Zadie Smith (2020), Intimations, Penguin Books, pp. 82
We all need the quiet homecoming of the literary kind,
especially at a time we were forced to confine ourselves and sever all physical
ties to people, places, and things in the year of the pandemic. It was not one
long year we could foresee, neatly planned with a release date set. Rather, the
news of our own predicament came to us in ebb and flow, like a menacing current
of wave, swinging our hope to despair and back. At a time like this, we needed
the quiet intimation from a philosopher like Zadie Smith.
In this slim but profound meditation spanning six luxurious
essays, Smith fills the questions she asks as a human, prised open from her
faith and familiarity with the world, by giving answers only a writer can. The
thought traverses the intimate world of peonies, neighborhood, the familiarity
of strangers and their silent solidarity in belonging to the same world and
world views, slowly moving to the shattering of this world not with a big bang
but with a quiet twang in which lives were upended. What does it mean to ask
the same old questions of being and belonging in this new world of suspension? What
can one hope for? How can we imagine again?
This stunning book of thoughts was my tough companion
through some of the most difficult times of my adult life as I lost certainty
and learned to live without it. And I dread to think what you would have gone
through, dear reader, although I also know you must be the stronger for it. For
you and I are survivors.
There were many who did not outlive this pandemic. Let
this space, these words, and thoughts be dedicated in their loving memory.
