Mothers know better
Zadie knew what her mother meant by giving her a book written by a black woman and “resented” the interference. It was not for the first time that her mother gave Zadie the books, and each time the girl forbade herself to like them. After the first reading of the novel, the girl “wept,” and “not only for Tea Cake, and not simply for the perfection of the writing,” nor even “the real loss” she felt upon “leaving the world” contained in its pages. It meant something special to her. However, when her mother asked about Zadie’s opinion, the girl only said that it was “basically sound.” The irony is that only stubbornness prevents Zadie from admitting that her mother is right about the novel. It just hurts Zadie’s pride, for like any other teenager she believes that adults don’t understand anything, when in truth it is she who is wrong.
Strangers
Zadie’s parents were friends with an Irishman who gave them “a homemade fruit bowl this same Christmas” and “then the following winter” betrayed “the spirit of Christmas” by making a “different kind of homemade gift.” He tried to “blow up” No. 11 Downing Street with it. The Smith family knew nothing about “the bomb” until years later, but they all knew about “the ugly fruit bowl, ceramic and swirly and unable to stand straight on a tabletop.” This was filled with “nuts and laid on the carpet to limit the wobble.” The irony is that people can spend years together, even consider each other good friends, but still remain unaware of each other’s secrets.
Neutral
“Like all notable English novelists,” E.M. Forster was “a tricky bugger.” He was “an Edwardian among modernists,” but “a progressive among conservatives” in matters of “pacifism, class, education, and race.” He was “passionate defender” of “Love, the beloved republic,” but he “persisted in keeping his own loves secret, long after the laws that prohibited honesty were gone.” “Between the bold and the tame, the brave and the cowardly,” Forster walked “the middle line.” The irony was that Forster’s neutral place was “the most radical place to be.” People wanted him to make up his mind and voice his opinion, but he never did. He managed to defend his liberal humanism against “fundamentalists of the right and left.”
