뉴욕타임즈 2023년 올해의 책 <The Fraud by Zadie Smith> 책수다

“ Mrs Touchet was reminded of the girl who spun gold for the king in the fairy tale. Rumpelstiltskin! And just like that, the little demon man was quite exploded. Simply by calling the Devil by his right name you vanquished him. Only in fairy tales. ”

“ Eliza felt something flutter inside her - anticipation. For wherever the Claimant went, there went his friend Mr Bogle, and she had her papers and her pen and her inkpot and the timing was impeccable. On the train, she could barely control her-self, fingers thrumming on the window. She had known the giddiness of love, and the febrile sensations of hate and fear, but this feeling was different. It was an excitement of the blood that was yet under the total control of her mind. Was this what the admirable Mrs Lewes felt as she worked? What William and Charles had known, all those years? ”

“ The strange thing about good people, Eliza had noticed, was the manner in which they saw that same quality everywhere and in everyone, when in truth it is vanishing rare. ”

“ What possesses people? Unhappiness, always. Happiness is otherwise occupied. It has an object on which to focus. It has daisies, it has snowdrifts. Unhappiness opens up the void, which then requires filling. ”

“ What on earth does the woman need with so many? No adventure, no drama, no murder, nothing to excite the blood or chill it! I must say I can’t understand the glowing notices. As if she were a new Mary Shelley! But there isn’t an ounce of Shelley’s imagination. Just a lot of people going about their lives in a village – dull lives at that. Even more boring a topic than a trial. Are we meant to be amazed it’s a woman? An obvious publicity trick by Blackwood’s, and look at how the public falls for it! Is this all that these modern ladies’ novels are to be about? People?’ ”

“ But the new Mrs Ainsworth had a way of making all reading, indeed all private contemplation or mental escape, entirely impossible. She kept a person usefully tethered to the present, like the stays on a hot air balloon. ”