![]() The fifth is a collection of observations, sometimes a few pages long, about one person, pre-covid, that she’s observed and thought about in her daily life. The third essay touches upon this new problem of having too much time on one’s hands, but luckily she can write to fill this void, and the fourth essay identifies the various situations where one doesn’t have too much time, but the opposite, like working parents. ![]() ![]() The second essay deals with a phrase Donald Trump utters, which Smith slowly takes apart and refutes – not everyone wants things to go back to normal, because ‘normal’ was unfair, and exploitive for many Americans. The first essay titled “Peonies” is all about a single moment right before the lockdowns where Smith finds herself drawn to a little urban garden of peony flowers in downtown New York City where she lives. ![]() I thought to myself (in a particularly dark moment) is this the beginning of the end of normal literature? Will everything going forward be in reference to, or about, or in comparison to the pandemic? If it was a dire warning of things to come I could think of no better person than to lead us there gracefully, which is why I never shied away from reading Intimations, Six Essays by Zadie Smith. When I opened the package, I thought to myself how weird it was that the first book about Covid and its disruptions was finally being printed, and how surreal it felt to put it on my shelf. ![]() I distinctly remember the day this book arrived on my doorstep. ![]()
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