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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
This is a collection of essays in the context of the pandemic and the lockdown situation all around the world. I wanted to see what thoughts and experiences other people are having in this context and feel connected to them. However, this left me a bit cold. Some stories are ok (particularly the first ones; the best ones, in my opinion, Suffering like Mel Gibson, Something to Do, and Peonies), but overall I found the compilation to be quite uneven.
reflective
medium-paced
My professor is one of Zadie Smith’s neighbors and he talked about this book during class, she writes about places familiar to me, and all of this probably led to a bias in her favor. Nevertheless I found her observations and her descriptions compelling.
The book is less than 100 pages and I finished it in about an hour.
The book is less than 100 pages and I finished it in about an hour.
Quotes:
Peonies
Writing is routinely described as creative. This has never struck me as the correct word. Planting tulips is creative: to plant a bulb, I imagine, I've never done it, is to participate in some small way in a cyclic miracle of creation. Writing is control... Writers go further. They take this largely shapeless bewilderment and pour it into a mold of their own devising. Writing is all resistance, which can be a handsome and sometimes useful activity on the page.
Something To Do
Without [Love] present in some form of our lives, there really is only time. And there will always be too much of it... all of that time without Love will feel empty and endless. I write because, well, the best I can say is that it's a phycological quirk of mine... but it can't ever meaningfully fulfill the time. There is no great difference between novels and banana bread - they are both just something to do. They are no substitute for love.
Suffering like Mel Gibson
We were in a long and involved cultural conversation about privilege. We were teaching ourselves how to be aware of the relative nature of various forms of privilege and their dependent signs intersections of class, race, gender, and so on.... [This conversation] cannot now be applied without modification to the category of suffering.
Other notes
Woman with a little dog - NYC community
Provocation in the Park - self-hatred, just generally interesting. Also conversation about politics and school shootings and how "some kids are learning Latin while others are illiterate" I was walking Tues so I didn't bookmark, but this was particularly striking.
Intimations
18. ...Not only to make art but in some sense to live it.
19. Virginia Woolf ...
20. ...love me, sang the Cardigans. Fool me. And we did both. It was all we had to do.
25. Mothering is an art. Housekeeping is an art. Gardening is an art. Baking is an art. Those of us who have no natural talent in these areas, perhaps no interest, do easily dismiss them. Making small talk is an art and never to be dispised just because you, yourself, dread making it. Knowing all your neighbors names is an art. Sending cards over the holidays to everyone you know - this, too, is an art. But above all these, playing.
Twelf night...oscar wilde...and vita sackville west. Yet there were so many voices in the streets that such complex convergences were my earliest knowledge of the world.
Peonies
Writing is routinely described as creative. This has never struck me as the correct word. Planting tulips is creative: to plant a bulb, I imagine, I've never done it, is to participate in some small way in a cyclic miracle of creation. Writing is control... Writers go further. They take this largely shapeless bewilderment and pour it into a mold of their own devising. Writing is all resistance, which can be a handsome and sometimes useful activity on the page.
Something To Do
Without [Love] present in some form of our lives, there really is only time. And there will always be too much of it... all of that time without Love will feel empty and endless. I write because, well, the best I can say is that it's a phycological quirk of mine... but it can't ever meaningfully fulfill the time. There is no great difference between novels and banana bread - they are both just something to do. They are no substitute for love.
Suffering like Mel Gibson
We were in a long and involved cultural conversation about privilege. We were teaching ourselves how to be aware of the relative nature of various forms of privilege and their dependent signs intersections of class, race, gender, and so on.... [This conversation] cannot now be applied without modification to the category of suffering.
Other notes
Woman with a little dog - NYC community
Provocation in the Park - self-hatred, just generally interesting. Also conversation about politics and school shootings and how "some kids are learning Latin while others are illiterate" I was walking Tues so I didn't bookmark, but this was particularly striking.
Intimations
18. ...Not only to make art but in some sense to live it.
19. Virginia Woolf ...
20. ...love me, sang the Cardigans. Fool me. And we did both. It was all we had to do.
25. Mothering is an art. Housekeeping is an art. Gardening is an art. Baking is an art. Those of us who have no natural talent in these areas, perhaps no interest, do easily dismiss them. Making small talk is an art and never to be dispised just because you, yourself, dread making it. Knowing all your neighbors names is an art. Sending cards over the holidays to everyone you know - this, too, is an art. But above all these, playing.
Twelf night...oscar wilde...and vita sackville west. Yet there were so many voices in the streets that such complex convergences were my earliest knowledge of the world.
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
I really liked the last essay, 'Contempt As A Virus,' but found some of the others less captivating. This is my first work from her, though, and I am looking forward to reading her fiction.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
challenging
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
i can’t think of a person who shouldn’t read this. she put into words feelings that we all felt and couldn’t explain. and what a good balance of appealing to everyone and sharing her own personal story, acknowledging both her privileges and obstacles so beautifully. i haven’t read much contemporary lit but reading this made me want to.