In the spirit of the book, I feel free to say that these essays touched me not one bit although that is not to say that I wasn’t interested in parts.

What Smith is able to do is make connections between rappers, discuss art, reflect on how she now thinks differently to her eighteen year old self and write about it gracefully, with diversions off but always swinging round to the starting point. But there were also essays that left me wondering what I was reading about, wondering how many people think like that – the Schopenhauer essay left me cold and thinking that Smith lived in some rarified world where poeple discuss this sort of philosophy around the dinner tables in London, stereotyping her and not setting her free at all.

I was able to appreciate her gratitude for the times in which she was born and raised. Brent Council paying her rent when she attended university and providing the possiblities of attending cultural events and institutions, often for free. These are the things that free minds and are now not necessarily available to all children regardless of parental income. And so, I couldn’t help but think that the roots of what set her free have all but rotted away through years of austerity and ignorance (I’m thinking of recent culture ministers here).

In the foreword, Smith comments (brags?) that she teaches on a Master of Fine Arts course but doesn’t have one herself and nor does she have a PhD and I think she is saying that this allows her to be more free-thinking. But she does have a degree from Cambridge and if this is the educational background that makes us free then many of us will not achieve it. She feels things, is intimate with them. We all do but we don’t necessarily attach words to them that will then be published and free in the world for a reader to respond to.

I recently enjoyed The Fraud but found these essays to be highbrow in their response to culture and therefore sometimes inaccessible. Margo Jefferson wins hands down in the cultural critiquing world for me.