Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith – essays for an age of anxiety

Houman Barekat in The Guardian:

In Some Notes on Mediated Time – one of three completely new essays in the collection – Smith recalls how the “dreamy, slo-mo world” of her 1980s childhood gave way, within a generation, to the “anxious, permanent now” of social media. If you lived through that transition, you don’t have to be very old to feel ancient. When this estrangement is compounded by the ordinary anxieties of ageing, cultural commentary becomes inflected with self-pity. Smith’s identification with the protagonist of Todd Field’s Tár, a once revered conductor who finds herself shunned by the younger cohort, takes on existential proportions: “Our backs hurt, the kids don’t like Bach any more – and the seas are rising!”

More here.

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.