Just this morning, I noticed a news item on the UMass homepage saying that Zadie Smith would deliver the 2013 Troy Lecture this afternoon, starting at 4:30 in the Student Union Ballroom.  I’d like to hear her speak, I said to myself, so I planned to leave work a bit early to get there before they closed the doors.

The Ballroom is big, but almost every seat was taken when I arrived, which was a relief, because I wouldn’t want to believe that UMass students are such philistines that they don’t appreciate what a special opportunity this is.  Of course, a number of outstanding scholars and writers have delivered previous Troy Lectures (it’s an annual event), but fame is fickle, right.  Of course, I read White Teeth, probably back when I used to read Granta, and I remember putting the book down and thinking to myself, “Wow.  How the hell did she do this?”  She was only 22 at the time she wrote the novel, her first.

Now 38, a wife and mother, British author Zadie Smith has written four novels and numerous essays; she is currently a professor of creative writing at New York University and divides her time between New York and London.  Her topic for this Troy Lecture was “Why Write?”

Ms Smith answered this question for herself by examining the answers given by other writers, among them Alexander Pope, Vladimir Nabokov, and George Orwell.  A writer writes because he or she can’t help it; it’s a compulsion.  Writing is an attempt to find one’s identity; a writer writes because he or she is not sure of who he or she is.  Writers can be egotistical, but so is everyone else.  The stronger motive might be aesthetic enthusiasm, the love of words crafted into beautiful sentences.

The writer, said Smith, should be a member of a “reality-based community.”  People need an intimate acquaintance with the truth, and it’s the writer’s job to depict what is, as well as what it could be.  A writer should aspire to see things as they are, which is more difficult than it sounds.

A writer has to recognize the radical ambiguity at the heart of human existence, said Smith, and then use language for self-determination and self-expression.

At the end of her talk, Ms. Smith answered questions from the audience; she then signed books.  I wanted to buy one, but I’m very strict about “no more stuff enters my house.” I will look for NW in the library and next year you’ll probably see it on my list of books read.