6/7/2023 0 Comments Zadie smith intimationsThe “predatory way” she ogles them reminds her of Lolita. She finds them vulgar: their simple shape, their gauche colors, like something a kid would draw in Magic Marker. Smith is struck by some tulips blooming in the garden. The book begins at the Jefferson Market Garden, a space in Greenwich Village that is exactly the shape of Georgia State but in miniature. This is the ruling aesthetic of Zadie Smith’s small book of essays, all written in the spring and zipped into publication just as COVID hits an all-time high in the U.S. Time speeds up and slows down, but it is divided into discrete stages, so our experience of it is both psychedelic and delineated. Maybe there is the Day That Someone You Know Got Sick. Another is the Day That a Majority of People Started Wearing Masks. One landmark is the Day You Started Using Your Shirtsleeve to Cover Your Thumb Before Pressing an ATM Button. Time has been doing wild things over the past few months, but in some ways it’s easier to mark the passage of it since the pandemic began.
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