Intimations: Six Essays | 
pickThe writing!!!!
Perhaps unsurprising that a successful novelist would make beautifully crafted non-fiction essays as well. I'll admit the content being discussed still almost feels 'too soon' for me: writing during and about the experience of the pandemic, lockdown.
A quick, relevant, relatable read, I hope you pick it up. I will certainly be investigating Zadie Smith's fiction on the power of this work alone.
1/?
Robotswithpersonality ∆ A Hovering Young Man, section of 'Screengrabs', hits particularly hard. While I cannot identify with the moments Smith finds parts of herself reflected in this jolly acquaintance, the ruminations on just how precarious it is to be a student, or an untenured employee of a university, a young person in general, from an economic standpoint, always with the least power in relation to institutions in your life, how desperately you lean on style to proclaim that you won't let how much this period of your life vanquish you, enliven though feel each moment it has the potential to grind you down: so, incredibly, uncomfortably familiar to my 20s. 2/? 1y
Robotswithpersonality ∆ Musings on how 'hate crime' as a concept is treated in popular media in the A Provocation in the Park section of 'Screengrabs' speaks to my own unsettled mind when contemplating the lines and categorizations currently accepted in labelling various violence done to people by people, and where attention is directed along such lines. 3/? 1y
Robotswithpersonality ∆ I'm sincerely hoping the ten pages that form the Postscript: Contempt as a Virus section of 'Screengrabs' makes/has made its way into school curricula. Gut wrenchingly concise in outlining the scope of and dangers inherent in systemic racism, the reality of many Black people's lived experience, the stagnant level of engagement evident in the majority of white people in America, the economic class divide/privilege that must be factored into truly addressing the root causes of the problem. 4/4 1y
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