II: In the Audience
Generation Why? – 5/5
The House That Hova Built – 5/5
Brother from Another Mother – 5/5
Some Notes on Attunement – 5/5
Windows on the Will: Anomalisa – 4/5
Dance Lessons for Writers – 3/5
Part III: In the Gallery
Killing Orson Welles at Midnight – 4/5
Flaming June – 4/5
“Crazy They Call Me”: On Looking at Jerry Dantzic’s Photos of Billie Holiday – 4/5
Alte Frau by Balthasar Denner – 5/5
Mark Bradford’s Niagara – 3/5
A Bird of Few Words: Narrative Mysteries in the Paintings of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – 4/5
The Tattered Ruins of the Map: On Sarah Sze’s Centrifuge – 2/5
Getting In and Out – 5/5
Part IV: On the Bookshelf
Crash by J.G. Ballard – 2.5/5
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi – 3/5
Notes on NW – 4/5
The Harper’s Columns – 4/5
The I Who is Not Me – 5/5
Part V: Feel Free
Life-Writing – 5/5
The Bathroom – 5/5
Man Versus Corpse – 4/5
Meet Justin Bieber! – 3.5/5
Love in the Gardens – 5/5
The Shadow of Ideas – 5/5
Find Your Beach – 4/5
Joy – 4/5