The moment when spring collided with a “season of death.” In hindsight, the peonies were her prelude to the quarantine. She was forced to submit to the joy of a “garish” tulip just as she is forced to submit to the daily conditions of quarantine. But because this is real life she’s attempting to dictate, they must be tulips. If she were writing fiction, the flowers would be peonies. Sometimes it is wrong to resist disease and right to submit to the inevitable. Sometimes it is right to submit to love, and wrong to resist affection. Neither condition is all good or all bad, just dependent on its circumstance. In describing writing as an act of exerting control over an experience, she creates a helpful dichotomy of resistance and submission. But writers go further: they take this largely shapeless bewilderment and pour it into a mold of their own devising. We try to adapt, to learn, to accommodate, sometimes resisting, other times submitting to, whatever confronts us. She goes on to describe writers as having an “obsession with control.” According to Smith, creative writing is an act of controlling an experience:Įxperience-mystifying, overwhelming, conscious, subconscious-rolls over everybody. The pink and orange tulips, a symbol of spring and beauty juxtaposed with a “downtown aesthetic,” strike her with awe.

They draw her in despite her lack of interest in horticulture. In the first essay, “Peonies,” a patch of tulips growing in New York City catch Smith’s eye. There’s a noticeable narrative arc missing in a lot of the material here that leaves the reader wondering, what should I do with this information? Though each piece offers an interesting take on our new normal, the collection feels a little too sparse. At such a short length, nothing is extraneous. There are four main essays, then a “Screen Grabs” subsection (containing pieces that are more like seven literary sketches), and finally, a few pages of shout-outs eponymously titled “Intimations.” Each essay is brief, yet as dense as a Borges short story, offering a nugget of wisdom or ending on an especially poignant note. Or, as she so eloquently refers to it, “the global humbling.” The collection is divided into six sections. It’s slim, less than one hundred pages, and marketed as her pandemic piece.

Intimations is Zadie Smith’s latest essay collection.

Intimations six essays