14 = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BOOKS
THURSDAY,OCTOBER 24,2002
'Autograph' lacking author's signature
By Henry C. Jackson
cjackson@kansan.com
Jayplay writer
Zadie Smith's outstanding first novel, White Teeth, served notice to the literary world. "Here is a new, fresh voice." The multi-layered tale of families in London seemed to scream,"Take notice."
And the literary world did. White Teeth was widely lauded by critics, became a bestseller both in Smith's native England and in the United States, and won numerous awards, including England's prestigious Whitbread First Novel Award. As a result, expectations were perhaps unfairly inflated for Smith's second novel. The Autograph Man, released Oct. 1, is a novel that has bright flashes but ultimately dims in the self-created shadow of White Teeth.
Alex-Li Tandem is an autograph man a collector of famous and infamous signatures. He is not like the children who wait patiently after basketball games for a glimpse of their heroes; at 27 years of age, autograph collecting is Alex's career. As such an odd vocation might suggest, Alex is a beleaguered protagonist: he's drug-addled (the novel starts as he awakens from a three day acid-induced bender), he's confused by his love life and he can't seem to decide whether he's Jewish or Atheist. He's also troubled since childhood by the death of his father, Li-Jin, and his failure to procure the autograph of '40s film star Kitty Alexander. Alex's quest to satisfy both of these seemingly unrelated needs of obtaining the autograph and coming to grips with his father's death is the engine that pulls The Autograph Man along.
Like White Teeth, The Autograph Man is a mosaic of characters — a product of Smith's inestimable imagination and the diverse London she has again chosen for her setting. There's one of Alex's best friends, Adam, a black, dreadlocked Jew who seeks enlightenment in a haze of bong smoke and may be the book's most endearing character. Rubinfine is a childhood friend and Alex's rabbi, who waits outside the stoop of Alex's apartment every morning flanked by two rabbi attendants and making Alex feel bad about his life. Alex's other best friend is Joseph, a tiny-voiced insurance salesman, jealous of Alex's laissez-faire lifestyle. And these are just the major players.
Unlike White Teeth, Smith is guilty of underdevelopment. More often than not, the reader is left wondering what happened to characters. Li-Jin's a huge part of the first chapter (probably the book's most poignant)
but really isn't mentioned all that much afterward. Esther, Alex's girlfriend, is really nothing more than a doleful, weak forgiver of Alex's frequent and disastrous indiscretions. Other characters, such as Rubinfine and Joseph, get only cursory development as if part of their personal histories were left on the cutting room floor in the movie of Alex's life.
Alex's quest for Kitty Alexander's autograph — which has compelled him to write letters once a week to her since he was a teenager — is what all the character development appears to be sacrificed for. As Alex travels from London to New York in search of his elusive film star, we learn just how unhappy he is. After realizing he knows the words to the song "Prehistoric Man," for instance, he thinks "With this space in my brain ... I could have learnt Hebrew. I could have been somebody." Smith peppers Alex's travails with extremely witty writing — at one point a confused Alex begins to feel more comfortable, like the "27th minute of a French film, the point at which he usually begins to have some hazy idea of what was going on."
Smith's wink-and-smile writing style can only get her so far, however. The Autograph Man has a lot of charm, but lacks the bite of White Teeth. There's a lack of greater purpose in Alex's mission. Smith's message — a commentary on fame, religion, death and loss — comes out a bit unfocused in the end. If she is the next great writer as some many have been inclined to indicate (and there are certainly tantalizing glimpses of what Smith has to offer in Man), she'll need to address these shortcomings in her writing. Her style is developed. Smith is as sassy and intelligent as ever. She's just not not found her focus yet.