Grand Union: Zadie Smith with Jennifer Egan

Zadie Smith, beloved author of White Teeth, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time, reads from her first book of short fiction, Grand Union, and sits for a conversation with fellow novelist Jennifer Egan. Recorded December 5, 2019, at the 92nd Street Y.
Subscribe for more videos like this: bit.ly/1GpwawV
Your support helps us keep our content free for all. Donate now: www.92y.org/donatenow?...
Facebook: / 92ndstreety
Instagram: / 92ndstreety
Twitter: / 92y
Tumblr: / 92y
On Demand: www.92yondemand.org

[@priscillakhapai3623]

Love this..thanks!! I'm also glad whenever she talks about david Wallace.

[@elky360]

Brilliant interview!

[@muoian]

What an introduction! She’s a real fan ! Like me!

[@eur0ra]

inspiring!

[@kkhushkkhush9892]

one can also have such conversations with complete strangers.

[@jwja]

Sincere question: 7:19 "minutinae"???

[@fellowcitizen]

[@HomeAtLast501]

Why do these interviews with her always remain at the superficial level of "the image of the writer" -- and never get into the depths of the craft of writing a specific book. Why this character was rendered in this way, how this conflict was set up, how the plot evolved as she got into it. Instead it's bologna like "how to you read other fiction" (what!?!), or in other interviews, how many words per day do yo produce, like we're back in the times of Dickens and she has a deadline for the magazine and has to produce x amount of finished copy by 8:00 PM Thursday, rather than the reality of using computers to block out a book and start with notes (not finished copy) that takes months to evolve into a rough first draft of copy that will need continuous editing.

[@Monsterassassin3]

Because most (if not all) great writers dont write like that

[@HomeAtLast501]

@@Monsterassassin3 How do they write?

[@Kobe29261]

Zadie reminds you of the quite girl, back of the class who turns out to have seen more than the entire class combined, the dynamics of power and influence. She like all scientists reveal the world as rationally irrational; the rat eats the chow, gets fat and gets euthanized - he was a 'sinful rat'.

[@thembamabona9809]

...i'm curious about Rooney now because ZS keeps touting her but she was expertly eviscerated on Swiss TV... ...hmmm, give her a shot? But there's only a lmtd number of novels to be read in life.....

[@hahaha430]

I read Conversations with Friends and Normal People on lockdown, and I loved them. I talked to people much older than me (I'm late 20s) and they didn't like them. I like the millenial anxiety of her novels, and I think reading her puts you into a strange state as a young adult remembering the earnest ideologies you had whilst you fucked up most of your life. Older people tend to see all those problems already and reading that frustrates them. I've listened to Rooney talk and she definitely exhibits that kind of frantic millenial energy that was definitely evident in White Teeth and The Autograph Man. I mean, both novels are less than 300 pages, so a good sit down for a week and you'll finish both. They are pretty good, if you don't like the subject matter, like it for the dialogue because Rooney can fucking chat. It's very entertaining reading brilliant dialogue

[@animalarmy8929]

Jennifer’s my aunt

[@Kobe29261]

Wish you'd said 'Jennifer taught me x'

[@HomeAtLast501]

The folding example is completely over-wrought and presented pseudo-intellectually. It's an ugly and superfluous digression. I don't need someone to try to bring to life for me with imagery that things need to be folded.

[@Kobe29261]

Thats pontifical isn't it? I say this with all the kindness in my heart, who died and left you King on the determinants of 'superfluous digression'? I mean honestly feel free to educate me. That anecdote felt like the revelation of a quirk, a fissure in a personality - like the fact Nadal needs to adjust his underwear before a serve - its compulsive but there's no knowing the man without that 'nonsense anecdote'

[@HomeAtLast501]

@@Kobe29261 It sounds like you're a stranger to literary criticism. Do you have some sort of philosophy that we aren't allowed to criticize literature? Or is it rather that we aren't permitted to present criticisms that contradict yours? I'm listening again to remind myself of the passage I was reacting to, and now I'm finding her opening gay example to be contrived and gratuitous. It's too obvious. I'm also finding the description of sex to be an attempt at showing off her powers of analysis --- she's trying to impress us with her nuance, rather than tell a story for our sake. Again, it's over-wrought.

[@HomeAtLast501]

@@Kobe29261 I listened to her reading, and somehow I missed this folding example I was referring to. I can listen again later. If you know the time stamp let me know.

[@Kobe29261]

@@HomeAtLast501 I was actually recalling it from memory because I'd listened to the audio book recently but she describes it someplace. Noticed now thinking about this how I did the thing where one claims 'there are no absolute truths' obviously a postulate near well the height of absolutism. Never understood so called 'literary criticism' it always seemed to me what you said of reading or a piece of text that rubs one wrong. Keep scratching the itch and you end up with how we all really want to bed our mothers. Sometimes I pick a book and abandon it - other times I find something more interesting; i never see the need to develop a model for evaluating why its unworthy as literature. I know its hip to say 'the artist is sublimating her obvious homophobia' or any of the things MFA programs are supposed to teach you. Isn't it more honest to say 'not my thing'? The minute you appeal to some objective metric by which a piece of writing fails your litmus test, are you not in ones own echo chamber? Entirely possible I lack the sophistication but to say an authors motives are 'contrived and gratuitous'? Isn't that a bit cosmic? You'll have to be a kind of god to justify the claim in any way beyond the subjective. Like Saul Bellows obsession with showing you that he expects his readers to have no doubt that he's exhausted the canon - sure it gets old, smacks of insecurity but truth is for his faults the man was near well monstrously entertaining. Literary criticism* should be left to mother-in-Laws lol! I test software for a living; I find over time that you end up seeing only the places where a piece of code might fail. Like looking at a woman and immediately seeking out her imperfections. Anyway 'critique' on my friend; commendable I suppose to care about literature - anything, enough to wonder how it might be improved.

[@HomeAtLast501]

I opened up the video transcript and searched "fold". It's in the first 2 minutes of the video. The interviewer reads the lines from one of Smith's books in this contrived, affected voice, where she labors to recall her media training, where they taught her to make her voice "interesting" by hitting high and low notes alternatively. I'll listen again.

[@lnelson888]

I have tried to read this woman’s books. I give then 100 pages and the writing is tedious and the characters are flat and the plots are uninteresting. What is the opposite of a “page turner”. Yet she gets award after award. Turns out Abe Lincoln was wrong…”you can fool all of the people all of the time.”