Anti-Climacus

LINK: Zadie Smith's "Two Paths for the Novel" in the new NYRB is well worth your time. I have a fondness for reviews that make me want to go out and buy the book discussed (most make me want to close the browser window): she makes fair and trenchant criticisms of Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, a book I very much enjoyed reading over the summer (and says good things about it, too--whatever one thinks of the tradition it is a part of, it is very clearly a high point of that tradition), and makes Tom McCarthy's Remainder sound very appealing, despite not being the kind of novel I generally enjoy. I will report back when I finish the latter