Focused Response
PART I: Focused Response
In Zadie Smith’s “The Lazy River,” there comes a point in the story where the narrator begins to keenly observe people outside of her group. More specifically, two sisters and their activity are contrasted with everyone else around the lazy river. The sisters arrive early each morning securing one of the coveted four-post beds facing the ocean and “spend more time on dry land than anyone else” (Smith 5). The sisters buzz about “making being young look like hard work” (5) while so many others lounge lazily near and in the lazy river. The narrator allows us to observe the activity and setting through the first-person perspective, providing a front-row seat as if we too were on the deck with her.
The overall tone is that of the story’s namesake. It is relaxed, metered, and allows the reader to follow along at a comfortable pace, much like an afternoon stroll in the park. Nevertheless, Zadie Smith employs exemplary symbolism and imagery throughout the story, creating pause for the reader as they peel the layers of the metaphorical onion away in search of deeper meaning. For example, the two girls “fill each day to its limit, just as the lazy river fills ours” (4) contrasting the priorities of those living life and those simply floating through it. Is this a deeper glimpse into the narrator’s resentment for uncertainty and despair experienced in life now while longing for the past?
Additionally, explicitly descriptive words and phrases provide the reader with a detailed scene and image that the sisters strive for. They remove “anything unsightly: stray trash, old leaves, and old people” and employ beautiful props like “flower petals, extravagant cocktails, and ice-creams” (5) to frame a perfect reality. These could very well be metaphors for discarding the unwanted things in life, while capitalizing what is attractive and pleasurable.
As I read this passage, it was easy for me to empathize with the narrator and her existential outlook. The calm and structured manner in which the passage is delivered resonates with my personality. I have spent my entire adult life as a first responder standing calmly amidst chaos, making split-second life and death decisions when it seems as though the world is coming unglued, observing others and their details from afar. When the dust has settled, I cannot help but reflect and think about the fragility of life and the brevity of our time on earth. As Smith states, “What are we doing? Floating?” (5). I could not have said it better myself. Am I making the most of the opportunities I have been given? Have I lost focus of the big picture and no longer “making a project of my life?”(5). Am I making a difference or simply “floating?”
Smith states that “we both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and we are not” (5) vividly illustrating how everyone’s lives are the same and yet so different all at the same time. I think that much like the narrator in the passage looks upon the sisters and where they are in their life in comparison to her own, so do I. I was once the care-free youth that prioritized the moment instead of settling for the safety of the repetitive, slow-moving water. Are the sisters destined to one day become apathetic riders of the lazy river concerned with the overt details of the world? Is it possible to escape the entrancing flow of the river and go back to a place that made more sense than the life we are now living?
