English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how English, as a subject, often overcomplicates itself in an attempt to seem more sophisticated.
Zadie Smith's quote reflects her frustration with the subject of English, suggesting that it lacks a genuine essence and instead relies on unnecessary jargon and complexity to appear more academic. This commentary highlights the challenge of truly understanding and appreciating literature and language, as the subject often tries to emulate the rigor of other disciplines without achieving the same depth or clarity.
In practice
During a lecture on modern literature, a professor could use this quote to encourage students to express their ideas more clearly.
Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.
You know, you don't expect everyone to be as educated as everyone else or have the same achievements, but you expect at least to be offered at least some of the opportunities, and libraries are the most simple and the most open way to give people access to books.
He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.
I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage.
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.
In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power.
High School is the place where poetry goes to die.
I saw as a teacher how, if you take that spark of learning that those children have, and you ignite it, you can take a child from any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment.
The books which help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is by easy reading; every man that tries it finds it so. But a great book that comes from a great thinker, — it is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth, with beauty too.
Cambridge is one of the best universities in the world, especially in my field.
In many countries, they do not even keep track of how girls are doing in school, or if they are there at all. If we say, 'Girls count,' then we must count girls, so we can see if we are really making progress in educating every girl.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.