Zadie Smith’s Intimations: The perfect pandemic book, years too soon

CHLOE BOULTON | DEPUTY EDITOR

Asa rule, I do not want to consume lockdownrelated media. I think this is something I share with a lot of people. I do not want to read books about it or watch films about it. I can feel myself cringe when I hear it mentioned on television, knowing it has leaked over into fictional worlds. Admittedly, I was not immune to the hype around Bo Burnham’s Inside, and found it was one of my favourite things I had seen in 2020. It was, though, the singular exception to the rule, and I expect that the first time I watched it will continue to remain the only time.

It was in a second-hand bookshop that I picked up Zadie Smith’s Intimations, surprising myself in doing so. I was curious; on one hand I wondered if enough time had passed since the first lockdown for this to read almost like fiction, on the other I wanted, in a way, to be right in my view: no one wants to read about 2020. Upon its release, the essay collection had received mostly rave reviews from critics and readers more broadly, and was one of the few pieces of pandemic-literature to break through the noise; so why would someone get rid of it? It did not take more than a week of the book sitting on my shelf before I decided to find out.

Intimations is a slim book of six essays written in the early months of 2020; in fact, the foreword is dated to May of that year. I misjudged it. This is not a just a pandemic book. It is a window into the interior of a person better equipped than most to write about those first few months of that year.

Smith’s writing in this collection is not done sparingly. She is precise, and each essay is obviously carefully constructed down to every word. She captures time-specific emotions and is able to transport readers back to the very moments she writes about. There is a lot of ground covered too in the small amount of pages Smith works with here. Womanhood, American exceptionalism, privilege, writing, time and what to do with it, race, class, and community. This collection could not come from anyone other than Smith; her intelligence and empathy shine through in each essay, and she articulates clearly and accessibly the nuances of her thoughts. It was, in short, a moving and thoughtprovoking read that I would gladly revisit.

As I read Intimations, I could not help but think that the time was just not right. Perhaps if I had read it as soon as it was published, I would say otherwise. Or maybe, if I were to have left the book on my shelf for another few years. Knowing how it all ends, having seen what came after the events Smith writes about, I find the collection to feel incomplete.

Intimations is the perfect book for the time it is about, perhaps even the only one we really need, just not yet.