This is part of a technique that we see throughout this collection. Then again, through the rest of the book, Smith repeatedly disclaims her own expertise on everything (“a casual appreciator of painting, a dilettante novelist, a non-expert”), then dazzlingly proves herself wrong. Or perhaps it’s because she is “by nature not a political person”. The pieces that open the book are the weakest, particularly those on British politics, perhaps because they were all written for US publications and tend to stick to the surface as a result, though there’s no doubting the force of Zadie Smith’s feelings on the “arsonists” behind Brexit, or her passion to explain (again, to a US audience) the importance of state involvement in everyone’s lives. The subjects covered here are vast: art, cinema, dance, music, literature, life.
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