Swing Time

Brilliantly written, this novel from Zadie Smith is a mishmash of modern culture and timeless themes. Ideas about female friendship, family, and identity are interwoven with music and dance from pop and musical to African and hip hop. What Smith gets very right in the book is the way relationships between characters are based upon their relative power; the way superstar Aimee is a vortex around which all other lives are determined; the power of language, what is said, or how and when speech is withheld; the removal of agency or belonging when all those around you are speaking another language, literal or metaphorical. Again and again, this leads to miscommunication, misunderstanding, or outright manipulation. Language and power is threaded into each person's identity and underlines their relative role to each other and within the book as a whole. The narrator may seem to hold the top spot, it is through her eyes that all others are visible, but she isn't even given a name. It's an imbalance that illuminates the overarching idea of the novel.

At times the novel meanders too far from its core themes, though perhaps it was a reflection of the main character getting lost in her life as much as the story being lost in itself. Overall I think my main issue was that she never seemed to learn anything, still as much a naive and somewhat self absorbed child at the end of the book as at the beginning, despite the passing time and enough life events that she should have changed something in herself. This is not a criticism of Smith, this nameless girl acts perfectly within the scope of her character, I just wished more for her. Like her mother, I felt that if she'd just.... My hopes for a character and their life story has, obviously, no effect on the actuality of the story, yet it didn't stop me from feeling disappointed by the end. If anything, it's this that likens the novel to real life, this feeling of wanting something better for a friend or acquaintance is something we all recognize. And how often does that bear fruit? Still, it shows how invested I was in a unnamed girl I didn't even really like.

                                                                                                           By Emma from goodreads          

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