Sometimes hilarious, often frustrating, and at rare times giving thought for pause, I felt it was an enjoyable read. The plot, as it often is in these types of books, is subversive to excellent characters and situational descriptions.

This is the fourth book by Zadie Smith I've read in the last 5 months, and is by far my least favorite. Although I appreciate her talent and the humor in her writing (she can really turn a phrase,) this one just didn't ring my bell. The characters were interesting sketches of people but because that's all they were, I never felt connected to any of them and thus did not care about the plot (which was a bit odd). I powered through where I might have bailed on another book because I'm a fan of Smith and I was hoping she would come through. Alas...

This book was such a slog to get through, and only partly because I’m finally back at work and no longer a lady of leisure. Is it possible to accuse a novel of being too clever? Zadie Smith is as witty and puckish and sparkling as ever here, but the waggish delight she takes in the farcicality of her characters and the absurd situations they find themselves in somehow detracts from their fullness and veracity. There was simply too much experimentation, too much tongue-in-cheek, epigrammatic humour, too much Zadie Smith the person (who, incidentally, I adore) rather than Zadie Smith the author for the bizarre plot to feel convincing or compelling. I could almost hear the reverberations of her droll, intelligent chuckle on every page. Barthes would roll in his grave.

A bit bizarre. All the niche groups that Smith included in her book made it hard for me to understand the characters as full people. The job of “autograph man” especially still confuses me, even though it was at the center of the book. Religion also plays a huge part, but everyone has a different relationship to it and then there’s the main character who seems to have no relationship with it at all. Finally, I really disliked the main character Alex. I can get on board with a little dislike, main characters don’t need to be perfect, but this guy was terrible! The drinking and the cheating were one thing, but he was also a terrible friend and the choices he made always made no sense. I’m a bit dazed, thinking, “what did I just read?”

This was a bit of a disappointment. I thought this story was chasing its own tail most of the time just like the autograph man, Alex Li Tandem was searching for what exactly, I don't know. Meaning, or identity maybe, hidden somewhere in between his British, Chinese and Jewish heritage? Spending his days making small business decisions, rambling about Jewishness, entertaining his not particularly interesting friends and not being there for his girlfriend …
And then far into the second half of the book a little ray of sunshine - enter Honey Smith. Honey’s reputation is - please forgive my prejudice - basically what you would expect from a person who is called Honey….. but with Alex she appears in an entirely different capacity. She is an unexpected friend whose life wisdom and sense of humor shine brightly in the otherwise rather gray narrative. At the same time we also make an equaintes of Alex’s idol, once world famous and now in her seventies Italian-Russian actress, Kitty Alexander. This part of the book felt as if written by someone else, or at least under a completely different influence. The trio, Alex-Honey-Kitty do what they can, the story takes off with a completely different speed and grace that unfortunately ends all too soon.

not a flawless work of fiction (whatever that means) but i've got a soft spot for zadie smith.

the thing is, i have taken it upon myself to handle this thing called literature in a logical and thoroughly disciplined manner. this means i do not usually forray into the 21st century, not until i get my head around what shaped it.

but then come those moments when i need a breather from all the high brow genius and all the modern classics or, as i call it, 'books unsuitable for my daily commute'. so this time around i ditched nabokov in favour of something that does not require the reader to remain awe-struck from the very first word to the last. something that does not need superhuman brain powers. something that can be read on a bloody bus.

now, this is not to say that zadie smith is undemanding. zadie smith is nothing short of top-notch! this book here was not as good as i remember her other works to be but it still gave me what i needed. the contemporary, the urban, the relatable, the british!
it's funny that out of all writers in the world, nabokov was the one to be put on hold by my intelletually exhausted self, in favour of smith. because it's quite clear that smith is nabokov's girl through and through and, just like her master, she seems to like her readers competent and knowledgeable.

but then she's that much more approachable. and tons more credible.

i found the plot of this particular novel a bit sloppy (at times) and slightly chaotic (but it had moments ) but as far as language is concerned, smith is at her very best. i think she is such a wonderfully balanced stylist. there's just the right amount of everything. the language is current without the threat of ever becoming dated, urban without being ridiculously slangy, elegant but never annoyingly polished and rich minus the unnecessary flourish.

i truly wish there were more writers out there who do not let their learned craft stifle their natural brilliance but still possess that bloody craft in the first place.
nothing better than 'a voice of the generation' who actually knows her stuff!

'So,' said Adam, as they started down the high street,'what was the occassion anyway?'
'Fear, and...' said Alex, and then thought for a while.
'Loathing?' offered Joseph.
'Yes. Definitely that. Definitely loathing, yeah.'

about religion and spirituality and personal gods (made or otherwise) and fame and community. zadie smith's writing style is so engaging to me - her novels have all the wit of someone like e.m. forster but with such a complex understanding of life in 20th/21st century london (i've only read white teeth + this one which were both in london - not sure about her other works yet :)).

'It's the opposite of resentment,' said Joseph, in a low, breaking voice. 'It's wonder. You don't see it. You have the power with things. I document acts of God. I give out insurance when things mess up. But you're in the world, with things. You sell them, you exchange them, you deal with them, you identify them, name them, categorise them,' - Alex freed his hand and slapped the dashboard in protest, amazed, like most people, by another man's laudatory description of the accident we call our lives - 'you write a bloody book about them. I'm sort of horrified by it, actually - you're so determined to shape what to me is fundamentally without any shape - and the joke is, you don't even realise it.'

because the story was very tangential and meandering it did sometimes feel a little slow or hard follow certain themes/threads of the story. and if it was any writer other than smith it could have very easily become tedious but to be honest i think i would be entertained by her shopping list so... i found - with this book especially - her novels are often more like discursive essays told through the characters.

(...) this was an analogy that had not satisfied Adam, who thought the call to the rabbinate should be entirely pure, a discussion a man has with God. But God had never spoken to Rubinfine, really. Rubinfine was simply, and honestly, a fan of the people he had come from. He loved and admired them. The books they wrote, the films they made, the songs they had sung, the things they had discovered, they jokes they told. This was the only way he had ever found to show it, that affection.

very fun to read such a loser of a protagonist also... alex is so incredibly self-absorbed and self-pitying; reading his inner dialogue was verrrrry fun <3 also the group of childhood friends assembled were all pretty interesting in their own right + the dynamics were very fun; especially having read the prologue with them as children. and honey! and esther! zadie smith is so great at making her characters feel like real people- giving them all these little tics and quirks even if they're only in one or two scenes. definitely want to keep making my way through smith's body of work - even though i didn't love this one as much as white teeth i just find her writing so refreshingly funny + thought-provoking.

He threw her the keys. He told her something he hadn't told her in a while.
'I know. It's going to kill me,' she replied.

They came, they came. Somewhere, beneath the drink, he understood what it meant, them coming. That they would always come. This was godly.

Z „Łowcą autografów” jest tak, że najpierw dajesz się uwieść książce jej specyficznym klimatem, a dopiero potem zastanawiasz się, o czym tak naprawdę ona jest.

Gdyby ktoś obudził mnie w środku nocy i kazał natychmiast powiedzieć, z czym kojarzy mi się „Łowca…”, w pierwszej chwili rzuciłabym: „Z pojmowaniem świata”. Naprawdę.

Książka składa się przede wszystkim nie z głównej historii, ale z różnych wspomnień i przemyśleń głównego bohatera… To taka kołdra z patchworku – niby łaty układają się w jakiś konkretny wzór, ale każdy z kawałków materiału jest dość wyraźnym, odrębnym elementem. Tutaj elementami naszej patchworkowej opowieści są te momenty, kiedy Alex percypuje świat. Przyswaja i osadza w sobie słowa, zdarzenia, zapachy, gesty… Jest kolekcjonerem życia, nie tylko autografów.

Książka jest zbiorem rewelacyjnych cytatów. O związkach, o starości, o pięknie, o sławie, o kulturze… O życiu. Często między jednym a drugim akapitem autorce udaje się wpleść myśl tak celną i napisaną tak prostym językiem, że ciężko jest wyrzucić ją z głowy.

Co irytuje? „Międzynarodowe Gesty”. Jak to męczy... Naprawdę. Wystarczyłoby te gesty opisać, nie trzeba pisać za każdym razem, jak bardzo są uniwersalne. Do tego – bohaterowie. Niby mamy tutaj różnorodność kulturową, rasową, płciową, ale zachowania i reakcje bohaterów zlewają się tak bardzo, że ciężko mówić o jakichś sporych różnicach charakterologicznych. Postacie są barwne, ciekawe, jakieś… Czasem tworzą jednak jedną wielką bezkształtną masę.

Przyznam otwarcie, że nie czytałam wcześniej „Białych zębów”, a „Łowca…” był moim pierwszym kontaktem z twórczością pani Smith. I nie ukrywam, że jest to „współpraca” na tyle owocna i zaskakująca, że chciałabym ją kontynuować.

I don’t really know how to review this one. This was my second attempt to read Zadie Smith and it was incredibly boring, yet there was something that kept me hooked. It got both better and worse as I keep reading and I’m not even sure what rating to give it, part of me wants to give it 2 stars and the other one wants to give it 4 stars, so I’m going for 3.

The Autograph Man follows Alex-Li Tandem, a guy who collects and sells autographs, after a crazy night. While high, he’d ruined his relationship with Esther and he had somehow produced, out of nowhere, Kitty Alexander’s autograph. Everyone tells him it is forged, but is it? Why would he do that while high? And, to make matters worse, he’s got to perform Kaddish for his father’s death anniversary. Everything is a mess.

That ‘something’ that kept me hooked for the first chunk was the narrator, mostly. I was 5 minutes into the audiobook and I kept wondering ‘why does the narrator sound like Ben Barnes?’ Well, because it is Ben Barnes (aka Prince Caspian). So I think the whole bit about hearing goody two-shoes Ben Barnes talk about manboobs and halitosis or making mooing sounds was sort of funny to me? I think I stuck to the first 30% because of that, but then I was kind of curious to know what would happen to Alex, if he’d fix things with Esther and find out what’s up with the stupid maybe-forged autograph. (I also really, really liked Kitty.)

Content-wise, this book was quite heavy on the autograph world which was honestly really cool but also very meh. I think I had high expectations, but the cast of characters is honestly not interesting at all. I think Zadie Smith is really good at writing dialogue, but not at character-building? She assigns certain characteristics to the characters and runs with that, but I never seem to care for anyone, they don’t have much depth (IMO). The other focus was on Judaism which is something I don’t know much about so everything flew over my head, religion isn’t really my thing. But overall, what I was really into was the drama. Alex had messy relationships with everyone and honestly, it was all so chaotic lol

My biggest ick with the book was how many times Zadie Smith would define something as the “international gesture of…” I loaned the ebook just to check this, she writes it 29 times. I don’t think I’ve seen it used this many times ever.

Another thing that bothered me was Alex himself. I didn’t get him. He overreacted (in my opinion) to everything that happened with Kitty’s letters and he massively underreacted to what Esther has to go through (and let’s not talk about Honey because what the fudge Alex) (speaking of which, am I the only person who disliked Honey?). I just couldn’t quite make sense of him. I don’t think he’s unlikable, but he does things that I’d throw him out of the window for.

Here’s the one quote I liked:
“Look, you have your work, Joseph, yes? And Rubinfine has his family. And Adam has his God. And this is what I have. My little obsessions. You used to have them too, but you grew out of them. Lucky you. But I didn’t, all right? Do you understand? This is what is between me and my grave. This is what I have.”

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

James Wood in his  thesis review covers all the thoughts I had on this one (and more and more) and is the most worthwhile review of this book around. For those who aren’t that interested, let me sum up the basics: lapsed Anglo-Chinese Jew Alex-Li is an autograph hunter fixated on Kitty Alexander, fictional Hollywood starlet of the 1950s. He spends his time writing a book on Jews v. Christians, spurning his faith, squabbling with rabbis, upsetting his bald girlfriend and cavorting with fellow autograph hunters. In the latter half of the book he meets his idol and develops inner demons.

Smith’s other novels are vast multi-character epics and her towering authorial presence benefits from having numerous dummies to manipulate, rather than the one insubstantial dummy. This novel could have benefitted from a less grandiose scope for quite a thin plot and morose protagonist: a slim 250 pages over a hoggish 419. On the plus side, the prose is as comic, stylish and rhythmic as ever, though her longer meandering passages feel like failed snippets from White Teeth. Hats off for writing a radically different second book—Zadie put up  with some hostility in the UK round about this time.

APPENDED MOAN FOUND IN DOCUMENTS FOLDER:

It does bug me quite how many readers think they have the right to desecrate a writer’s work on here with their off-handed dismissals and oh-so-clever putdowns, usually “steaming pile of . . . ” or “a complete waste of . . . ” What gives a casual reader the right to take such a stance about someone else’s passionate labour other than sheer spite? Where is this spite coming from? Has the book personally offended you?

OK, so you dislike the book. Fine! I can understand the plot or characters didn’t ring your bell, but honestly . . . haven’t we grown as readers enough to weigh a book on its merits? Unless a book offends on a level of stance, in terms of the author’s questionable views, the reviewer should give due weight to each element of the writer’s craft. If they still find it wanting after this, fine! But the arrogance of these people who dismiss books with witless rejoinders—“written by a sophomore student,” or—“I’ve could churned out something better in grad school.” ARE YOU ALL MAD?

This book, and Zadie Smith in particular, is a fine example of this bizarre persecution. Do you know how difficult it is to write a book like The Autograph Man? This is why the publishing desks are clotted with ream after ream of dreck: people flinging themselves into writing who haven’t the ability to appreciate an example of lyrical, witty and vital prose, what makes writer like Smith simultaneously as popular as she is cutting-edge.

This disgruntlement is part of a wider beef about our obsession with “grading” artworks on their merits—surely, with such a ruthless system of critical appraisal around books, music, cinema, TV, we’d filter what is “allowed” to get made, what people might want to see based on the endless chatter of feedback—but instead, we have a mainstream that celebrates the lowest common denominator, and an avant-garde relentlessly bitching over what gets published and deemed “cutting edge.” The line between popular and artistic is being tugged to breaking point, whereas a writer like Smith straddles this line, offering a neutral pleasure for both territories. And we moan and moan!

OK. I’m done.

I really enjoyed White Teeth, so expectations were high for this one. But the Autograph Man is nothing like White Teeth. Sure Zadie Smith's impressive writing style is still there, thank god, but though the plot sounded interesting, I think the book still needed a bit more time to really pull it off. I much preferred the second part to the first but not enough to say that I would read it again or recommend it. It's ok, but there's better out there.

smith has the most unique style. rich characters. abstract and disjointed and clever