![]() Ultimately, while Swing Time makes admirable artistic choices - who doesn’t love a nonlinear narrative? - the main issue I take with this novel has to do with how these choices don’t mesh well to create the relevant masterpiece it could have been. I get the distinct feeling that this effect was deliberate, but it leaves the narrator almost totally undefined, making it harder for the reader to understand her. Two brown girls dream of being dancersbut only one, Tracey, has talent. ![]() ![]() For a large majority of the novel, the narrator exists in juxtaposition to Tracy, yet Tracy dominates every scene she appears in. An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from North West London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty. This, albeit an interesting play on readers’ expectations, also serves as the book’s biggest flaw this nameless character is hard to pin down and, at points, inconsistent with the woman we’ve barely come to know. ![]() The narrator’s identity is likewise composed in opposition to the women she at once reveres and resents for their ability to expand in areas she can never quite inhabit. ![]() Our protagonist here is so nebulous she becomes an idea for the reader to grasp at and attempt to put together, like a puzzle made of stardust, but once the reader finishes the puzzle they’re left with a sparkling cloud reminiscent of nothing. ![]()
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