49 pages • 1 hour read
Zadie SmithNW
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Pages 114-154Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Pages 114-154 Summary
Felix Cooper and his girlfriend, Grace, wake up and talk about small things, like a mermaid from Grace’s collection of princess figurines that has fallen from a shelf. Grace bothers Felix, who works part-time, about not having made a “list of things he wanted from the universe” (115). She leaves, and Felix goes to see his father, Lloyd. When he arrives at Lloyd’s messy, decrepit home, he is offered marijuana but refuses (135). Felix has brought Lloyd a book about the Garvey House, a housing project where Lloyd lived when he was younger. They reminisce about old times, and on page 37, they find a picture of Lloyd. On his way out, Felix runs into Lloyd’s neighbor, Phil Barnes, who talks about how complicated families are and about how important nature is.
There is a brief flashback to when Grace and Felix first met, at a bus stop, which clarifies that he had a drug problem and is now recovering.
Felix meets a man, Tom Mercer, and they go to look at an old, damaged MG Midget that Tom is selling. On the way, they talk about Felix’s past work in the film industry and Tom’s marketing job. They head to a pub to talk the deal over. The conversation covers several topics, including Felix’s two kids from an earlier marriage, and again turns to work. Felix has had all sorts of jobs, including running a failed T-shirt business. At the pub, Felix orders a ginger beer, to Tom’s surprise, and he admits to being an alcoholic and to having been “deep in the drug thing” (146). At one point, Tom—who is hung-over—nevertheless asks Felix for drugs. Felix talks the price of the MG down to £450, despite Tom saying that his father would never let up if he sold the car for less than 700.
Part 2, Pages 114-154 Analysis
“Guest” presents a perspective distinct from the rest of the novel. While the other parts focus on Leah, Natalie, and their circle, Part 2 sheds light on the parallel story of Felix and his own London world. He invites comparisons to Leah, Natalie, and their circle. Like practically all of them, he has immigrant roots (his father is Jamaican). As a couple, Grace and Felix are like an inverse of Leah and Michel: Grace’s cheeriness and ambition echo Michel’s, while Felix’s not-immediately-visible dark past echoes the conflict that surges beneath Leah’s seemingly placid surface (115).
The touching interactions between Felix and Lloyd serve to suggest the complexity of family relationships. Lloyd chides Felix for pursuing women who are a “black hole,” drawing on his fractured relationship with Felix’s mother, Jackie (126). Yet Lloyd is also a key to the layers of time captured on London’s streets. The book of photos of the Garvey House that Felix brings to Lloyd shows pictures they reminisce over, including of Lloyd himself. This act literalizes the fact Felix and his family have a meaningful story, even if they might otherwise just seem like de-individualized parts of the London landscape. Felix’s interaction with Lloyd’s old friend and neighbor, Barnes, echoes this idea. He acknowledges both that families are complicated and that “I believe in the people, you see, Felix, I believe in them. Not that it’s done me any good, but I do. I really do” (133). Felix’s story is all the more authentic because of its conflict, including his own dysfunctional relationship with his distant mother and the drug addiction he has chosen to leave behind.
Perhaps influenced by Grace’s optimism, Felix’s story involves attempts to get ahead, much like Michel’s. His savvy dealings with Tom over the sale of the MG he wants to buy for Grace are one example, and his multiple jobs and growing ambitions to get involved in the film industry are others. Tom serves as a foil to Felix’s ambition. In keeping with the novel’s exploration of the link between geography and human behavior, it is no surprise that a conversation about who Felix and Tom really are takes place as they walk through the streets of London, on the way to inspect the MG. Though Tom outwardly seems a picture of success—with a stable job, home, and girlfriend—he harbors feelings of inadequacy and “twenty-first century intellectual ennui” and senses that he is an “EPIC FAIL” in his parents’ eyes (153, 152). With his crippling ennui despite an ostensibly controlled exterior, Tom recalls the character of Leah. This similarity connects “Guest” to the other parts of NW.
In terms of narrative structure, “Guest” presents an unusual situation. It is already known that Felix is dead, based on what is mentioned in “Visitation.” With this spoiler willingly given, “Guest” takes the opportunity to tell Felix’s backstory. Rather than remaining a faceless victim, he is shown to have a full-fledged past and set of personal conflicts and ambitions, just like other characters. By essentially interrupting the main plot of NW to present this additional story, the novel resists becoming a story about a murder. Instead, it becomes a novel about the conflicts of representative Londoners, including one who has been murdered.
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By Zadie Smith
