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A review by kabornman
Intimations by Zadie Smith
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
I guess I expected more, but I do have the luxury of 4 years of space from the events of 2020. It feels like she missed the mark on some things, didn’t fully flesh out others, and made too obvious of comparisons. But again, I tried to keep in mind that she was writing in the middle of those “unprecedented times” - although perhaps the writing would have been better served to wait on publication.
I did read “the rich people have gone away” by Regina Porter right before this, so it was interesting to see Zadie Smith, as a person, kind of straddling the line Porter had set up.
I was pretty disenchanted right away with “Suffering Like Mel Gibson.” Smith compared the suffering of people isolating in different situations, but didn’t once talk about the people actually sick and dying from COVID - like the whole point of everything that was happening.
I have more thoughts, but overall I don’t plan to read again and the scenarios in which I would recommend this to someone else would be limited
I did read “the rich people have gone away” by Regina Porter right before this, so it was interesting to see Zadie Smith, as a person, kind of straddling the line Porter had set up.
I was pretty disenchanted right away with “Suffering Like Mel Gibson.” Smith compared the suffering of people isolating in different situations, but didn’t once talk about the people actually sick and dying from COVID - like the whole point of everything that was happening.
I have more thoughts, but overall I don’t plan to read again and the scenarios in which I would recommend this to someone else would be limited