THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.40 - ZADIE SMITH

Episode Date: April 20, 2017

Adam talks to Zadie Smith (author of White Teeth, NW and Swing Time) about life in New York city, rudeness, John Lennon, David Foster Wallace, mother and daughters and other important waffle topics. Music and jingles by Adam Buxton. visit adam-buxton.co.uk and click on MERCH to see the new RAMBLE CHAT poster by Luke Drozd: http://www.lukedrozd.com/ Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support, Matt Lamont for convo editing and to Acast for hosting this podcast. Download their app and check out their many other excellent shows. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton. I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan Rosie, shall we go for a walk? Good skidding there, Rose

On the wooden floor, mate Good skidding there, Rose. On the wooden floor, mate. Come on. How are you doing, listeners? Adam Buxton here. Welcome to this Snap election special. First of all, should we even be having this election? I mean, yes, Snap were a fantastic band, and I loved the power, but let's take a look at their manifesto.

Like the crack of the whip, I snap attack, front to back in this thing called rap. Dinging like a cymbal, rhyme devil on the heavenly level, bang the bass, turn up the treble. Radical mind, day and night all the time, seven, fourteen, wise, divine,iac, brainiac, winning the game I'm the lyrical Jesse James But can we trust Snap? Will they really bang the bass?

Who will they bang the bass for? Will it just be a privileged minority? Or will everyone get an opportunity to bang the bass? And of course we've heard many promises from Snap About turning up the treble in the past. But can we... Ah, I'm going to stop now. Because they're called Snap.

And it's a Snap election. There's probably a huge number of people making that same lame joke, isn't there? But I don't spend enough time on social media to know that. I'm just in my Michael Bublé out in East Anglia. Oh dear, oh dear. How are you doing, listeners? Let me tell you a bit about episode 40 of the podcast, which features a conversation with the writer Zadie Smith. She was christened Sadie, true fact, and she was born in 1975 to a Jamaican mother and an English father, and she grew up in northwest London.

Sadie has a half-sister, a half-brother, and two younger whole brothers who are rapping men. One goes by the name of Luke Skies and the other is Doc Brown who is also an actor and comedian of course I talked to Doc Brown on this very podcast last year Zadie made her first splash in the publishing world with her debut novel White Teeth back in Y2K oh you remember Y2K

the computers couldn't count up to 2000, so they all exploded and society collapsed. It was a dark time. And Zadie went on to write The Autograph in 2002, On Beauty, 2005, NW, 2012, and Swingtime, published last year, 2016. I enjoyed Swingtime. This is the synopsis from the Penguin website. Two brown girls dream of being dancers, but only one, Tracy, has talent. The other has ideas about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early 20s, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either. Zadie currently lives in New York and is a tenured professor of fiction at NYU, where she has taught since 2010.

Our conversation was recorded in late November of last year, 2016, while Zadie was visiting London to promote Swing Time. And I think that she was pleased to have the opportunity to talk to a brilliant short man about things other than her books and her career. We spoke just a couple of weeks after Donald Trump had been elected president. So there's some fun nostalgia to be had, casting your mind back to those wacky, uncertain times before everything calmed down and got completely sorted out the way it is now. That's a bit of irony there.

We also talked about music, focusing on Zadie's affection for John Lennon. We talked about rapping a little bit. And at the end, being 90s guys, I forced the subject of Oasis on Zadie and she rolled with it. There are also recollections of the late David Foster Wallace, the writer, thoughts on the often fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, and other deliciously toasty waffle. Technical note about this week's podcast. When I spoke to Zadie, my mic pack failed to record. So sorry about the roomy quality of my contributions to this conversation, but I had to

make do with what was captured on Zadie's mic, which I'm glad to say worked fine. So, without further ado, here we go. Ramble Chat, let's have a Ramble Chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the vat And have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat And find your talking hat

Yes, yes, yes La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, I like the fact that you were christened Sadie. I was. But you stuck a Z in there. I like anyone who sticks a Z in there. I said to my mum recently, don't you think it's weird that all your children have aliases? Like as if they were superheroes. Yeah, weird luke is luke skies ben is doc brown and i'm zady um i don't i don't know why that's come to be i mean they were rappers there was a formal reason for why they did that yeah rappers have to have another name they can't really be

called ben smith i mean they could be but it's a bit weird. Future rappers might be. Future rappers it might finally happen. And for me I just, I've had this kind of preoccupation with a boy whose name began with Z and I don't know what I was thinking. You know when you're young you have some strange ideas about how to get together with people. It obviously didn't work. Zay-Z. I always thought of Bowie as Zayvid. Zayvid. Because Zayvid had a sort of... Yeah, he spoke that way.

He's likely spoken like that anyway. There was Z flying around. I love it as a letter. I mean, it does mean grandpa in Yiddish, which I wasn't aware of at the time that I did it. In New York, that's really what it means more than anything. So that was one of the first questions I ever had when I read in New York in Barnes & Noble at age 23 that i read from white teeth i was feeling quite pleased

with myself and the first question was why are you called grandpa am i how long have you been in new york uh 10 years and why did you go originally well at first i went to america for a kind of fellowship at harvard that's how it started. Fellowship of the Rings, this is. It was Fellowship of the Rings. I got the tattoo and I got the ring. And then I went to Columbia in New York and then NYU. Yeah, it was jobs mainly and I just got stuck. Have you always lived in the same part of town there? No, I was in Chelsea for a bit and now, ever since I've been with NYU, I've been in the village.

They have these towers that all the faculty and some of the grad students live in. And it's a fun place, though, isn't it? It is. I've always lived in England. I'm from Wilsdon, which is, what do you call that, like an urban suburb. Yeah. The main rule is it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere you want to go, and sometimes an hour and a half.

So the novelty was like living in town. an hour and a half so the novelty was like living in town like i live in greenwich village so i could just walk to a cinema or a bar or so that was fun but then i had kids and that all became a moot issue yeah the cinema is only 100 yards away but i still don't ever go there you've got children exactly you may as well live in a box box in a field in the heides. Because it really doesn't make any difference. Doesn't make any difference at all. But do you think you might have come to the end of your New York tether? Well, one of our most famous and comic and orange New Yorkers has now gone into a position of some power.

So that makes you think again. I still love New York. Does it really make you think again, in practical terms? In practical terms, because he won't bloody leave for Washington, he's blocked all the traffic. I know this is a very minor issue in the apocalypse, but you can't get anywhere. Everything is now two hours slower because the army,

or whatever it is, is outside his house, along with all the protesters and half my students. That'll calm down, though, won't it? I hope so, but he's saying he doesn't want to... He doesn't seem to understand the whole arrangement like you have to go to the big house and be the president all the times How sanguine are you about the whole situation?

I've felt a little better actually for comedy reasons in the past few days watching him tweet so madly about things like Saturday Night Live and Hamilton I don't know why that makes me feel positive, but I think he might be a president very easy to wind up and therefore to impeach. Right. Don't you think that one likely scenario is that four years will go by, everyone will go, OK, well, we gave that a chance. Yes. And now let's get back to the original project. I think it's more and more likely, like on the way here I was reading this transcript

of him talking to all the journalists, TV journalists and journalists in New York, and he's just so incredibly thin-skinned. And also he's the kind of guy who starts the meeting like, I'm really happy to see it's all going really well. And then within, by the end of the sentence, he's like ranting like mini Adolf. One of the themes from the transcript is that he feels really sad when people boo him. He didn't realise that now it would be a case of both sides having their say in his face. He's a bit sad I think.

You don't want a sad guy with nuclear weapons. Sad man with nuclear weapons and… That's the problem. Yeah, it's all, it's really problematic. But I feel a bit more cheery than I did, you know, on November 8th. And can you conceive or have you considered a world 50 years from now that might look back at this time and shake their heads at the liberals and say, oh, they just gummed everything up for a while with their silly ideas about

everyone getting on and looking after each other. And they may have had good intentions, but actually that's not the way human beings are supposed to be. And they ended up doing more harm than good. I don't think it would be read that way, actually. I think it would be read as a moment of the virtual world erupting into the real world, that it was an internet election. Do you think it was all about life online in some way? Historically, if you pull back, I think the macro view, if I had to guess in 50 years, we invented this thing which was all-consuming

and then our real world started to tumble inside it and was for a while warped by our inability to separate the two things. I imagine that's what's going to go on. So this is a symptom of growing pains? I think it's partly growing pains. There's also platforms. on so this is a symptom of growing pains i think it's partly growing pains also uh platforms like the left is just as guilty of it like i keep on hearing people going on about fake right-wing news but i read this piece in the guardian our lovely left-wing paper yesterday which was about the idea that um nazis were very disappointed by what was happening

with trump right now. And you read it, it looks like a news article. There's a picture of a Nazi, he's got cold steel blue eyes, and it all seems serious. It's in The Guardian. Then you look at it again, you realise that the actual article is about six to ten people on Reddit having a conversation. Now, that is not news. It's not news of any kind.

It's not international news. It's not even local news. It's barely news on Reddit. But it's on the screen in The Guardian, read by millions of people all around the world and taken as news. And it starts to play into the actual real life situation. And that is kind of wild. Are you on social media yourself then? You obviously look at it. I am not. I'm not. I can't look at it on my laptops. It's, I went through quite an elaborate procedure in order to block it, which is sometimes annoying. Like for instance, my dog, my dog was photographed in the East Village yesterday and put on something called

Doggist and got like 80,000 hits apparently. Was he papped or pupped? She became like, apparently, according to my friends in New York, quite famous for a day, but I don't have any ability to appreciate that. I'm sure when I get back she'll be full of it. She's not getting any dog hassle. She's an old lady. Dog trolls. She should be chuffed with whatever she gets at this point.

Have you ever got in a big bust up online? No, because I can't, I don't have any means. I don't have the phone, the apps, or anything. Why did you get rid of it? Were you spending too much time looking at it at a certain point? I only had the phone for a few months very early on, like 2008, and I just didn't really like it. You've literally got no phone. I mean, I've got a flip. I mean, I can phone you, and I can text you.

Don't try and send me a smiley face because I won't be able to see it. But you haven't got a big TV in your pocket. No, no, I haven't, no. I you haven't got a big moving TV in your pocket? No, no I haven't, no. I just haven't got time. That's literally how I feel about it. I just don't, I don't see how and I've got a laptop, it's not like I'm living in a hole. I see everything but I just

don't want to see it all the time in my pocket. You're very uptight about time I'm very uptight about time I just, yeah, I don't think there's enough of it to be on Facebook for like three and a half hours. I just can, I don't think there's enough of it to be on Facebook for like three and a half hours. I can't I just don't can't be bothered. Is that a factor of you Feeling that time is speeding up crazily as you enter your 40s, but I always thought that I mean even as a kid I felt like there was not gonna be enough time To do anything. I other people have a completely different

was not going to be enough time to do anything. Other people have a completely different feeling about time. They just seem really relaxed about it. And they say things to you like, 50's a new 40. Heard that one? That's fun. Or even 60. They have like an infinite sense of their extension in the world. But I just always felt like you blink and it's gone. And I have some independent evidence. Like I remember asking my father when he was dying how it felt and he said yesterday I was 16 as far as I'm concerned and I was like oh god I can believe it do you ever project yourself to that moment somewhere around the end of your life and you can feel that sense of what your father was talking yeah yeah I've been doing that for a long time and but I also I think my friends would say would say that I spend quite a lot of time worrying about things which are not even here yet. And you've always been like that?

Yeah, I think I've always been like that. My brothers would say the same. And my dad was like that. Like if we turned up in Felixstowe at 3 o'clock to come and see him, he'd be already looking at the train timetable to check the train we had to go home on and spend the entire time stressing about when we were going back to London. Yeah, I don't know what that is. He was also very uptight about time. He was very uptight about time, yeah. It rubbed off on you.

It must have, yeah. And did that then sort of create a heaviness in you? I mean, I see a lot of you in the protagonist in Swing Time. Yeah, I guess I do. And compared to my brothers, but I think they're all a bit melancholy, actually. Ben's a bit like that too, and my littlest brother certainly is. But, you know, with light relief,

we all like to laugh a lot. Sure, yeah. Yeah, and we all like a kind of comic relief, yeah. But do you think of yourself as someone who's kind of sad? Am I sad? I think I'm more realistic about limits than sometimes a lot of people seem to be these days. I just don't feel like life is this kind of unlimited, infinite thing. I just don't see that. I don't think it has to be a tragic knowledge. It's just kind of good to know that it's just it's just kind of good to know that you that it's a finite affair hey here's a phrase you might find useful carpe diem oh god

what about that i just wouldn't it be amazing if you had a teacher who who told you to stand on your desk and say it imagine that teacher i remember that film it's on broadway right now with jason tudeikis yeah oh my god i don't think it's doing very well i don't think people are really in the mood for standing your desk yeah it's the wrong moment right captain oh my captain yeah trump yeah god how do you look back at yourself when you were when you were young you've got some good little details in in the swing time book book about the various phases that your character goes through, which include being a goth at one point. Was that ever your path? Were you actually down the Camden Palais? No, I have to say I might have stolen a bit of that from Ben more than from me. Ben was a, my brother was a huge leveler fan,

which made me laugh a lot at the time. He's going to kill me. He cried when Kurt Cobain died. All of that, and then he suddenly discovered hip-hop, and then that was that, and he disappeared into hip-hop. So I was never a goth, but I loved Camden, but I was not really in the goth scene. I was certainly in the sitting around smoking weed scene, but then I was the entirety of North London.

That was what we did then. Have you drawn a line under the whole world of getting stoned? I just can't. I hate the fog in your brain. I'm so impatient with it. I don't like it anymore. I love getting drunk. That didn't finish.

That's the last pleasure left to the middle-aged person. Were you getting up first thing in the morning and skinning up? I was in college maybe a bit, but I was never a waker and baker really it was for me it was a time issue like if you grew up in our neighborhood you always knew that person who'd been making an album right for 15 years yeah or who was gonna do something you know go and join football club but never because it was always going to happen and i started thinking that weed was really the behind it all. Just this delay in your brain.

You think something's happening and then actually ten years have gone by. What was your favourite thing to do when you were baked then? Would you listen to a lot of music? Yeah, it was always music. But I always preferred... We used to smoke hash. It was tiny little smelly cubes of hash that you paid five pounds for. And you had to get that five pounds by having a whip round in the school and begging people

and then agreeing to give them back a bit of this tiny cube. It was like an investment program. So you could only get a little bit stoned in the first place. But we used to smoke it and just listen to a lot of music, listen to some boy from one of the posh schools

play Wonderful Tonight on a guitar. Not, where do you go to? Oh God, stop. Sarstedt. He's wheeling out to Sarstedt. A-pa-ta-ta, a-la-la-la, a-poo-poo-poo. And what were you listening to back in those days? I think, Ben will probably argue with me,

but I think I started the hip-hop thing in our house because I loved De La Soul and Arrested Development and Dougie Fresh and Slick Rick and Monie Love. So I had those early tapes. But then Ben certainly, and Luke, of course, my littlest brother, went on and became experts, beyond experts. I liked a lot of, you know, what you call emo stuff now, like Tori Amos, a lot of crying to Tori Amos.

Right. And early Radiohead. Maybe there was even a Lenny Kravitz summer. That's a depressing idea. Mate. And also pop music. I just loved pop music. I loved Top of the Pops.

I loved those stupid records where they had the countdown on them. Yeah. I loved all pop. But you liked kind of jazz and stuff when you were growing up. Yeah, and I liked a lot of 30s, 40s show tunes. It was a large part to do with my parents' record collection. There was a lot of Dylan and all my family are massive Dylan fans. And a lot of the Beatles.

And also you remember in those days with your parents' records, there was a kind of chronological, you could learn something. Things were in order, more or less, and you knew that this was from the 30s 40s this was the rock and roll they kept on banging on about like it was the beginning and end of all human life and then your little records from our price you added and they'd say that sounds just like the kinks or that and you say shut up it's my music but it was like that and you kind of find things in time. Like when you found out that John Lennon had been killed, it was usually at the end of listening to all those albums.

And for me, anyway, I experienced it like it had just happened. I was so sad about it. Yeah, yeah. I bought that film, Imagine, you remember that documentary? Sure. And cried a lot. But, I mean, it had happened when I was five years old. But you kind of experienced it as your history somehow that's the film that has him and yoko at the big white piano right yeah

and also i think in that film is a scene where this crusty yeah it comes to his door it's an amazing scene because beautiful you couldn't conceive of it happening nowadays it probably wouldn't be able to happen because there'd be so much security. Yeah, he comes to the front door of his enormous house and Yoko's standing by him. And it's a very beautiful hippie tramp. He looks like Jesus. I mean, he's really good looking, blonde.

And he wants to know something about a line in one of the songs, like a single line. Oh, you're going to carry that weight a long time. And John really tries to listen to me. He's a bit impatient, but he just says, I write about whatever happens today. He says, I took a good shit today, or I had a coffee, or I love my wife,

but it's about my life, and whatever it means to you is fine, but there's no secret message. You weren't thinking of anyone in particular when you were singing? How could I be? How could I be thinking of you? Well, I don't know, maybe I don't care me, but it's all somebody. I'm thinking about me or a best Yoko, if it's a love song. I'm saying, you know, I had a good shit today

and this is what I thought this morning, and, you know, I love you, Yoko, whatever. I'm singing about me and my life, you know, and if it's relevant for other people's lives, that's all right. For me, that film, I watched it over and over and I just found Lennon to be such an extraordinary person, like a kind of hero. And then at the end where he gives it all up and goes to raise children and bread for five years.

The bread-making years. Yeah, I was very moved by the whole conception of that kind of artist. Did you read enough about him to find out all the bad things as well? And then how did you find it? I haven't thought about this in years. That's so funny. Yes, I did. I read the Philip French and I was really kind of obsessed with him for a while.

The bad things are he had a bad temper and he drank those white Russians and be mean. Some of his more extreme political allegiances seem kind of... He's foolish. He was always an enthusiast, so whatever oppressed group came near him, he would always take them on full throttle and be happy to support them in any way. But it's better to be enthusiastic than cynical.

That was what was so wonderful about him. I heard a news story about him recently on the radio in America, which I'd never heard before. It was somebody giving a personal account of it. They were meant to play some big show in the South, story about him recently on the radio in america which i'd never heard before it was uh somebody giving a personal account of it they were meant to play some big show in the south huge stadium and when they got there george noticed that the seating was segregated like there were signs saying white people here black people here and john said we are not playing this show unless you change that and it became this huge incident like the mayor came

and said we can't change it that's the law and and John just said well look then we're not playing it was you know 25,000 people and there was only two hours to go I tried to think of any contemporary artists who would have the balls to do such a thing now all the money wasted all the time everybody's screaming at you all the politics and they just held their ground and in the end it was unsegregated everybody was allowed to pour into the stadium as one. And it set a precedent for other venues as well. His kind of heroism is in many, many different elements. But he was really a big deal for me when I was a kid.

Yeah, he was unafraid of being very honest in a way that few people are these days. And now people try on what seems to be honesty as a bit of a pose, but it's usually an effort to push a few buttons, and you feel like this is not the whole story. No, he was honest, and it was often self-wounding. Like, people ridiculed him so much, particularly the British press. They just couldn't get on with him. You know, the idea of this loudmouth Liverpudlian, always said what

he felt and never did what they want him to do, like marry a nice girl. Yeah, the rage that people still have, the horrible things that people say about Yoko online and things like that. It's incredible. It's so weird. I know. Just think, listen to yourself, he was so happy with her. It's quite painful to think how happy they would have continued to have been. She's such a legend in New York, you know. She's a really awesome person. How are you with rudeness in general? Do you get struck by incidents of rudeness? I think rudeness is just a lack of imagination in a lot of people.

Is New York a rude place? Did that take some getting used to? I don't think they are that rude. I mean, they're impatient. You just have to keep moving. If you stop and dawdle, you will hear behind you, really? Really? You're like, I've just, give me a second. But I know I can be rude. When I'm in the middle of working or writing, I just don't want to really deal with anything else. I don't want to think about anything else. The main problem, I think, is sometimes the school mum thing. Like a lot of working women, I drop my kids, I run back to my desk.

But I think I'm okay. How are you with the socialising aspect aspect of it with being thrust together with all so many different people that you might not otherwise want to speak to right but i i assume that they all everybody's feeling that way i think even the chipper mom who's like doing it all the time it's not like it's a great pleasure for her to talk to you either i think i think everybody's under a kind of strain so a certain amount of politeness is necessary and there are all kinds of weird dynamics that you might find that you really love some mum and the bad news is that her child is a shit and it's the wrong way around are you the kind of person that feels okay with telling off someone else's children I do do i do do that sometimes i know i should probably shouldn't um i do do that

sometimes um yeah but i don't i don't mind people tell how scary it was when someone else i know it's terrifying you want to cry your eyes fill with water oh jesus i'm the worst i would never shout but um the worst thing is that sometimes you have the instinct to be mean to i think that's so horrifying to recognize it in yourself. When you meet a particularly bad child who's boorish or selfish or boastful. Like sometimes if I'm with a really boastful six-year-old and they're telling me all the things they own, and then I'll just say, oh, well, I don't really like those.

It's just terrible. And you realize you're bitching with a six-year-old. But some of them do deserve it they just they need to be taken down a bit that's right both do you know uh kung fu i know some kung fu i'll try it out on you see if you oh my god i also love comedy that does that like will ferrell is a specialist in like being offensive to children that's such a great comic line like when when will ferrell and a three-year-old are having out Sandler used to be good at that too. It's a special skill. Do you

Socialize a lot of comedians in New York. I don't actually like I I love Yeah I go and see it all the time because I live next to the cellar so I can just if I've done my work I can Sneak down and go to the 11 o'clock show So this is the famous comedy cello that is at the beginning of the titles of Louis C.K.'s... Right. Never have I seen Louis there. How long have I been going hoping that Louis would accidentally turn up one day? It never happened.

But I saw Amy Schumer before she was known at all, before she had a TV show or anything. So I see people and I love to see them. Part of it's because you live in Washington Square. Everybody's always filming in the same it's because you live in Washington Square, everybody's always filming in the same three blocks that I live in. To the point that my children are so impatient and angry with film crews. Like at one point, Ghostbusters was trying

to stop us getting to school. And my daughter was like, I just don't, I don't care if you're filming Ghostbusters, I'm going to school. And then look, AD's begging with you, please don't, please don't walk across the square. It's a reboot, man. Yeah, I'm going to school.

Get out of my way. I love comics. Sometimes I go and see SNL. And I've seen Louis there do his stuff. But I see them from a distance, you know, as a fan. I love comedy. But because my brother's a comic, I am aware that sometimes comedians themselves are a bit of a melancholy lot.

Sad clowns? Sad clowns. They're either drinking clowns or sad clowns. So I think it's nicer just to watch them do their thing and then go home. Yeah, exactly. I saw a photograph of you with some other literary lions. It was a big literary lion pack.

Oh, yeah. You, Jonathan Franzen. Oh, God, that was such a Oh, yeah. You, Jonathan Franson. Oh, God, that was such a long time ago. David Foster Wallace. Yeah. Yeah, it was a festival in Italy. And Nathan Englander and Geoff Eugenides. That was, obviously, it was before David died.

It must have been 2006 or something. I had been living in Italy, so I knew the festival and the festival organizers I'm sure that's why I was invited and I was the only girl. I remember the main thing being how funny it was to see these literary lions in their like underpants in a swimming pool. I remember finding that was a very funny thing. At one point they were all playing some kind of American game that you play in a pool, like Marco Polo or something. I thought, this is something to see. It's like Jonathan Franzen in a pool.

It was a funny thing. No, we were there about a week, I think. So we'd see each other every day. So there was hobbing and knobbing? There was hobbing and knobbing. I'd met everybody before, but never spent such concerted time with them, I guess. Maybe it was the first time I'd met Jeff Eugendies.

Did you already know David Foster? I did know David from writing to him as a fan as a kid and then he'd written back and then I'd met him a few times in New York at the New Yorker Festival. But it was the first time I'd spent any time with him. Was he different to the person you expected him to be? Not really. I expected him to be an extremely polite and self-conscious Midwestern boy, and that's how he was.

Sometimes it would slow things up, like you try and have lunch, and David would be so preoccupied with the waiter, you know, if the waiter was happy or if we were being obnoxious to the waiter. You can imagine these kind of spirals of that. It would be quite hard to order food and get on with your day. He was also very attached to dogs. I remember going to one event one evening and he spent the whole time communing with like a Labrador in the corner of the party.

So it was those kind of things. What was the book that made you a fan of David Foster Wallace? What was it, his articles? I think, I can't think of the first one I read. It might have been Broom of the System. I read it very early and read Infinite Jest in college. Did you read the whole thing? I did. It was such a labour.

And it's not in any way my favourite book of his. Yeah, what is? I really like the essays, it's a supposedly fun thing. But the one i teach every year is brief interviews with hideous men which because i know it so well i think it's probably my favorite i think it's a really brilliant collection yeah yeah is there something in there that stands out for you um i think all the stories in there are pretty extraordinary there's one called uh Made With No Hands,

which is a very weird Joycean story towards the end, which I always find very beautiful. Did you see that film about his speaking tour? No, I didn't. I didn't. No. I mean, the guy who wrote that is my colleague at NYU. I just feel that anyone who had even a passing knowledge of David, not even personally, but who reads him, would know how absolutely mortified he would have been by these projects. So I just don't really get it. I don't watch any of them. But it was interesting because

that was my introduction to the whole world of him and his books. So it's quite good. It served quite a useful purpose. Well, that's a good thing. Yeah, I guess if people don't know him and want to know about his writing. Because he totally passed me by and I realised that I'd made a completely facile superficial judgement about him because of his bandana. The bandana was quite annoying.

I remember reading with him in New York and it would fill with sweat and then he'd take it off and put another one on. I'd seen pictures of him and I just sort of wrote him off as like a kind of tedious, he looked like

a different person. He looked like a kind of gung-ho, you know, rock and roll, like. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, not at all.

Yeah. And instead, it's this super sensitive, super thoughtful guy. Yeah, very sensitive. He seems to have a skin too few and right exactly that such it's funny because when i used to teach him when he was alive i would come up against exactly

that you know with students this kind of uh push back or they were annoyed particularly because he was their generation or they felt he was a young writer and they were annoyed and now when i teach him the opposite happens and it's almost as irritating you know i walk in and everybody's fawning yeah they're like in the church of david and nothing can be said that isn't you know as every line was perfect i think he that seems kind of silly as well yeah and he wore the bandana purely as because he sweated so much i think that was the main reason yeah to keep it out of his eyes right speaking of colleagues that that you have who are creative, what's your policy on dealing with someone you are friends with

or you know who makes something you don't think is very good? How do you deal with that situation? I think it's... Is it always better to be supportive of a friend? Right. Should that be a blanket policy or should you get into like can i give you some constructive feedback i you know i so rely on the honest opinions of my friends that i that when we were younger certainly i think everybody was a bit more

flexible in terms of critique as you get older i think people do batten down the hatches there's a kind of form of self-protection but there there's so much delusion, like sometimes I'll perhaps send a very supportive, the answer is I would always send a nice email. I won't send a nasty email. So I'd send a very nice email about somebody's book that perhaps I didn't love. But then of course, when I get a really nice email from another colleague, it doesn't occur to me that they also hate my book and have just written me a perfectly charming email about it so it's that like it makes me a bit sad not ever knowing what people really feel but yes I'd rather have that than the email saying after you've published it nice book it had this that and the other problem

do you think you really don't know how other people feel are you not able no because I've written such convincing emails about books that I completely hate. So I'm imagining that other people do the same. You have a sense, though, fundamentally, that those people probably like you and like what you do. No, I don't think that's true of writers. I have plenty of writers, friends who we completely respect each other. And I love to talk to them as writers. But what we do is non-compatible.

I'm sure they don't like what I write and I often don't like what they write, but that's not really an issue. Writing is a kind of broad church and I can recognize someone to be absolutely a writer, a genuine writer, without them being my kind of writer. Then being your kind of writer is like an added extra. With a friend like Jeffrey Gendys, for example,

it's just incredibly good luck that I both like him. He's a good friend and his writing is up my street. But that's not that common, I think, between writers. Do you find that people recommend other writers to you because your styles are superficially similar and actually it's not your taste at all? Yeah, I really don't want to read writers like me most of the time. I find that really exhausting. And the publishers who make that error, I remember when't want to read writers like me most of the time. I find that really exhausting.

And the publishers who make that error, I remember when I wrote White Teeth, the amount of books sent to me about Bengali families living in London, for example, I was like, dude, I already read, I wrote that, but I don't want to read any more books about that. I'm good right now. I'm interested in other things. I love to read things which suggest a completely different

direction like one i probably couldn't take but that i'm curious about yeah um and you sort of referred briefly there to the frustration of not knowing what is really going on with people a lot of the time yeah and there's a line that bookends swinging Time, which is something like, now we can see who you really are, or now we know who you really are. Is that a preoccupation of yours, then, that you have to manage how people perceive you, or that it's just a necessary part of being a modern person, and actually, not until you're dead will people get a clearer idea of what really makes you tick right i think deadness helps but i don't think it's a modern condition i think people are really have always been uh have an incredible capacity for self-delusion i just think that's how people are you think that people are deluding themselves rather than deliberately selling an image of themselves to other people it's it's a bit of both. But, you know, when people are,

sometimes people are uncovered, right, in the British press for their sex scandals or he's married to a woman, but in fact he's this and that, as if it were a deliberate ploy. And of course sometimes it is, but I also think it is possible for people to genuinely separate two parts of their brains and live in two completely different ways.

And the horror is when somebody unites them in this vulgar way and says, oh, did you know that X, Y and Z is actually like this? I think for a lot of people, I mean, I can't imagine such a thing happening. It must be so traumatic, particularly the way it's done in England. But I think people can live their lives with the part of themselves hidden even from themselves. When you say it's so traumatic the way it's done, what are you referring to?

I think something like Keith Vaz recently, for example. Like it just, it's really kind of obscene. And I don't know why we haven't got out of the habit of enjoying those episodes. If you don't know about Keith Vaz, what was that story? Well, he is a MP married who turned out to be seeing, I guess, rent boys in the language of the Sundays. And I remember all those scandals from our childhood, right?

Like you'd go out and buy News of the World because somebody's life had just been destroyed and it seemed like something you could read while you were eating your egg and chips. Just knowing people over the years and how often they are surprised by themselves and how much they hide from their children, their partners, their friends. and how much they hide from their children, their partners, their friends. I don't think that tone of like crowing is a very civil one. That's a big part of Swing Time as well, of course, is that whole world of trading those kinds of secrets

and the damage that it can do. Have you had friends that that's happened to? No, I haven't i mean i was just hearing actually in new york about someone who had said something on someone on the left who'd said something unpleasant about trump online and within a day these kind of alt-right internet goons have put all her email online so that stuff's going to happen more and more often because uh the trolls are not just trolls they're're like really competent at busting open people's intimate lives. I mean, that is my feeling is that no one could survive the opening of their email online. No one. The kind of jokes we make

on email. I don't know about you, but I mean, email for me is like a place of id. It's where I say everything that you can't say in public social life. The point is that intimate life and private life is real and should exist. The idea that your dog, for instance, might be a racist Nazi. I think many people have these imaginary racist dogs in their lives or cats or hamsters. The kind of jokes you make within your family, that's your right as a human to have that intimate space in which things are not pretty. So I kind of fear a world where everybody's like serially exposing each other because when it comes to your turn, it's not going to look nice. Nobody has this pristine interior life. I do.

You do, really? I can tell that from looking at you. Great all round. Just a great guy. I'm so terrific. Sometimes I wish I could publish my emails a clearer picture from the grandeur because obviously they think i'm great but they don't know the half of it so

one of the things i like about you when you're talking about your stuff is that you do look back and not worry exactly but you revise your opinion about yourself as a younger person fairly regularly but you're not certain about things i'm fed up with people who are certain about everything. There's a lot of certainty going around these days. Yeah, and I heard you saying that the older you get, the less sure you are about a lot of things. I mean, it's true and it's not, isn't it? Because we're told the older generation

was responsible for Brexit, for example. Right. So there are a lot of people, certainly my parents' generation, whose opinions solidified in a certain way and who seemed less open-minded the older they got. Yeah. And for them it was about looking back a lot. It was about saying things actually were better in the old days and we've thrown out a lot of what was good then. We should get back to those times.

Well, the thing about, I was talking about it recently and thinking about about it that everybody has that conservative instinct as they get older and nostalgia but for some of us that nostalgia would be self-harm like it's not really a good idea for a young black woman to think about going back to i don't know america in 1942 that's not going to be a good deal for me and so the problem with the kind of nostalgia you're talking about in your parents' case is that it's only really accessible to some people. And it leaves a lot of other people out. Like in England, you'd be leaving out, depending on how far back you went, women voting, children going up chimneys. I mean, the past always looks pretty from a certain view. And I know England has a lot of nostalgia for Victorian life and for Edwardian life going on the basis of the

TV shows we've been presented with recently. And I also have all that nostalgia for various moments of British life, but also hopefully a kind of historical view of what was and was not possible for many other people. kind of historical view of what was and was not possible for many other people say of course that the nostalgia is for the good parts is for people um treating each other with respect for there being some sort of um but that's only half of the story enabled people to feel comfortable with their lot and all that stuff you know what i mean like everyone knew their position and um and that made for a happier life relatively free from the anxieties of the modern individualistic age yeah yeah it's their right to have everything uh my grandmother worked in one of those big houses

it's it's not um everyone knowing their place is an interesting idea also that some of that great wealth and comfort was, of course, on the back of an incredibly brutal colonial experiment. So that's the difficult thing. It's boring, perhaps, to be dragged over the past and to understand what it was rested on, what it was based on. But it's also a kind of escapism to pretend it wasn't. I do think there are values of the past that can be useful to us, but those things should be values of the present anyway. You have to find some way to reimagine the things you want without disappearing into this historical nostalgia

in which many people's rights and freedoms get lost again. Is your Ma still with us? My God, is she still with us? Yes, she is. She's very, very young. She's only like 62 or 63. Oh, OK. Yeah, she's got a lot of energy. And do you get on OK? Yeah, we do.

There's some heavy mum stuff in Swingtown. There is. We've had our moments, but then I have my moments with my daughter. In our family, there's a long history of mothers and daughters in tension. But the more my friends i spoke to about their mothers there were very few who didn't have some kind of complicated relation it's just such a difficult relationship it really is yeah what is it i don't know the feeling of of being replaced the feeling of trying to reenact something. I think women are, I find myself harder on my daughter

because women have this sense of themselves as competent. Well, I could do this. And they project it onto the daughter. Whereas the son, you just think, hello, you little helpless idiot. What can I do for you? And that's how the patriarchy is made, basically, unfortunately. Women are very soft on their sons, aren't they?

And then I remember thinking my mother was very soft on my brothers. And she was so proud of how handsome they were and how tall they were and all their girlfriends. And I think that's a kind of natural relation. Whereas when a woman thinks of her daughter, there's so much more anxiety about everything nothing is without anxiety how she dresses who she goes out with how long she stays out um there's a kind of moral panic and a personal panic some of it rational like girls are in physical danger a lot of the time so I understand it it's just much more complex like I get my son dressed without even thinking it's like something i bought from tesco's put it on go out the house but with the girl it matters to me

what she wears you know you've all these feminist mothers like me freaking out about all the pink or and whatever you feel about it the fact is you're still freaking out about it whereas the boy is just like put that dinosaur t-shirt on get out of the house there's certainly a huge weight of expectation and cultural baggage yeah that applies to a girl in a way that it doesn't to a boy. Right. Still, you know, but it is weird. I found with my daughter that at every point felt as if I was laying out as many options for her as it was possible to do. But still, for whatever reason, she was gravitating towards what you would consider to be traditional.

My daughter's the same. I am a strong feminist, but that aspect of it basically is patriarchal, which denigrates women's instinctive interests and pursuits. I think it's really depressing. I do it with my daughter because it was done to me and I find it hard to avoid. But when I'm saying to her, don't watch that show, what am I really saying? That shows full of girls are bad news, stupid, boring? What am I trying to imply to her?

It's like a constant denigration of the things that interest her. Don't be interested in clothes, don't pick up that doll. I think you have to find a way to make the feminine not a humiliating place to be. Oh, ball bags. I thought of a thing I wanted to ask you about. Has your brain started to fail you? It's just unbelievable. Is it?

Yeah. Oh, glad. I put a hairbrush in the fridge a few days ago who knows why come on that's probably nice and relaxing for your scalp a lovely cool hairbrush what are some of the great great things about getting older that you love oh my god

what's the up tempo about getting older it's more like an absence of other things like I was at a party recently in Germany and there were a lot of young people suddenly came into the party. And the way they talked to me, as if they were on Twitter, they would say these really funny short things

and their faces were very animated and they were making kind of performance. And then quite soon afterwards, they would leave the party as if they had the sense that if I'm not funny, really funny for five minutes, then I must go. I can't just stand and say,

so what's been going on with you today? How's work? And I thought, God, that looks like hard work, that whole being young thing. And I felt a great enjoyment just being at the party, meeting random people, drinking, not caring what people thought about you, like just really wanting

to eat the food and drink the drink until everybody else was gone, then go home. I realise when you're in your twenties that's not really what's going on at a party. There's so much social anxiety. I really don't care anymore. You don't miss those days. I don't miss that feeling like, what did everybody think of me at the party? Old people don't think that. They think, is there some food? Is the drink free? Yes?

Good. I'll be there. So, yeah, just being more relaxed. Yeah, there's a sense of comfort in yourself. I also personally think, it's maybe not a popular opinion, that young people don't really know how to dress. Oh. Flipping heck, Tucker. I know. Sit the cat among the pigeons.

Because I remember not knowing. You just don't really understand your own body, what looks good in it. You read a magazine and it says, let's all wear yellow feathers and you put yellow feathers on and you look fucking ridiculous. How did you learn how to dress? I've never learned. The men, the British men of the 90s,

they'd got an idea idea didn't they around 1996 and they were like i'm sticking with this idea i'm gonna wear cargo pants in the summer they got they had their concept they might wear a t-shirt with the shirt undone like and they just stuck with it and that's okay like i saw liam gallagher in sainsbury's about two years ago and he was just still dressed like he was in 1998. Yeah he was having it in Sainsbury's, alright? I quite admired the consistency it's like Einstein with all those same suits like why why mess it up? He had the art of the glass you know the sunglasses on his head and everything was

exactly the same. Right he's got... He's got things to have he's having it he hasn't got time to think about a new Anything else gets in the way of what's important. Right. I'm shocked at how superficial you are. He's got things to have. He's having it. He hasn't got time to think about a new wardrobe. Have you seen, there's a documentary about Oasis called Supersonic. Oh, no, I really want to. I used to hate them so much in the 90s because it was a war.

But now the war's over and we're all old and pathetic. And so I can feel sentimental about the whole thing. I'm going to watch it. And it is really quite a blast of all kinds because i i really couldn't give a shit about i hated them so much i just thought they are the enemy the worst they are stupid jobs and that music is droning songs and it's what did i think it was like oh yeah i just thought this is like status quo just right with slightly different production and in a way i was right but you were team damon yeah back in the day sort of team maybe you're team brit i didn't like

country house i was team jarvis oh yeah jarvis well jarvis still i mean he's king that was the right decision yeah but actually watching the documentary is terrific and you are reminded of what a what a force of nature they were. That's the thing. And they were hilarious and they came down to London and they had it. They bought massive houses in Hampstead and they were always funny. And they didn't care. They genuinely didn't seem to give a shit. No.

Which was funny. And I quite admire Noel's commitment to his art. He had a thing he wanted to do and he just did it undeflected by anybody's opinion certainly by fashion and he had that sideline in absolutely hilarious interviews which is one of the great treasures of the 90s just reading over the things he had to say about everybody i mean it really is a snapshot of a different world in a different world yeah just on the cusp of the internet all still tabloid driven yes and just these guys who were like the last gunslingers yeah it was really but the music is great though

actually it totally passed me by but of course people got into it it's brilliant some of it there were just some boys in our college who had the control of the jukebox and they just wouldn't let it go it was just that all day long. And it began to drive you mental. But yeah, fair play to them. Yeah. The 90s. The 90s.

The 90s. The Yardankities. I never understood. You remember that joke in Brass Eye? It's talking about drugs. Why has the 90s turned into the ya dankities and I always thought what does that mean

and then I realised that it was like no he's saying ya these is that what he means no no it's like instead of saying

nine as in no yeah everyone's saying ya danker oh my god that's terrible and having lots of drugs I literally only got the joke like about two years, that's terrible. And having lots of drugs.

I literally only got the joke, like, about two years ago. That's brilliant. God, brah, Sia, that was a great thing about the 90s. Yeah, amazing. What all, okay, this is the final question. Yeah, gosh. What always lifts your spirits? For me, it's probably hip-hop.

Like, hip-hop, it just makes me happy. If I'm exercising, it makes me exercise. If it's old 90s hip-hop, it fills me with warm feelings and nostalgia. Yeah, that is quite a reliable source of pleasure for me. What's the modern hip-hop that you like? I really like Kendrick, but I also, my brothers despair of me because I'm very much a sucker for beats so sometimes

people like Bobby Schmurda which would make my little brother who's a very conscious rapper like he's just so disgusted

but I can't resist a tune Bobby Schmurda is now unfortunately in jail for Schmurda he's got eight years he's only 20

or something terrible or there's a song a huge hit at the moment called panda it's called bobby schmurda i'm sure it's not his real name um there's a song called panda the chorus goes better better better better which is literally about two different kinds of car and when you have both of them together, they look like a panda. But the song is irresistible. My brothers frown on this kind of party hip-hop. Party hip-hop. I like party hip-hop.

Yeah, me too. What about Frank Ocean? I love Frank Ocean. I feel for him. I think it's so hard to be famous in that way and to have such a delicate and interesting talent. But at the same time I hope he finds a way back to his natural abilities, which are very large. I hope he doesn't spend too much time agonising. But we've seen this before. He's young, he maybe doesn't know, but we as old grizzled people have seen this process before

and so I'm sure he will return to us in new form. As long as he doesn't start schmurdering people. He's got to not schmurder, but he doesn't seem the schmurdering type to me. Wait. This is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website I see success. yes success. The way that you look at the world

makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash buxton for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. So there you go, Zadie Smith. I'm very grateful indeed to Zadie for making the time to talk to me for the podcast. And I do recommend Swing Time, even though, you know, the whole appearance on the podcast was not a promotional opportunity for her. She was just up for coming along and chatting, which is good. Because, you know, the podcast is seldom an effective promotional tool. I'm an effective promotional tool, but not the podcast. Just because I never know when the interviews are going to go out. Like some are easy to edit

and they go out fairly quickly and it seems like the right time to put them out. Other ones, they take a little bit longer and they need to, they sort of sit around for a while, maturing. So it's all a bit arbitrary. Anyway.

Rosie! Where are you? Oh, there you are. Rosie, come over here. What have you found? Don't antagonize creatures. I got a tweet from someone today, in fact, saying, oh, I'm a bit worried that you think it's funny to let Rosie attack wild animals. Not cool. Well, first of all, Rosie very seldom comes into physical contact with anything she chases, do you, Rosie? They tend to get away from you immediately. I think years ago she duffed in a squirrel quite badly and I told her off. I don't like to encourage Rosie being antagonistic towards her fellow animal buddies but at the same time there's very little I can do about it sometimes if she

shoots off in a hairy bullet style but certainly if you know I saw her bullying a vole or a larger creature in close proximity I would step in and mediate. Get them to sit down and talk about their problems. And be a sort of animal ACAS. Anyway, that's pretty much it for the podcast this week. But before I go, exciting news for you podcats or quartermasters or however you identify. There is a new bit of podcast-related merchandise, which is available to buy through my website, adam-buxton.co.uk.

Just this week, we added a poster designed by a brilliant artist, illustrator, Luke Drozd. He has, I'm very glad to say, created a poster especially for the podcast. And it's a beautiful nature scene with a little figure representing me and one representing Rosie down at the bottom. And it says Ramble Chat on it and we have signed both myself and luke about 30 of those posters i think so snap them up while you can so uh yeah so uh yeah i've got to think of new ways of wrapping things up so uh yeah so kind of like that really so kind of like that, really. So sort of like, you know, kind of a little bit like that. That's not the way. That's not the way I'm going to go with wrapping things up. Instead, I will say thank you very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell

for his production support. Thank you also to Matt Lamont for his edit skills. Thank you also to Matt Lamont for his edit skills. And thank you to you for being kind enough to download this podcast and to listen right the way through to the end. Please listen to the final song and follow the instructions therein. A lot of people say to me, what are the lyrics of the song, Buckles? Well, I have tweeted the lyrics to the song on several occasions, and it would be easy to find them if you felt motivated, but it doesn't stop people asking. I can understand, your lives are busy and you don't have time, so let me tell you that the lyrics are like and subscribe,

please like and subscribe, give me a little smile and a thumbs up, a nice little pat when my bum's up. That's about it, really. Till next time, we're together. Go carefully. Tread lightly. I love you.

Bye! Oh, I wish you wouldn't do that. Sorry, Rosie. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Bye. ស្រូវាប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ Thank you.