Inside Zadie Smith's Writing

“Creative Style” Critique:  Zadie Smith

            Creative style is far different than its companions, official and plain, solely, in my opinion, because of its freedom, its infinite vision, particularly when paired with the fictional novel.  There really are no significant or harsh boundaries required of the creative style, similarly with fiction literature, and it is free to incorporate all styles into one; an exquisite example of this use would be in the writing of White Teeth by Zadie Smith.  Her story mainly follows two families, the Joneses and the Iqbals, as they navigate the contemporary world of living as a human being.  There are a handful of perspectives that are presented throughout the novel, but they all connect in the very end, both literally and figuratively.  This freedom allows Smith to share her message or story in a way that she finds most effective.  She intelligently chooses which styles to use, where, and how.  This is what leads Smith to spread her message; she can speak to anyone who picks up the novel and reads, simply through her book.  Smith takes on the challenge of using creative style, so she can teach and delight, the foundation of literature studies.

            For our view, we will begin with readability statistics to get a formal, albeit superficial, basis for Smith’s writing.  There were two specific excerpts from separate sections of the book that were analyzed, and they can give us a workable range of readability to get a sense of the novel overall and where Smith’s writing can stretch.  The Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, also known as SMOG, offers approximate required years of education in order to comprehend the reading; White Teeth’s excerpts scored 11.02 to 16.78.  As for the Flesch Reading Ease, it scores between 0 and 100—the higher values indicate an easier read while the lower values imply higher difficulty.  Smith’s Ease score fell between 35.13 and 60.12.  These arbitrary numbers actually give us some insight into how readers will take to the novel.  For instance, the SMOG results show that Smith’s work could be taken well with High School to College-educated individuals, and the Ease score shows a standard to difficult comprehension. 

            A deeper dive into Smith’s language shows her use of all three styles in various ways.  For example, she has a fantastic way of distinguishing characters and their development.  Some characters, like the Chalfen family, are known as intellectuals and can be picked out easily by their dialogue.  They use a lot of official style strategies like longer, more complex sentences with a large, sophisticated vocabulary, like specific botanical terms or science strategies.  In addition, when Smith starts detailing a memory, or flashback, or even a background description, she tends to write in a more official to plain style, sort of like a news or blog article.  However, when Smith starts exploring more creatively, readers start to become more engaged.  The creativeness is what is real to readers and what truly speaks to them.  There is a plethora of figurative and creative language such as diazeugma, expletives to catch attention and for emphasis, epithets, appositives, similes, and so on.  This kind of language is what sets creativity apart.  Official and plain styles follow guidelines and seem to retain less emotion or humanity; they are monotone.  Creativity lets humans express themselves in a way they see fit.  It is colorful, it is raw, it is honest.

            There is a true beauty to creative style; it can attract so many people, readers, and writers alike, and offers just as many insights and evaluations.  Official and plain styles may get to the point faster, if you will, and are professional or universal to a point where it may be masking a writer’s unique voice and visions.  With creative styles, there is the potential to be limitless in understanding and influence.  It becomes a more intimate experience between audience, text, and author, and it never stops growing—the creativity, the discourse, the ability to reach more and more people each in their own way.

The Creative Reach of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear “creative style” is a well-written novel where I can get lost in a world different than my own. The Harry Potter series, a favorite of mine, is the best-selling book series in the world, and for good reason. This series transcends age and is truly a magical journey for any reader. This is a unique part of J.K. Rowling’s writing of the Harry Potter series. 12-year olds love it, 30-year olds love it. It is hard to capture such a wide-ranging audience with the same story, having to be sophisticated enough for the adults but simply imaginative enough for the younger readers, but Rowling’s version of creative style in Harry Potter does just that.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third installment in the Harry Potter series and often regaled as one of the best books of the series. Rowling churned out the third book in about a year, directly following the release of the second novel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Despite being one of the shorter books, Azkaban delivers a story of depth and growth, as the writing evolves as Harry gets older.

The first few pages of a book often establish the pace and style in which the rest of the writing will follow. In the beginning of Azkaban, Rowling manages to convey the longing and sorrow a child has for their friend over the summer break from school, while also bringing in sophisticated emotion in Harry’s struggle with his non-nurturing family and the gut wrenching feeling you have when your life is so tragic, even you forget your own birthday.

The biggest anomaly to me is Rowling’s ability to capture attention across multiple generations. Perhaps it is a mixture of relatability to Harry as he endures common adolescent troubles that everyone can either look back on or look forward to combined with the mature experience of agony Harry feels after facing death and abuse.

Rowling’s first unique use of creative style is when she includes an excerpt from Harry’s magical textbook. Instead of just telling the reader Harry is reading a textbook, the reader gets to look at the words as well, as if they are in Harry’s Place.

“The quill paused at the top of a likely looking paragraph. Harry pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose, moved his flashlight closer to the book, and read:

Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises.”

Within this excerpt and as well as in the other writing Rowling uses distinction often to provide the meaning of some words, especially when they are specific to the magical world. This helps the younger reader in understanding things that may still be confusing to them but may also aid the older generations of readers who are focusing more on the story and less on the wizarding world vernacular.

This small example of Rowling’s writing of the Harry Potter series shows a variety of rhetorical strategies. A small example of scesis onomaton is used in her description of Harry’s attempt at being discreet in doing his homework in the dark when he “slowly and very carefully” opens his ink bottle. By saying he is slowly opening the bottle implies he is also being careful, but the repletion of the idea truly emphasizes the care he must take in order to complete a simple task. The emphasis on Harry’s attention to keeping his magical activities on lock and key comes later in the example when he puts his things away. Instead of providing his actions in one sentence separated by commas implying he is doing things simultaneously or right after the other they are separated by semi colons.

“He replaced the top of the ink bottle; pulled an old pillowcase from under his bed; put the flashlight, A History of Magic, his essay, quill, and ink inside it; got out of bed; and hid the lot under a loose floorboard under his bed.”

This gives the idea that each step he takes to put his things away is a separate move, as if he has to pause carefully after each movement in order to maintain the silence that is expected of him.

The Harry Potter series is loved by decades of people and it is due to J.K. Rowling’s ability to write in a way that appeals to that large of an audience in a successfully creative way. Her words and use of rhetorical devices are precisely the reason so many find her world just as magical as Harry finds his.

Noelle H.