Swing Time: A Novel

Structurally and technically, this novel belongs with Faulkner, Proust, Woolf, and all the best writers concerned with the concept of "time". But it is (if at times "slow") perfect for a common reader. Zadie Smith can tell a tale with all its implications. An amazing voice in contemporary literature (sic) has proven again she is. PS Her tone is not to be missed if you don't know it yet. A great writer in her prime.

I love Zadie Smith's"White Teeth" ans "NW." Those book were words drawn with razors. Sharp. Incisive. Revealing characters and condition in new and surprising way. I like Swing​ Time but did not find a way to connect with the characters as deeply as with those exceptional stories Worth the real, but smaller and with a main character that remains, after finishing, a cipher i could not crack. A little lonely character for whom I could find little compassion.

I slogged through this book for the past ten days and was so happy to finish it last night.
What a disappointment. Apart from the waste of time and money, I cannot believe Zadie Smith was on the cover of the NYT Book Review and has become part of the celebrated literati, always showing up at the lit parties in New York and London. There was not one character I cared about. The back and forth from present to childhood was annoying. The Amiee/Madonna character was a thin sketch, in fact, all the characters were so thinly written I could hardly distinguish one from the other, and as the book went on ....and on....I hardly cared. The name/movie/street dropping was sad, just words to fill pages. Her formulated concoction to throw in some African culture and characters, or whatever, I really don't know why, was a disaster. Tracey, the best friend, was so bizarre, so ridiculous, so far fetched....sorry I could go on and on. I know London and I am familiar with housing estates and yet the book did not bring one scene alive. I cannot fathom how her editors let such a sorry mess go to print.

Comparing her last few books to Chimananda Ngogi Adichie's work, and not just because they are both women of color, makes Ms. Smith look like an amateur. Ms. Adichie's work gets better and better and her writing is such a pleasure to read. I have yet to see ONE word that is not necessary to support the plot. Ms. Adichie's celebrity is well earned and well deserved. Ms. Smith, on the other hand, cannot continue to coast on the success of White Teeth. She needs to up her game.

I loved "White Teeth" and "On Beauty" for the raw, untamed energy they contain. I would recommend both of these as excellent reads, even though I would be hard put to describe the plot of either of them in a few sentences. "NW" left me sad, because it took away my hope that things might get better in the future.
I've just finished reading "Swing Time" and my mood is somewhere between disappointed and undecided. Perhaps I need to read the book a second time before arriving at a definite verdict.
Two things that didn't work for me.
1. Aimee, one of the central figures, does not make an appearance. At least, I can't recall any scene where she is actually present. What I know about her is mostly what the narrator _told_ me. Whatever she "does," is delegated to her staff. Even to the point that the secretary takes the photographs that will be exhibited as Aimee's work. This gives Aimee a Godot-like character, someone we hear about, but don't have any hard evidence that he/she really exists. I doubt that this is what the author wanted to achieve. Perhaps it was done to show that the people who have fame and celebrity status bestowed upon them are really faceless, easily exchanged for the next one that comes along.
2. Chronologically the plot can be divided into three parts. First, the childhood and adolescence that is marked by the friendship with Tracey; then, the drifting apart of the two, with each one pursuing her own life; and towards the end their lives converge again. However, the story line jumps back and forth, mainly between scenes of part one and two. There isn't one central narrative thread with flashbacks. Both timelines are treated with equal importance, and the switches between the two appear arbitrary and disruptive. Perhaps there is a reason for telling the story this way, but I found myself getting increasingly annoyed about being once more cut off in mid-scene and shunted to another time and place.

Apart from these two flaws, there were plenty of references to race and generation conflicts and cultural differences, but I didn't find the treatment of these themes exceptional or original.

Seriously, guys, give me another star or something. (Never mind, . I'd have used it up on other books I loved and I'd have to ask you for ANOTHER now and we'd be giving this an eight or a nine or however many was one more than the most available.)
I spent large patches of this reading just wallowing in the beauty of the language. And then the beauty of the plot. This is just amazing, funny touching sad meaningful and educational too. READ THIS BOOK!

Overly long dissertation about nothing. I do not know why this author is so highly regarded. The book is a confused mishmash about obsessive relationships that are superficially drawn and go nowhere. No plot; no character development; no growth of character or insights. No rationale for anything.

Excellent! I love the subtle hints of issues within race, class and gender. As an african american, I can relate to the complex layers of race and class within groups. These issues can be seen as small and extraneous but are very esstential to daily life. I can see someone who has the same features that I do but I also realize that they are living a life that is very different than mine. These past experiences shape and form our perception of the world. You really have to find your own tribe. The comparison of the narrator's life and that of Tracey were crucial to understanding her work in West Africa.

It was a fascinating story about the vagaries, intensity, and competition inherent in female friendships, especially those encountered growing up. The story sheds light on the culture and class structure of the entertainment business. As with Smith's other books, she tackles the difficulties of black people trying too improve their lives in Great Britain. The book also addresses the logistics and moral correctness involved when rich Americans attempt to improve the lives of children in living in poverty in Africa, in this case Ghana.
I will recommend the book to my friends.

Like Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan Quartet, Zadie Smith's Swing Time portrays the friendship/rivalry of two women from girlhood to adulthood, and also like the Neopolitan novels, the characters are complex and believeable. Other women of note are the protagonist's mother (my favorite character) and the protagonist's employer, a narcissitic rock star, someone to alternately admire and deplore, and a West African schoolteacher, strong and independent. The men aren't short-changed either; I'm still trying to figure out Lamin. Zadie Smith captures the details that make a West African village and the streets of London seem equally authentic. And the plot...well, just read the book. I loved it.

As usual with Zadie Smith, I could not tell summarize the plot of this book in any meaningful way, except that is about two young women who love dancing. But when I was finished I felt like I had been led on a cultural tour that was well worth the effort. A journey whose signposts include Bill "Bojangles" Robertson, Fred Astaire, Jeni Legon and Michael Jackson.

I'll read anything and everything Zadie Smith writes. Call it bias. I don't know. I didn't feel the same connection to the characters here as I may have in On Beauty or in White Teeth. But I feel like I know them, could run into them. Real people going through it all. Swing Time shows such a criss crossing of time and space, of unexpected intertwined, overlapping lives, that just makes sense. Her writing sticks with you. I had to make an effort not to highlight entire pages.

Ambitious is the word that seems to have attached itself to this book and I guess it is, but for me the better adjective would be laborious. Perhaps some of my disappointment was being misinformed about what the book was actually about. I thought it was two friends, both dancers, and what happens to them. I was half right. Our narrator is not the dancer but her best friend/enemy/rival/frenemy Tracey is. Our narrator we never learn the name of. Her life is played back in a series of flashbacks growing up in the projects of London and then eventually becoming an assistant to a Gaga like pop star opening a school for girls in Africa. Race, class, wealth all these themes are played upon but as the novel progressed I found myself less inclined to pick it up, and wondering why I wasn't making any progress. I started to skim and have finally stopped under the umbrella of, 'too many books waiting to be read'. I've loved other Zadie Smith, but this just bored me to tears.

Many aspects of the story are Important and deal with large political and social pressures brought down to the tiny interactions between people. But the story didn't really grip until more than halfway through. The narrator's naivete and penchant for self-reflection feed the theme of self-knowledge and becoming fully oneself, but this also means that the story is told obliquely even when the reader craves more clarity. Like life, I suppose, and in this the book is very much a success.

Narrator simultaneously insightful and frustrating in her self-possessed world view. Compelling commentary on the distortions and self-delusions of wealth and fame...and erosion of self/self-direction when in close proximity to them. Zadie Smith's characters are believable, profound, frustrating and sympathetic.

I began this book with high hopes. The beginning is well-written and compelling. However, I found myself skipping chapters. The ongoing relationship of the two main characters I found interesting. The parallel plot line concerning the star performer/employer and their visits to the African village didn't hold my interest. For my taste, intermittently worth reading and a big bore.

Two young girls growing up in poverty in North London in the '80s and '90s meet at a Saturday dance class. One of them has natural talent as a dancer. Both of them love music and rhythm.

They become friends and remain close, with only occasional adolescent fallings-out, through all the years of growing up, sharing a love of old musicals and of dancers like Fred Astaire and Bojangles. They watch those movies over and over again, learning and copying the moves of the dancers.

Swing Time is the story of those two girls as they make the passage through adolescence and into young adulthood and increased responsibilities. The girls grow apart, but their friendship will always be the major influence and touchstone of their lives.

The talented young dancer is Tracey, friend of the narrator of this book. The narrator is never given a name. Both girls are biracial; Tracey has a white mother and black (Jamaican) father and the narrator has a black (Jamaican) mother and a white father.

The narrator's family is intact, both parents present and caring. Her father is the primary caretaker of the home while her mother pursues her education and supports the causes about which she is passionate.

Tracey's family is a mess. Her father is not present in the household, at least not on a regular basis. He makes occasional visits and Tracey adores him and constructs an entire fantasy life for him as a back-up dancer for Michael Jackson. In her story, his being on constant tour with Michael is the reason he's never home. In truth, he is in and out of prison, plus he has a whole other family in another part of town. Her mother dotes on Tracey and is particularly proud of her dance talent. She sees it as the girl's ticket out of poverty.

Eventually, Tracey does get some professional dancing jobs, while the narrator goes on to college at her parents' insistence. In her early twenties, she goes to work for a company that seems modeled on MTV and there she comes to the attention of rock superstar Aimee.

Aimee hires her as a personal assistant and she spends the next nine years in Aimee's orbit, flying around the world on tour with her and easing her passage through life. When Aimee becomes obsessed with West Africa and wants to establish a school for girls there, the narrator spends a lot of time there with the villagers. She comes to admire them, but never really seems to understand them.

Much of this story, on its surface, seems torn from Entertainment Weekly headlines; the superstar superficially obsessed with Africa, building schools, adopting African children, etc. But Zadie Smith is only using that superstructure as a broad outline. She is interested in what lies beneath.

Smith writes brilliantly about modern culture and about female friendship, identity, and family. All of this medley is sifted through timeless themes of power and powerlessness, misunderstanding and crass manipulation of others, and the dichotomies between third world values and values of what we are pleased to call the "developed" world. It is a heady mix that makes for a huge and powerful novel.

Although she raises many issues in her narrative, Smith does not necessarily provide us with the answers. In the end, her narrator, not a particularly likable person, has to acknowledge, as the mother she has battled with lies dying, that even though she is in her early thirties she has not grown into a fully realized and admirable human being. Cut loose from her ties to Aimee, she is adrift in the world with little idea of where to find a mooring.

I loved this book. The story has such energy and is so deeply human. It reminds us once again that we can never truly grow away from our roots. Of course it helps that Zadie Smith is such a brilliant writer.

Let's try saying something positive first, though always with qualifications: (1) a well wrought depiction of childhood and adolescent friendship between the nameless narrator and Tracey (though Ferrante did it better in My Best Friend), but you lose that line as you slog on; (2) you learn something about the dailiness of African Muslim village life, but the setting is presented with English as the colonial language and the country (it can only be Gambia, but is never named) surrounded by Senegal, in which the colonial language is French, something never drawn on despite 2 characters from Senegal who receive considerable, if boring, attention. (3) When you finally get around through the presentation of the narrator's mother and her redundant back-bencher speechifying, she becomes interesting in age and death, but it's a long way to that point. The whole book is a slog, with fragments of characters making appearances for no apparent reason, then disappearing. If dance is the bond between the narrator and Tracey, we have no sense of what dance means beyond the dropping of names and quintuple appearances of Fred Astaire. As an author of fiction, I am writing a piece now in which the principal character is a flamenco dancer, and I have to describe the steps, music, costumes, poses, attitudes, etc. of flamenco. That's the least we can expect from Smith, and we don't get it. Then there is this whole adventure with the pre-Madonna (that's cute of me!) rock star Aimee who comes out of nowhere to justify the inclusion of the African village, and goes nowhere. She's hollow, underdeveloped, and you wind up not giving a damn about her. Supposedly she sings, but you don't know how. Sex? It happens offstage, and does nothing for the characters. I came close to giving this 1 star.

Ms. Smith's gift with language and imagery bring to life a fascinating cross section of people. They are characters who appear separated by experience, class, race and history yet Ms. smith finds their commonality. Weaving a sure handed, amazing tapestry of life. Amazing.