James3Neal - education of a knowledge professional

thepenguinpress:

The New Yorker interviews Zadie Smith about her short story “Permission to Enter,” an excerpt from her highly anticipated novel* NW.

Q. The driving forces of this story are class, sex, and education. When Keisha goes away to university, she changes her first name to Natalie, which is something we realize in passing when Leah comes to visit and stumbles over this new name. The story is full of other signifiers of class and status, but they never overwhelm the narrative. Did you ever have to stop yourself from adding more details, or did you always know when to pull back?

Zadie Smith: I used to have this envious feeling towards the type of writer who never gives a second thought to whether their readers might not all be white and middle class and highly educated. That’s the whole world to them. All their characters sound like the author and like each other and like the reader. It seemed to me you could write so much more cleanly and stylishly when you didn’t have to try and think yourself into many places at the same time. Of course, it probably isn’t easier—the grass always looks greener elsewhere. Anyway, in my situation, every time I write a sentence I’m thinking not only of the people I ended up in college with but my siblings, my family, my school friends, the people from my neighborhood. I’ve come to realize that this is an advantage, really: it keeps you on your toes. And it seems clear to me that these little varietals of voice and lifestyle (bad word, but I can’t think of another) are fundamentally significant. They’re not just decoration on top of a life; they’re the filter through which we come to understand the world. To be born into money is ontologically different than to be born without it, for example.

Once I get started, I could write a thousand pages solely concerning these little differences, but I’m always trying to fight that instinct. I’m not really that interested in social satire. I’m more interested in language. So you have to exercise some self-control. No form of writing—traditionally realist or otherwise—can hope to include everything. I really wanted this novel to be a hundred and eighty pages, but in the end I couldn’t manage it. Writing short is a thousand times harder than writing long! Whatever style you have is dictated by what you learn to leave out.

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*Just today, Amazon listed NW in the Top 10 Novels of their Big Fall Books Preview.