It’s funny because there’s a moment in one of Zadie Smith’s essays in Feel Free where she knocks Iris Murdoch a little as being one of those stodgy British writers she had to read in school. And in a similar moment Iris Murdoch makes a similar list in this book. All of that may be true…that’s she’s stodgy, that British kids have to read her (which they shouldn’t have to….she’s for older folks) and all that. But Zadie Smith wrote an Iris Murdoch novel in this […]
On Genius
I am very grateful to Cannonballer Mathildehoeg for sending me On Beauty as part of the holiday book exchange. I’ve been wanting to read more of Zadie Smith’s work since reviewing White Teeth a couple of Cannonballs ago. Everything about Smith’s work is so superbly done, so sublime, that I feel ridiculous trying to review it. I’m no writer and have no aspirations to be a writer; I am a grateful reader who simply doesn’t have the words or facility of expression to do justice […]