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NW: A Novel
Unavailable
NW: A Novel
Unavailable
NW: A Novel
Audiobook10 hours

NW: A Novel

Written by Zadie Smith

Narrated by Karen Bryson and Don Gilet

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

A new novel from Zadie Smith, set in Northwest London

Somewhere in Northwest London stands Caldwell housing estate, relic of 70s urban planning. Five identical blocks, deliberately named: Hobbes, Smith, Bentham, Locke, and Russell. If you grew up here, the plan was to get out and get on, to something bigger, better. Thirty years later ex-Caldwell kids Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan have all made it out, with varying degrees of succes-whatever that means. Living only streets apart, they occupy separate worlds and navigate an atomized city where few wish to be their neighbor's keeper. Then one April afternoon a stranger comes to Leah's door seeking help, disturbing the peace, and forcing Leah out of her isolation. . . .

From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, in this delicate, devastating novel of encounters, the main streets hide the back alleys, and taking the high road can sometimes lead to a dead end. Zadie Smith's NW brilliantly depicts the modern urban zone-familiar to city dwellers everywhere-in a tragicomic novel as mercurial as the city itself.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 4, 2012
ISBN9781101579473
Unavailable
NW: A Novel

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Reviews for NW

Rating: 3.5031090062111803 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

483 ratings53 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Apparently Professor Higgins was very diligent. He transcribed patterns of speech into his notebooks. He recorded as varied examples of dialect and pronunciation as possible. We all know the risks involved with those wax cylinders. Poor, poor, Professor Higgins.

    Ms. Smith undertook a similar project with a similar intensity. She proved likewise pitch perfect. Speech pattern and intonation reign in NW. The remaining obstacle was plot. Everyone wants to be Trollope, no? Zadie is sage. She stuck to her money move. Ms. Smith penned another White Teeth, this one with Ipads, Brick Lane and The Wire. Her updated novel isn’t all that compelling. The silences are the most daunting. No mention of the tube bombings, the Tottenham riots, the Olympics. I’m not being critical of her not writing a social history. I just find these maneuverings odd. Despite such opacity, her research does shine through. There is a delicate beauty in her dialogue. It is only enhanced by the frenetic circumstances under which it is expressed.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Finely made sentences, little else. Part of the set of novels based on the premise that accuracy regarding a time and a place is sufficient. I am unconvinced.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting but a bit directionless. (Perhaps deliberately, but I found that a bit frustrating.)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The cover blurb lauds this book the to highest, but I'm afraid I just don't get it. I didn't like the style it was presented in. Sentences start in the middle, speech is not indicated with punctuation, meaning sometimes it's hard to know who is speaking, thinking or what is going on. It's written in the vernacular, which I'm afraid grates on my ear. I'm sure there's a good story in here, I just didn't find it in this book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The story of two friends from a poor ethnically diverse London neighborhood told in a disjointed manner. Scenes are clearly recreated but the characters and plot seemed disjointed.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The story of two thirty-something women, Leah and Natalie (formerly Keisha) who grew up in the NW6 area of London. This novel is very disjointed, requires concentration by the reader, and has little plot, but I loved it. Great voice, highly original, paints a vivid picture of this section of London life.--------I wrote that two days ago. I'm still thinking about this novel and how much I enjoyed it, even though at times I didn't understand it. I really want to go out and read something else by Zadie Smith. If you're hesitating about reading this, I say that you give it a chance. I can see it's not for everyone, but maybe, like me, it's awesome for you.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Fiction about various residents of Caldwell in North West London. While much of the book was engaging, I wouldn't say particularly outstanding. And I was disappointed with the ending, it just seemed to stop rather than coming to any sort of conclusion. I keep being recommended the author, but this is the second of her books that I have read and found underwhelming; I don't think I will read any more.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I enjoy the work of Zadie Smith and there is a reason that she generally makes it in to the top choices for the Women's Prize, but this book was a little too scattered for me to focus on. I listened to the audio version while on a road trip, so that could be part of the issue. Perhaps I would have gotten more out of the book if I had held it in my hand and seen the words on the page. This is definitely a book that has to have your attention in order to enjoy.This isn't to say that I hated the book, I just found myself lost so often that it was a little frustrating. I enjoyed the characters and even though they didn't necessarily have a journey or feel like there was a purpose, there was a transition that I could feel, even though my jumbled understanding of what was going on. I want to give this book another try, probably reading it on the page this time.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Just did not love this one. Liked it enough to finish it, but that's about it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Here's another book that I picked up with interest, only to quickly abandon for some other title that held more promise, only to pick up again with good intentions, only to drop again, and again, again. Finally, it clicked and fit my reading mind. While overall I didn't find it completely satisfying, it had a most interesting style and certainly depicted the world of this section of London wonderfully. I can never say it enough, one never knows when it's time for a book, and you just can't force it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Strange rambling disjointed writing style but I liked it. Not sure I really understood the ending, but that's ok. Great characters and language.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Smith writes about globalization, class wars, and suburban identity in this novel, bringing her characters alive in a way I haven't seen since White Teeth. How everyone intersects is an intriguing puzzle.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved it! I felt like I was in London -- and not the London in British romantic comedies. No one has an ear for dialect like Zadie Smith. I also really enjoyed the more experimental style of this novel compared with her others. I did think the balance of the book was a little bit off, in terms of how much we learned about certain characters and how they fit into the larger story, but other than that I found it very engrossing and thought-provoking.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A very good writer but a novel that's all over the place although very good in parts.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Situated in northwest London (postal code: NW), Smith?s novel focuses on two women, Leah Hanwell and Natalie (formerly Keisha) Blake, who have been friends since Keisha saved Leah from a drowning accident when they were both very little girls. The first section of the book is told from Leah?s perspective. Now an adult, Leah has an administrative job with a charitable organization and shares a modest home with her hair-dresser husband, while Keisha, who has renamed herself Natalie, has become a successful lawyer and the wife of a rich banker, with two perfect children and an expensive house. When the book opens, a stranger is knocking at Leah?s door, asking for money to go see her mother in the hospital. Leah ?lends? her 30 pounds, only to be chastised for her foolishness in this later by her husband and her mother. The story continues with a dinner party at Natalie?s expensive house, where the psychological distance between Leah and Natalie becomes clear. The writing in this first section is experimental, with short, truncated sentences and a stream of consciousness flow, which works reasonably, though not perfectly well.The second section focuses on a different character, Felix Cooper, following him as spends a day first visiting his aging father and talking with his father?s neighbor, next traveling to an appointment to see a vintage car he?s thinking of purchasing, and finally stopping in to see an old girlfriend, before becoming the victim of a terrible crime. This section, in which the prose is more traditional, is by far the most successful in the book: indeed, I really wished that Smith had turned the story of Felix Cooper into a novel on its own.In the third section, we learn the story of Natalie?s life, starting with the drowning incident mentioned above, and progressing through her adult life, during which her deepening unhappiness and sense of emptiness threaten to consume her. This section is told again in an experimental style, with 185 numbered, very short mini-chapters. And it is this section that I found most frustrating and difficult to read: I kept thinking that if I were just a little smarter, I would have appreciated the whole thing much more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Four stars is for the Keisha / Natalie section, which I loved: the small, seemingly casual episodes that showed so much about all the characters.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The residents of Northwest London that Zadie Smith introduces us to in NW are facing their share of life challenges. They are working class people. A few are addicts. One escapes. Leah and Keisha are childhood best friends who are of different races but the same class. As they grow older, Leah is quite ambition less but Keisha remains focused and determined to escape the boundaries the lower middle class. While climbing the ladder to a better life, Keisha decides to change her name to Natalie. Natalie's new status in life afforded her to marry well and start a new life away from the lower rungs of the class ladder that descended into Northwest London. When Natalie discovers a new hobby she suddenly finds herself lower than she ever was before. Leah remains in NorthWest London. She also marries and her husband is eager to start a family. Leah goes to great lengths to make sure this never happens. Her secrets torment her. Felix is a recovering drug addict whose mother abandoned him and his siblings leaving them with their Rastafarian father. Felix is optimistic about starting over. He is walking away from old habits and an old love. What he walks into is far worse than what he is walking away from. I see a lot of reviewers complaining about the structure of NW but it is what I loved the most. In my opinion, this style actually confirms that Zadie Smith is the master of dialogue. I can't give her enough praise in that area. Granted, there were times I got good and lost in the narrative but I recovered pretty quickly. You get use to it after a while. Overall, the characters were flat. They were well developed but flat. There was one character that was incredibly captivating, Annie, Felix's ex-girlfriend. Annie's appearance was the highlight of the book for me. She was so tragically beautiful.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's hard to like a lot of the characters, but it's even harder not to like the book . So brilliantly, brutally London; one minute I was chuckling at some recognisable slang - chirpsing at a bus stop was a particular favourite - and the next something gritty or gruesome shoved me back into the gutter. The protagonists aren't pretty, and their fates are rather grim, but the writing is so expert, the sound of the capital so beautifully captured, that this makes for an easy recommendation.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Umphh.. Just read the end, put the book down, and I feel fatigued!!

    Definitely, this is the triumph of structure over content. And not in a good, "just on the right line" way. Content is absolutely smashed to a pulp and disintegrated, by Alexander the Great, the Emperor of All Worlds: The Structure. In fact, I'd venture to say that the book is a beautiful empty box. The author spent so much time working on the box and the wrapping, that she forgot she actually had a flipping novel to write! A story that is worth telling! Content, juice, meat, anyfing.... there's just none of that here, innit?

    Now, I do have a certain admiration for the structural acrobatics that Zadie Smith used in NW. It reminded me of some musicians who at a certain point go "balls out" and dare to try a completely different thing, with the hope that they will either be recognized as geniuses, because they actually invented something new, or at least they will inspire some change. A daring feat, experimental, almost like watching a new circus number.

    All this formal sophistication might very well distract readers, like a magic trick, from the fact that this is a very cold and very dark book. What matters to me, especially with fiction books, is that pulsating core that exists at the center of each novel. In NW, we are given dark charachters with despair in their hearts, cold people with cold personalities and thoughts. And how accurately Smith portrays the absolute faithless, godless approach to life of Londoners. All this, with no plot whatsoever. Like a graphic novel that consists only of disjointed black and white sketches of miserable people. To use some teen language: I know, right? Ugh!

    No wonder many reviewers on this site were left almost doubting their own intellectual skills. I read a few "I don't know if I'm not sophisticated enough to understand this novel, but...", and "I'm not sure what I just read". You see what you did, Zadie?

    Not only, as I mentioned above, there is no plot at all, but also what IS actually there, in between the ink somersaults, I found boring and unpleasant. I thought Jonathan Franzen was the undisputed master at generating the most annoying fictional charachters, but no, Zadie Smith was able to defeat him. The incomplete, envious and frustrated Leah. The cold, arrogant, cheating Natalie. Personal taste, maybe, but I wouldn't like to spend 30 seconds with any of these two.

    And what happens to Shar, the girl, who shows up at the beginning, promising intriguing developments? Like many other elements in this novel, she is lingering at the sides of the destroyed railway that is this story, with nothing to do, no traction to provide.

    Finally, I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with this bit from a review on "The Guardian":

    "The whole of the first section is defined by its resistance to genre, by what it doesn't want to be. It's like an oddly shaped inner-city park, bounded not only by chick-lit and thriller but by the modernism it aspires to. The touches of dilute Joycean play are less like new ways of looking at the world than mildly adventurous ways of organising a narrative. [ ] The whole book is oddly queasy about the value of getting on in the world."

    ... and with the article's conclusion:

    "The real mistery of NW is that it falls so far short of being a successful novel, though it contains the makings of three or four".
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    As a Londoner this book struck a chord in me and after reading a few of the reviews slating it, I feel the desire to explain why. This isn't my type of literature, far from it, but I found myself drawn in. Zadie Smith has captured the language and dialect of several generations, to the point that I was transported back 14 years to high school. I remember people using terms like "long" and "blud", I remember people like the characters of NW.

    The reason for the low rating is that while the novel was compelling, as mentioned it was not my cup of tea. But mostly it was incredibly depressing. Is that what we all have to look forward to in adult hood? Or is that just the vision of those who do not dream of something else, something better?
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I was so disappointed in this book. I kept on trying but just couldn't get into it. This could have been such an interesting story had the writer not tried to use so many gimmicks. The characters could have been really interesting but it all became just too hard. Now I see that a few reviewers felt like I did.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I listened to this as an audio CD while traveling. Not an easy book to get into initially, nor one with a neat, satisfying ending. But the characters are drawn with utter, realistic clarity - so that as they age from a bunch of kids living in the 'projects', to adults with successful (or not so successful) lives, the choices they make along the way seem inevitable. Lives lived more or less ordinarily...but memorably.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had a hard time getting into this book, because of how it is written. I think maybe listening to it would have been better. But once I got into it, I liked it, although I don't understand the ending exactly. Can't wait to discuss it at book club tomorrow; meanwhile I need to digest it. I never would have chosen to read this book, and its very different from anything I've read, and the writing style is weird, but I'm glad I stuck with it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    SCRATCH THAT : For me, NW started off as one of the greatest novels written about 21st century London life. Ended up a shoddy mess. Feel like Zadie wrote several short stories and mushed them together. However,
    I can see where she's coming from but not sure where she's going. Ironically, a bit like Natalie Blake...


    AFTERTHOUGHT : I loved it. Smith celebrates the multiplicity and strength of the black female as clearly shown through Keisha /Natalie Blake.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Although I loved some of the language - the emotion and vividness it evoked - I could not get into the writing style or the characters/story.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I really tried. I kept reading and reading and then no. Not for me. National Book nominee, I know but...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm a traditionalist and like my stories in good old-fashioned narrative form. Being curious about the attention this author has received, I decided to give it a try (although I got a "back-up" novel from the library, just in case it was unbearable). After about 10 pages, I almost reached for the "back-up" but decided to push on, and then I was caught. I actually couldn't put it down especially through the long portion of the short vignettes portraying the past lives of Keisha and Leah. I just put judgment aside and enjoyed the ride.Then I came to the end - what? I admit I had trouble piecing that together.Zadie Smith is unquestionably a really good writer. There were times I felt very connected to the story and the surroundings. The lifestyle, location, and people are far different from where I live; yet, I felt I had a chance to peak into a very different world and come away with some understanding of it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Ambitious, dark, and beautiful. Smith tells a compelling modern tale through differing perspectives and styles. It's my first Zadie Smith novel but I have her backlist queued up for the near future.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I looked forward so eagerly to reading this book, led on by my on recollectios of "White Teeth" and "On Beauty" the rave reviews in all the papers, that I was probably bound to be disappointed. And I was!Early on in the book one of the principal characters, Leah Hanwell indulges in an inner soliloquy which culminates in her telling herself "I AM SO FULL OF EMPATHY" (her capitals, not mine). Sadly, she's on her own there. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't find a shred of empathy for any of the characters in this book.There has been an annoying trend recently for publishers to append the first few chapters of the writer's next novel to the end of paperback books, as a sort of taster. I generally find that annoying because one thinks one has another fifty pages or so to go - enough to tide one over on the journey home from work, only to find that it actually ends five pages later, giving way to the opening pages of a totally different book and leaving one high and dry but bookless for the rest of one's commute. Sadly I started to hope that this book was blocked out with about 120 pages of ephemeral padding but no such luck! My hopes that a tsunami might flatten Willesden (just in the book, of course - not in real life ... though, now I come to think of it ...) or that a serial killer might take out all the protagonists in one swift bloodfest. Quite frankly 120 pages of blurb would have come as a relief!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Zadie Smith has written another novel about diversity set in Northwest London. Race is part of the mix, but the lifestyle and social class of the inhabitants contribute much to the contrasts in this part of the city. One of my favorite descriptions showed the contradiction between the foreclosed shopping center with broken windows next to a park with a foully stained water-logged mattress and a view of "an ancient crenellation and spire, just visible through the branches of a towering ash...a medieval country church, stranded on this half acre, in the middle of a roundabout. Out of time, out of place." The residents of Northwest London were also distinct. Prosperous barristers lived near working class people, and they both shared the streets and shops with drug dealers and the homeless.This book was harder for me to like than White Teeth because of the mish-mash of styles that Ms. Smith chose to tell her story. Moving from stream-of-consciousness to numbered vignettes and from poetic language to street talk left me feeling restless and confused. I'm sure this was done intentionally to make the reader feel like they were inhabiting the area. Smith did create a fabulous sense of place in NW. I just wish I hadn't felt distracted by her various literary devices so I could more easily discern the plot.I liked the story of the friendship between Leah and Keisha, who later redesigned herself as Natalie, a lawyer and young mother of two children who acted out her fantasies in her secret life. I also liked the section devoted to Felix, a druggie who was turning his life around. Nathan was the dark horse in this story who played a bit role that was difficult to piece together but led to a dramatic ending. So there it is. The long-awaited fourth novel from Zadie Smith. It was a disappointment to me but others have loved it. You'll have to read it and decide for yourself.