ARTS&BOOKSF SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2018 :: LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

Myung J. Chun Los Angeles Times THE SPRUTH MAGERS gallery in L.A. altered its layout and operating hours to optimize light and space for this installation by 89-year-old artist Robert Irwin. ART, ALLURE EVERYWHERE Artist Robert Irwin wants to help people notice that ‘beauty is all around you’

BY DEBORAH VANKIN >>> Inside a gleaming San Diego tract home, 89-year-old artist Robert Irwin reclines in his favorite leather lounge chair, snug in his favorite worn baseball cap, sipping a fizzy Coke over ice. ¶ Irwin has lived here about 15 years “because my wife wanted kids on the block for our daughter,” he says of his now-23-year-old. Still, the cozy setting seems incongruous. With dark sunglasses donned and legs outstretched, Irwin appears less the renowned contemporary artist — the one Los Angeles County Museum of Art Director Michael Govan calls one of the most innovative artists of the ’60s and ’70s — and more a relaxed suburban- ite, tanned and ruggedly handsome. ¶ But Irwin’s minimalist, site-specific installations toy with the viewer’s sense of perception, and if you look more closely here, his home reveals Irwin-esque touches everywhere — beauty in the benign. Sunlight seeps in through glass panes, apropos for a California Light and Space artist; nearly every window has views of his wife’s garden, nodding to Irwin’s love of artful plantings, like his Central Garden at the Getty Center; the elongated entrance hallway fea- [See Irwin, F6]

BOOK REVIEW Masses yearning to breathe free Dancing

Stories of immigration are from topic pooled for an Actors’ Gang play-construction project, to topic ‘The New Colossus.’ By Walton Muyumba By Tim Greiving Upon opening “Feel Free,” A play in which the cast acts Zadie Smith’s new essay collec- out the real immigration stories of tion, you’ll be surprised to learn family and friends would seem to that she doubts her literary talent, have “Trump” written all over it, her critical acumen. I support that but “The New Colossus” — the lat- many literary writers are skeptical est from the Actors’ Gang, di- or anxious about their chosen pro- rected by founding artistic direc- fession. I know I am: Though some tor Tim Robbins — was actually invisible force compels us to cre- workshopped during the Obama ate, we writers sometimes feel our- years in reaction to the Syrian ref- selves fraudulent intellectually, ugee crisis. not knowing enough about any- The current president, whose thing to represent human experi- election campaign was driven by ence or critique the arts success- characterizations of Mexican im- fully. migrants as criminals and rapists, Smith ought not be one of just threw fossil fuel on the fire. those writers though. Since 2000, “The New Colossus” has 12 ac- Smith — London born and bred, tors, young and old, playing char- now a New Yorker — has pub- acters from different countries lished six substantial, exceptional and eras, all woven into a single works of fiction (including the 2012 narrative about escaping an op- novel “NW,” a tour de force for- pressive homeland, drawn to the Kent Nishimura Los Angeles Times mally and stylistically) and an ex- beacon above Ellis Island. THE STORIES of people around the world who seek America and its way of life are stirred into cellent work of nonfiction, “There’s [See ‘Colossus,’ F4] the melting pot of “The New Colossus,” an Actors’ Gang presentation directed by Tim Robbins. “Changing My [See Smith, F10] F10 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2018 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

BOOK REVIEW

BESTSELLERS LOS ANGELES TIMES FEB 11, 2018

weeks Fiction on list 1. Little Fires Everywhere by 20 Celeste Ng (Penguin Press: $27) A new family and an adoption upend a quiet Cleveland suburb. 2. The Immortalists by Chloe 3 Benjamin (Putnam: $26) Four siblings grapple with life after learning the dates of their demise from a psychic. 3. The Woman in the Window by 4 A.J. Finn (Morrow: $26.99) A twisted tale with Hitchcockian undertones features a Manhattan recluse who spends her days spying on neighbors. 4. City of Endless Night by Douglas 1 Preston & Lincoln Child (Grand Central: $28) A New York City detective and FBI agent track down a killer who decapitates victims. 5. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden 2 by Denis Johnson (Random House: $27) A posthumous short-story collection on mortality and transcendence from the late writer. 6. Origin by Dan Brown (Doubleday: 17 $29.95) A billionaire futurist and former student of professor of symbology Robert Langdon sends him on another quest to uncover the questions of human existence. 7. Munich by Robert Harris (Knopf: 2 $27.95) A spy novel set during British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s last-ditch negotiations with Hitler in 1938. 8. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor 73 Towles (Viking: $27) In 1922, a Russian count is sentenced to house arrest in a grand hotel for the rest of his life. 9. The Wanted by Robert Crais 4 (Putnam: $28) A single mother hires P.I. Elvis Cole to investigate her teenage son who is on the run after a deadly crime spree. 10. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer 17 Egan (Scribner: $27) The first female diver at the Brooklyn Naval Yard during World War II seeks to uncover the reason for her father’s disappearance.

Nonfiction

Eamonn McCabe Getty Images 1. Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff 4 (Holt: $30) A journalists’ inside ENGLISH AUTHOR Zadie Smith is apprehensive about her intellectual authority yet demonstrates command in her essays. account of the dysfunctional first year of the Trump White House. 2. Barking to the Choir by Gregory 12 Boyle (S&S: $26) The Jesuit priest shares what working with gang members in Los Angeles A ‘Free’ stream of ideas has taught him about faith, compassion. 3. Power Your Tribe by Christine 1 Comaford (McGraw-Hill: $27) A [Smith, from F1] cial naivety of an English her parents, family life “is always set of neuroscience-based tools Mind: Occasional Essays” (2009). sentence intended to sound an event of some violence.” How to empower your workplace Feel Free: Essays team. Across her eighth book’s five as if it has been translated Zadie Smith then does the writer balance de- parts — “In the World,” “In the Au- from the French) — it’s sired freedoms, minimize family as 4. Leonardo da Vinci by Walter 15 Penguin Press: 464 pp, $28 dience,” “In the Gallery,” “On the almost enough to make you an event of violence, and access Isaacson (Simon & Schuster: Bookshelf,” “Feel Free” — Smith feel patriotic. joy? Smith has built a career as a $35) The award-winning biographer, known for profiling has distributed a slew of essays, re- These sentences aren’t from our various selves, Smith novelist dancing among these geniuses, turns his attention to views (including a folio of Harper’s merely decorative. They’re writes, is an everyday sensation, poles, dancing between (as the title da Vinci. columns) and lectures written important because they “yet it proves a tricky sort of prob- of one her essay names it) opti- from 2009-17. enable the comedy: when lem for those people who hope to mism and despair. 5. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a 43 F*ck by Mark Manson Over 435 pages, she covers you create this many com- make art. For though we know and Smith’s most recent novel, (HarperOne: $24.99) How Brexit and the waning British partments in each line, you recognize discontinuity in our own “Swing Time” (2016) is an attempt stopping to try to be positive all state; climate change; David have space for at least two lives, when it comes to art we are to wrestle with her doubts about the time will make us become Fincher, Facebook and internet jokes and one sly dig. deeply committed to the idea of fiction’s capabilities. To great ef- better, happier people. 2.0; Billie Holiday; Joni Mitchell; continuity. I find myself to be radi- fect, Smith achieves a formally uni- 6. The Book of Joy by Archbishop 56 Key & Peele; Schopenhauer, Char- Effectively a pastiche of St. cally discontinuous with myself — fied literary novel while simulta- Desmond Tutu and The Dalai lie Kaufman and stop-motion ani- Aubyn’s style, Smith’s close read- but how does one re-create this neously illustrating a unnamed Lama (Avery: $26) The Nobel mation; black beauty, black sor- ing illustrates and explicates si- principle in fiction?” This profes- narrator recognizing her discon- Prize-winning spiritual leaders share their wisdom. row, oil painting and a horror movie multaneously. She’s also perform- sional literary problem is en- tinuous selves. It’s a novel about about white liberals; the vagaries ing what I’ll call her “affective” meshed with Smith’s apprehen- dance that ends with a major char- 7. Devotion by Patti Smith (Yale 66 of lower-middle-class British life in critical practice. Smith seems to sion about her intellectual author- acter, Tracy, herself a lapsed pro- University Press: $18) The the 1980s and ’90s; literary fiction define that mode while appraising ity. fessional dancer, joyously whirling rocker-writer’s exploration of the nature of creative invention. and the discontinuous self; and the intellectual prowess on display In “Some Notes,” when Smith dervish-like with her children. Justin Bieber, Jay-Z and joy. in Geoff Dyer’s “Otherwise Known worries that she cannot develop a While Smith may not be able to as- 8. Astrophysics for People in a 38 Smith’s continuous stream of as the Human Condition: Selected connoisseur’s command of, say, suage her doubts about her au- Hurry by Neil Degrasse Tyson (Norton: $18.95) An productivity, her topical range, the Essays and Reviews.” When she Mitchell’s or David Byrne’s music, thority, she can “dance” with and easy-to-understand introduction accolades laureling her books, her writes that each of Dyer’s essays “is or some other subject, her anxiety around them. In fact, dancing with to the universe and the forces prodigious artistic abilities should an attempt to respond in kind, to stems from a belief that she doesn’t doubt seems central to her “affec- that govern it. be evidence enough to assuage her be equal to the artwork, in some have the time it takes to generate tive” critical process. 9. Women & Power by Mary Beard 4 fears about credibility. And yet, as way to meld with it, like a love ob- command. Like many of us just en- There’s so much at play in “Feel (Liveright: $15.95) A manifesto Smith explains in the new collec- ject,” Smith could be describing tering the long middle section of Free” that a reader might feel anx- tracing the origins of misogyny to tion’s foreword, her anxiety arises her own approach. Pastiche melds our lives, Smith’s time is taken up ious about how to gain purchase on its ancient roots. from believing she has “no real the critic to the love object and cre- by work (writing and teaching writ- all of Smith’s ideas. These essays 10. No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le 1 qualifications” to write as she does. ates intimate, meaning-driven ing), parenting two young children, present her most forceful writing Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: “Not a philosopher or sociolo- analysis. and partnering an equally ambi- yet about film, visual art and black- $22) Selected essays from the gist, not a real professor of litera- When writing about singers and tious and prolific writer, her hus- ness, as well as demonstrating her science fiction author on aging, ture or film, not a political scientist, rappers, Smith’s pieces seem band, Nick Laird. Life, in other mastery of the form. However, as literature and her cat. professional music critic or trained shaped by the sonic motions of mu- words, strips time away from tak- she points out in “The Tattered journalist,” Smith thinks that her sical voices. In “Some Notes on At- ing in or occludes altogether the Ruins of the Map,” when con- essays rest shakily on evidence tunement,” Smith responds pas- newness and sublimity that strong fronted with the the constellated that is “almost always intimate. I tiche as in kind to Joni Mitchell artwork can provide. materials, objects, digital images PAPERBACKS feel this — do you? I’m struck by and her 1971 album, “Blue.” Like a One way to read “ ‘Crazy They and ideas that make up Sarah Fiction this thought — are you?” She wor- literary approximation of Mitch- Call Me’: On Looking at Jerry Sze’s “Centrifuge,” “it is hard to ries that her writing has “not a leg ell’s wandering notes, Smith wan- Dantzic’s Photos of Billie Holiday” know which element to separate 1.The Perfect Nanny by Leeila Slimani ($16) to stand on” because it’s born from ders through Wordsworth, Kier- is as an attempt to solve this riddle. from the rest. Yet if you are to write “affective experience” and not ar- kegaard, Abraham and Isaac, con- Fashioning her introduction to the about something you must 2.Call Me By Your Name by Andre gument. “All [the essays] have is noisseurship, novel reading (and photos in “Jerry Dantzic: Billie choose.” Aciman ($17) their freedom. And the reader is writing) and the Talking Heads to Holiday at Sugar Hill” as a fictional I’ve chosen the bits of this 3.The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur likewise unusually free, because I get to Mitchell. memoir in Holiday’s voice, Smith tremendous, enthralling book that ($16.99) have absolutely nothing over her, Considering Mitchell’s own ar- makes the singer the beloved and might explain how Smith, in spite 4.Ready Player One by Ernest Cline no authority.” tistic and personal transforma- tries equaling the wonder of her of her doubts about it, demon- ($14) Smith, of course, has authority: tions, Smith points out that “these persona in Dantzic’s images. strates authority. My hunch about 5.Pachinko by Min Jin Lee ($15.99) It often arises from her sentence- days, Mitchell thinks of herself Smith merges her style partly with this book is this: While paying at- level precision, the refined elucida- more as a painter than a singer. She an imagined Holiday and partly tention to Smith’s doubts might Nonfiction tion of her insights, the exuberance is so allergic to the expectations of with the sound of the singer’s get you into these essays, getting 1.You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero ($16) and humor that sustains readers’ her audience that she would rather memoir, “Lady Sings the Blues” out may require some improvised attention. It’s there when she be a perfectly nice painter than a (isn’t Holiday’s collaboration with dance moves. 2.How to Fight by Thich Nhat Hanh parses Hanif Kureishi’s “The Bud- singer touched by the sublime.” her amanuensis, William Duffy, a That means, I think, rejecting ($9.95) dha of Suburbia” and J.G. Ballard’s Mitchell’s life demonstrates the form of melding?). linear movement through the 3.The 5 Love Languages by Gary “Crash”; it’s there in the hyper-in- “inconsistency of identity, of per- The voice Smith hears emanat- work. This may not seem a proper Chapman ($14.99) telligent micro reviews from Harp- sonality.” ing from the pictures glides across way to address this work, but, as 4.South and West by Joan Didion ($15) er’s. Taking up Edward St. Aubyn’s Attuning to Mitchell, Smith re- various points of view to tell her Smith writes in “Dance Lessons for novel, “At Last” (2012), for example, alizes that while she herself is both story. Born Eleanora Fagan and Writers,” “between propriety and 5.Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Smith describes how the author “the girl who hated Joni and the known as Billie Holiday, the witty joy choose joy.” In any case, she’s Holt ($16.99) draws from “the wit of Wilde, the woman who loves her,” they’re di- figure who emerges is angular and suggesting that we follow her lead. Rankings are based on chain lightness of Wodehouse and the vorced from each other. Recogniz- shifting: “though many aren’t hip Early in “Feel Free” Smith de- results and a weekly poll of waspishness of Waugh” as he fash- ing her own discontinuities allows to this yet — not only is there no scribes her writing as the intersec- 125 Southland bookstores. ions his meticulous personal style: Smith to notice “the transforma- more Eleanora, there isn’t any Bil- tion of language, the world, the self: For an extended list: tion of [her] listening,” shifting lie either. There is only Lady Day.” “The first is never wholly mine; the www.latimes.com/books Oh, the semicolons, the away from hating Mitchell to a It’s ventriloquism as loving, musi- second I can only ever know in a discipline! Those commas space where “Blue” triggers “un- cal homage. partial sense; the third is a mallea- so perfectly placed, so controllable tears. An emotional Like singers, writers create sec- ble and improvised response to the rhythmic, creating sen- overcoming, disconcertingly dis- ondary or tertiary selves, using previous two.” It’s this improvised latimes.com tences loaded and blessed, tant from happiness, more like joy “them to slip from every bind and Smith whom we’re dancing with /books almost o’erbrimmed, and — if joy is the recognition of an al- definition, but … can also prove cal- throughout these pages. yet sturdy, never in danger most intolerable beauty. It’s not a lous with the lives of others and in Craving of collapse. It’s like finger- very civilized emotion.” In trans- their dash for freedom knock their Muyumba, a professor at Indiana ing a beautiful swatch of formation, in the gap between loved ones out of the way.” As University-Bloomington, is the more? brocade. This refusal to separated selves, Smith finds free- Smith argues late in “The Bath- author of “The Shadow and the Join us online at Jacket Copy for submit to the puritan brev- dom, the portal to joy. room,” a funny, gorgeous, mournful Act: Black Intellectual Practice, the latest book news, live video ity of the American sen- But there is dis–ease in this essay about what their arrival in Jazz Improvisation, and chats, quizzes, author interviews, tences (or, worse, the artifi- transition too. Our separation the British lower middle class cost Philosophical Pragmatism.” photo galleries and reviews.