1. Zadie Smith states her opinion on the difference between her hometown and college town in an interesting way. "Willesden was a big, colorful, working-class sea; Cambridge was a smaller, posher pond, colorful, and almost univocal; the literary world is a puddle" (180). Why does Smith use such simple adjectives to describe Willesden (big and colorful) juxtaposed to Cambridge (posh and univocal) since she ostensible prefers the language of her hometown?
2. "In Dream City everything is doubled, everything is various. You have no choice but to cross borders and speak in tongues" (184). Although Smith is saying that we should have multiple voices, what about those who only have one voice? If the people from Dream City have no choice but to speak in tongues but they cannot talk in another voice aside from their own, what will happen?
3. Smith exclaims, "The idea that one should speak one's cultural allegiance first and the truth second (and this is a sign of authenticity) is precisely such a deformation" (186). However, how does this statement help her argument to express the immense importance of one speaking in his or her own tongue? Was explaining some of Smith's additional frustrations the purpose of her including this statement?
4. In Speaking in Tongues, what exactly does Smith mean when she claims that the term "keep it real" reminds her of a prison cell where one cannot live comfortably because it is too narrow (188)?
5. Why does Smith believe that "someone should make a proper study of it [the voice of the philosophic historian]" (192). The paragraph mentions what she hoped to see in politics, but does voice need to shape one's speech? A historian and politician can both speak of the same matter, using different voices, in a coherent way for a broad audience. Right?
6. What is the real basis behind why Smith wrote this essay? Was she trying to argue about her life (the two tongues), Obama, or both of these arguments?
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