Putting the Madness and Vulgarity Behind Her

For somebody who just a few weeks ago was cancelling all her interviews after a bit of candid commentary blew up in her face, Zadie Smith (left) sure is yakking it up with the AP. From the comfort of “a squashy leather sofa in a trendy wine bar,” no less. After the minor hoopla of “Zadiegate,” though, Smith is choosing her words carefully, and Leeman gets little beyond banalities seen in a dozen Zadie interviews before:

• “Writing is not like being a pop star, because many people don’t really read.”
  
• “It’s excruciating to be looked at.”
  
• “Writing is not like being a physicist, it’s about emotions, it’s intuitive.”

She also observes that she “can only write about things that I love,” a principle which would seem to apply to her consumption of literature and art as well, judging by recent comments made at the New Yorker Festival, where she told an audience the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward vehicle Mr. and Mrs. Smith made her “depressed and really angry, and I don’t need to feel that way in front of any artwork.”* It’s worth noting that co-panelist Jonathan Franzen, whose hostility to difficult literature is well-documented, immediately concurred.

*Really? Not even Guernica?

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