[Prestidigitweeze]

Quotes from an interview with Zadie Smith in Rumpus:

Rumpus: How do you find the process of writing about your own life publicly?

Smith: I mean, I don’t do very much of it, to be honest. When I do it’s quite circumspect. . . . I’m not very interested in memoir. It’s just a way of extending outwards, otherwise it doesn’t really interest me that much.

Rumpus: I think I actually read an interview with you where you’d said that, so I guess that’s why I was curious if there’d been a shift along those lines with this last piece.

Smith: No, not really. When you’re writing, you’re just curious if other people have had the same—part of it is that you’re just trying to work out if you’re alone in one sensation or another, so to do that sometimes you have to give a little bit. But I guess I’m not really a splurger on that front. A little goes a long way with me.

Rumpus: I was wondering, along those lines of fiction and nonfiction, about that idea of constructing yourself as a character—

Smith: There’s a kind of personal writing that argues for this kind of subjective experience that says, “I don’t have children and so it’s really important not to have children.” Or, “I do have children so it’s really important to have children.” Or, “I like cheese, so it’s really important to like cheese.” I never understand the point of that kind of writing. To me, you’re trying to find some objective position on your own experience, you know? Just because we felt it doesn’t mean that it matters at all. That’s my feeling.

* * *

Smith: The problem with nonfiction these days is that everybody wants—this idea of a personal vision is very important. “Where do you stand?” I find all that pretty tiresome. I’m not ever saying anything unusual, you know? I’m just trying to think about general things just a bit more specifically. I’m not claiming to any unusual emotions, tastes, opinions—I have a very average taste in most things. It’s not that. It’s just trying to express, as precisely as you can, these perfectly average things.

Rumpus: So do you imagine a reader who reacts to your work when you’re trying to get an exact expression?

Smith: Well, now you don’t have to imagine anymore because people e-mail you. It’s not in the realm of mystery anymore, you find out quite directly. That’s another thing which is healthy about fiction, you don’t have to listen to anybody for sometimes a decade at a time. I think constant feedback is not a very healthy thing for a writer, one way or another.

Rumpus: That’s probably true.

Smith: People become addicted to it. That’s why journalism is so popular, because you want to hear, every day, what people think of what you just wrote. I think a little patience on that front can be good, too.

* * *

Rumpus: I’ve been thinking about that a lot too, where we look to people to be transcendent human beings because they make something, rather than allowing that they’re just reflective of the rest of us.

Smith: Yeah, there’s absolutely nothing transcendent about making things, in my opinion. . . . It’s the same old lives.

Rumpus: Do you find reading to be transcendent?

Smith: Yes, I do. That’s why I understand why they should feel that way, because reading is a magic thing. But writing, I actually feel, is considerably less magic. It’s a lot of work and a lot of daily grind, where reading is a true pleasure.

Rumpus: Do you think that your early success has made you especially aware of the work element?

Smith: Maybe that’s true. I was working when everybody else was getting drunk; I was writing. That might have something to do with it. I like the work, it’s beautiful work, I’m glad that I do it. I feel with my students that they feel there’s a magic trick, you know, like you go into the room and something magical happens, and that really isn’t my experience. It’s a very worthwhile and satisfying labor, but that is what it is.