Neoliberalism and Contemporary American Literature

Pease Note 11

Zadie Smith, “Two Paths for the Novel,” New York Review of Books 55 (18), November 20, 2008 https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/11/20/two-paths-for-the-novel/. Smith is also quite critical in her assessment of Netherland. She takes them to task for seeming so “perfectly done,” at an historical moment when demonstrations of stylistic felicity are incompatible with political right-mindedness: “Netherland is only superficially about September 11 or immigrants or cricket as a symbol of good citizenship. Its worries are formal and revolve obsessively around the question of authenticity…It is absolutely a post-catastrophe novel but the catastrophe isn’t terror, it’s Realism.”

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