{"id":23102,"date":"2017-12-11T13:57:07","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T17:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=23102"},"modified":"2017-12-11T13:57:07","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T17:57:07","slug":"zadie-smith-the-lazy-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2017\/12\/11\/zadie-smith-the-lazy-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Zadie Smith: “The Lazy River”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“The Lazy River”<\/strong><\/span>
\nby Zadie Smith<\/span>
\nfrom the December 18 & 25, 2017 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″]T[\/fusion_dropcap]he year is really winding down fast. Here we have the final 2017 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>, and, with it, their final fiction of the year: a new, and relatively short, piece by Zadie Smith.<\/p>\n

I am anxious to see what folks think of this one. It’s mostly an extended exploration of the metaphor of a lazy river as life. Not, to me, particularly interesting. In the January 3, 2011 issue of the magazine, Steven Millhauser published a much stronger story about a young boy on holiday in a river realizing that his life was passing swiftly to its conclusion. I loved it. Not that they are doing the exact same thing, but Millhauser’s handling of a similar metaphor is more profound. Smith’s essay here just isn’t my kind of thing, which I guess has me looking forward to a couple of weeks of relaxation before we see what we get from The New Yorker<\/em> in 2018!<\/p>\n

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