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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
reflective
fast-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
This book challenged me in all sorts of ways like confronting my experience with the pandemic through my positionality. I loved this collection. It was recommended and lent to me by a friend.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
'Intimations' is a book of six essays by author Zadie Smith. She describes it as a way to organise her thoughts and feelings of the events of 2020 so far. It is most unlike me to read an "up-to-date" book, but I knew I wanted to absorb these reflections on Coronavirus, lockdown, and the racism rearing its ugly head this year...again. I don't think I've read another book by Zadie Smith but I trusted her insight as she is a well-known author.
The essays do not have a concrete theme. Like I say, Smith touches on the thoughts and feelings she experienced as a result of Coronavirus and the enforced lockdown, including observations of how others reacted to it. She devotes a whole essay (albeit each is short) to the contempt we must feel in order to be subconsciously (or consciously) racist. She writes on the concept of creating art or writing when in the midst of a global pandemic; either you have kids and all creative time is gone, or you have no kids and the vast expanse of available time to create starts to seem yawning and shapeless. She writes of comparative suffering, reflecting on the fact that we all suffer, whether our suffering is more or less "valid" than another's suffering.
A very interesting collection that I would happily read again. Thank you, Zadie Smith, for sharing your words in a time when forming cohesive thoughts about what we're living through is not easy.
The essays do not have a concrete theme. Like I say, Smith touches on the thoughts and feelings she experienced as a result of Coronavirus and the enforced lockdown, including observations of how others reacted to it. She devotes a whole essay (albeit each is short) to the contempt we must feel in order to be subconsciously (or consciously) racist. She writes on the concept of creating art or writing when in the midst of a global pandemic; either you have kids and all creative time is gone, or you have no kids and the vast expanse of available time to create starts to seem yawning and shapeless. She writes of comparative suffering, reflecting on the fact that we all suffer, whether our suffering is more or less "valid" than another's suffering.
A very interesting collection that I would happily read again. Thank you, Zadie Smith, for sharing your words in a time when forming cohesive thoughts about what we're living through is not easy.
I’ve previously read “The Pandemic is a Portal” by Arundhati Roy and I thought it was powerful and thought-provoking. "Contempt as a Virus" in this collection was equally powerful and the writing was moving. I wish all the other essays were as compelling but I must say they were all well written.
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced