Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
No doubt more impactful than reading it in the year of our lord 2022. Most of the meditations here are sort of perfunctory now, or self evident. And to some degree there is a factor of me not being as interested in the stray thoughts of the author; see: the Anthropocene Review, where I just don’t care to hear every passing thought compiled as a book. Now, this is better by far than that, as it’s rooted in social Justice and identity. But it still falls into the “this is fine” area of my mind. And I am certainly I will remember little to none of this in a few days time.
Favourites:
Peonies
The American Exception
Something to Do
Peonies
The American Exception
Something to Do
this is beautiful.
here are some of my favorite quotes because i have no other words:
“containment is terrible anyway, but how much more frustrating it must be if somewhere in the memory—even if it is only the epigenetic memory—wide-open spaces remain, now utterly out of reach.”
“and having thus placed them in a category similar to the one in which we place animals, he experienced the same fear and contempt we have for animals. animals being both subject to man and a threat to him simultaneously.”
“late in the day, during this strange and overwhelming season of death that collides, outside my window, with the emergence of dandelions, that spring sometimes rises in me, too, and the moon may occasionally tug at my moods, and if i hear a strange baby cry some part of me still leaps to attention—to submission. and once in a while a vulgar strain of spring flower will circumvent a long-trained and self- consciously strict downtown aesthetic. just before an unprecedented april arrives and makes a nonsense of every line.”
“how to dance. how to make yourself up from scraps—from whatever is available. how to be continually surprised by small things, like the spring of a jack-in-the-box, your most treasured toy. here he comes! here he comes! and therefore: how never to be cynical.”
“memory and memorialization as an act of love, completed on behalf of all the other people less organized, less able to remember, and therefore grateful for the prompt. the value of being that person who remembers the childhoods of others better than they themselves recall them, and takes it upon themselves to preserve said childhoods for safekeeping. sending an old friend’s childhood back to them at the very moment they are most in need of it.”
“writing is all resistance”
here are some of my favorite quotes because i have no other words:
“containment is terrible anyway, but how much more frustrating it must be if somewhere in the memory—even if it is only the epigenetic memory—wide-open spaces remain, now utterly out of reach.”
“and having thus placed them in a category similar to the one in which we place animals, he experienced the same fear and contempt we have for animals. animals being both subject to man and a threat to him simultaneously.”
“late in the day, during this strange and overwhelming season of death that collides, outside my window, with the emergence of dandelions, that spring sometimes rises in me, too, and the moon may occasionally tug at my moods, and if i hear a strange baby cry some part of me still leaps to attention—to submission. and once in a while a vulgar strain of spring flower will circumvent a long-trained and self- consciously strict downtown aesthetic. just before an unprecedented april arrives and makes a nonsense of every line.”
“how to dance. how to make yourself up from scraps—from whatever is available. how to be continually surprised by small things, like the spring of a jack-in-the-box, your most treasured toy. here he comes! here he comes! and therefore: how never to be cynical.”
“memory and memorialization as an act of love, completed on behalf of all the other people less organized, less able to remember, and therefore grateful for the prompt. the value of being that person who remembers the childhoods of others better than they themselves recall them, and takes it upon themselves to preserve said childhoods for safekeeping. sending an old friend’s childhood back to them at the very moment they are most in need of it.”
“writing is all resistance”
reading the news is more interesting. save you're time. save you're money (thank god I got this for free)
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
inspiring
reflective
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
After reading this I browsed all the reviews of it on Goodreads, both positive and negative. Some of the responses are very eloquent. I found it quite difficult to summarise these essays but some people have done an excellent job, having felt no doubt that the particular experiences Zadie was sharing resonated with them quite profoundly.
Although the essays strike a very personal note, with Zadie doing some serious soul-searching and paying tribute to friends, neighbours and close family members, who she mentions by name, this is nevertheless a very literary concoction. It identifies itself from the beginning as philosophy, with a quotation from Marcus Aurelius, who is mentioned again in the Foreword. There is even a long quotation from Martin Heidegger in the first essay to help express the gulf she feels between the control she exercises as a writer and the helplessness she feels in her life.
Literary allusions abound, which is not surprising from a writer and teacher who even her masseur greets with ‘Hey, lady, always reading. Never relax. Always reading.’ Some of the thoughts are presented in a roundabout, elliptical way in sentences that are so carefully wrought that you could easily miss their meaning. There are ornate rhetorical devices, multiple references to herself and her husband as writers, a long homage to John Berger and a very brief tribute to Virginia Woolf, amongst others.
Although, like Zadie Smith, I studied literature in the UK, my reading has not followed the same trajectory as hers and some of these allusions went over my head. Maybe some of the allusions to life in the UK during lockdown will equally go over the heads of people who weren’t subjected to the same images on TV, such as the report of the trip made by Dominic Cummings and his wife to Barnard Castle, a well known beauty spot a long way from their homes. There are nuances to this story which made it, as she says, ‘infuriating but relatively comic’ to most of the British public.
I feel sorry for the reviewer who said she wants the hour back from the time she spent reading this but I think she did very well to read this in an hour. It took me a lot longer. I enjoyed it, though, and consider it time well spent.
Although the essays strike a very personal note, with Zadie doing some serious soul-searching and paying tribute to friends, neighbours and close family members, who she mentions by name, this is nevertheless a very literary concoction. It identifies itself from the beginning as philosophy, with a quotation from Marcus Aurelius, who is mentioned again in the Foreword. There is even a long quotation from Martin Heidegger in the first essay to help express the gulf she feels between the control she exercises as a writer and the helplessness she feels in her life.
Literary allusions abound, which is not surprising from a writer and teacher who even her masseur greets with ‘Hey, lady, always reading. Never relax. Always reading.’ Some of the thoughts are presented in a roundabout, elliptical way in sentences that are so carefully wrought that you could easily miss their meaning. There are ornate rhetorical devices, multiple references to herself and her husband as writers, a long homage to John Berger and a very brief tribute to Virginia Woolf, amongst others.
Although, like Zadie Smith, I studied literature in the UK, my reading has not followed the same trajectory as hers and some of these allusions went over my head. Maybe some of the allusions to life in the UK during lockdown will equally go over the heads of people who weren’t subjected to the same images on TV, such as the report of the trip made by Dominic Cummings and his wife to Barnard Castle, a well known beauty spot a long way from their homes. There are nuances to this story which made it, as she says, ‘infuriating but relatively comic’ to most of the British public.
I feel sorry for the reviewer who said she wants the hour back from the time she spent reading this but I think she did very well to read this in an hour. It took me a lot longer. I enjoyed it, though, and consider it time well spent.
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced