I struggled to understand the cover. To me, the parallel lines reflect the previously-mentioned parallel between COVID and contempt. These two diseases sit before a black void-like wall, signifying the unknown. As Smith describes, the future for both looks bleak. Smith voices her concern that we will never “reach some kind of herd immunity” (82). While this might be a bit of a stretch to say, the black wall could represent the uncertain, empty path to the future.

“nature,” to my animal body—to the whole simian realm of instinct—and far more elementally so than, say, my brothers" (9). I felt this struggle with body image and faltering femininity, where your body feels like its own separate entity; Smith then discovers herself through writing and authorship, but this is something that I see myself still struggle with too (locating a true sense of 'me' within myself).

Reading about her connection, however inconsequential, with the massuese at a bustling location she sees every day in NYC made me feel a bit disconnected from my own life, lacking any substantive links with Hartford at the time. Knowing how Zadie Smith, in her escape back to London, lost a more tangible connection to a home life, and it feels as if those feelings come just after the essay ends.

 

With the entire world forced to lose time during the pandemic, the retrospective thought of actively not using time in the most effective manner is horrifying. In her next essay, “A Character in a Wheelchair,” Smith pretty flippantly admits to being ready to die should anything go catastrophically wrong in the world, and that coupled with the idea of not maximizing your time with things that matter paint an unflattering picture of what I do not want my own life to become.

 

After a few readings, I feel as if she is fighting back against her own apathy by seeing her character espouse similar thoughts to her own, thus showcasing the ridiculousness of her earlier indifference. This was a tough one for me to nail down regarding Smith’s intentions.