Summary

Zadie Smith’s Intimations begins with an essay titled “Peonies.” Smith describes herself being drawn inexplicably to the bars enclosing Jefferson Market Garden, peering in at a bright triangle of tulips. Though self-consciously busy and engaged in the bustle of a New York working day, she writes that she ‘carves’ a few minutes out of her day to stand and stare at the flowers this time, and beside her two other women, close to her in age, do the same. This day she describes took place just before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the entire United States.

Smith ruminates on the ‘Freudian’ image of three middle-aged women peering in at a gaudy display of Earth’s fertility, stating that she wishes inside of herself that the tulips had been peonies instead – more refined, more elegant, less base and common. When she was growing up...