Zadie Smith, NW (2012)

http://www.amazon.co.jp/NW-Zadie-Smith/dp/0141036591

If you have not lived in London the impression you get from this novel will be very different from those held by Londoners. Even if you do not live in NW (postcode for Northwest London), any residents in London should have at least a vague understanding of the communities in each part. Killburn, Harlesden, Hackney, Willesden, Queen's Park, Maida Vale, Wembley, and many more names will sound familiar to you (and if you notice the odd piece here, yep, you know this city). It is just like Yanaka and Seijo-Gakuen Mae bring Tokyoites different images.

Smith's ingenuity is in the playfulness of her storytelling. She switches the style of writing from one part to another, signifying the divergence of experiences the reader can surely associate with, or at least find entirely plausible. It brings to light the lives of London so vividly that you begin to wonder, as you walk through the streets, which character in the novel would best suit that girl you just passed by, which law firm this big-bellied men in a dark suit behind you in a sandwich queue might work for, or what sort of council housing that grandma might be heading back to. You begin to breathe with the city.

Life is not easy here. Though Smith does not go into the equal depths for other parts of London, everyone is victim to the force of the city in one way or another, no matter what walks of life one may identify with. FT readers have their own problems, which may well be quite different from those of Daily Mail fans. The lives of SW - that of Chelsea, Kensington, Chiswick, Kew Gardens, are utterly foreign to born-and-bred NWs, but it does not mean they are less stressful.

In a sense, Smith's tale is a potent proposition that this city moulds you into a certain personality. Nobody escapes it, and there is a limit in your defiance. The protagonists do attempt to make their own choices at various points (Natalie's life, in particular, was defined by a constant trial for 'getting out') - only to find themselves in deeper quagmire. Sad as it may be, it is hard to deny that Smith succeeded in capturing the ethos of today's London.

Audio book highly recommended. The narrators do fantastic job with different accents.