On Beauty
by Zadie Smith
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Book Summary Information
Author: Zadie SmithEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-08-29
ISBN: 0143037749
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Penguin Books
Book Reviews of On Beauty
Book Review: 'On Beauty'
Summary: 3 Stars
Zadie Smith, a London writer, first came to fame with her debut novel, `White Teeth'. While slightly over hyped, White Teeth was a great novel. It was basically about modern London life, seen through three very different families. It was a great mess of a novel that worked like an early Dickens' novel in its ambition to take a bite of modern London life; full of memorable caricatures, great story lines, hysterical dialogue and a lyrical and hilarious prose.
Her third novel is `On beauty.' The novel takes place in a Massachusetts college town. The story is about two families: the Kipps and Belseys; but mostly about the Belseys. First up is Howard, a liberal art history professor. Then, there is his wife, Kiki. She is a nurse, and proudly not an intellectual, in the worst sense of the word. In her early years she was very beautiful, but has ballooned up to 250 lbs. Then the kids: Zora, a college student and ultimate daddy's little girl, Jerome, a conservative virginal (to Howard's despair) college student, Levi a home boy from the burbs, down with all things hip-hop.
As the novel opens Jerome is living in London for the summer in the house of Monty Kipps, a conservative professor, and Howard's enemy. Back at home Howard is at the dog house for having cheated on Kiki. After a short tumultuous sexual encounter between Jerome and Victoria, one of the Kipps's daughter, Monty Kipps accepts a job in the college where Howard teaches and moves down the street from the Belseys.
The plot is of course `borrowed' from Forster's "Howards End.' Ms. Smith says this is a tribute to the author whom she says, `all my fiction is indebted.' This is the novels first problem. From the opening line, `One may as well begin with Jerome's e-mail to his father,' to a lengthy description and history to the Belsey's residence, to the structure of the story, Ms. Smith tries to echo Mr. Forster's novel. The first problem with these attempts is the plot, which at various point Ms. Smith has to yank into the narrow structure she has set for self. As a result the plot is a mess, without any of the `White Teeth' ambitions. Another problem is the characters. Most of them are here standing in for the characters from the original story, as a result they are lifeless caricature and are pushed aside almost immediately after Ms. Smith has nodded at the original story.
The second problem with the novel is the setting. She wrote the novel after her short stay in Cambridge. It shows. She has trouble with small everyday costumes: Kiki sends her nineteen years old son to buy alcohol; and most noticeably with the dialogues. Levi, whom she attempts to portrays as a suburb kid speaking in a hip hop lingo , sounds like a lovely English lady trying to speak in a hip hop lingo: `You know ... I just thought I'd pay you a call'
Yet, in some ways this is also the best novel Zadie Smith has written. Her prose is a lot more controlled than in her previous novels, but still lyrical and funny. More importantly she has created Kiki Belsey. Kiki Belsey is by far her most complex and detailed character. She is perhaps the only character without any intellectual ambition, and is perhaps (coincidentally?) the most normal. She is a mother worried about her kids, a woman dealing with aging and a failed marriage. In a way she is a simple character, that holds all the characters together. Towards the end of the novel she cleaning out the basement and observes, `The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.'
I finished this novel with a mixed felling. Here is a flawed novel, from a tremendous talent, who has still to write her GREAT NOVEL.
Summary of On Beauty
Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction and from the celebrated author of White Teeth comes another bestselling masterwork
Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle, this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars-on both sides of the Atlantic-serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent.
Named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Publishers Weekly A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Denver Post, and Publishers Weekly bestseller A Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic Monthly, Newsday, Christian Science Monitor, and Minneapolis Star Tribune Best Book of the Year Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize BACKCOVER: Praise for On Beauty:
"A thoroughly original tale . . . wonderfully engaging, wonderfully observed . . . That rare thing: a novel that is as affecting as it is entertaining, as provocative as it is humane."
-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"A thing of beauty. Oh happy day when a writer as gifted as Zadie Smith fulfills her early promise with a novel as accomplished, substantive and penetrating as On Beauty."
-Los Angeles Times
"Smith's specialty is her ability to render the new world, in its vibrant multiculturalism, with a kind of dancing, daring joy. . . . Her plots and people sing with life. . . . One of the best of the year, a splendid treat. "
-Chicago Tribune
"Short-listed for [the 2005] Man Booker Prize, On Beauty is a rollicking satire . . . a tremendously good read."
-San Francisco Chronicle
Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle, this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars-on both sides of the Atlantic-serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent.
Named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Publishers Weekly A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Denver Post, and Publishers Weekly bestseller A Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic Monthly, Newsday, Christian Science Monitor, and Minneapolis Star Tribune Best Book of the Year Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize BACKCOVER: Praise for On Beauty:
"A thoroughly original tale . . . wonderfully engaging, wonderfully observed . . . That rare thing: a novel that is as affecting as it is entertaining, as provocative as it is humane."
-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"A thing of beauty. Oh happy day when a writer as gifted as Zadie Smith fulfills her early promise with a novel as accomplished, substantive and penetrating as On Beauty."
-Los Angeles Times
"Smith's specialty is her ability to render the new world, in its vibrant multiculturalism, with a kind of dancing, daring joy. . . . Her plots and people sing with life. . . . One of the best of the year, a splendid treat. "
-Chicago Tribune
"Short-listed for [the 2005] Man Booker Prize, On Beauty is a rollicking satire . . . a tremendously good read."
-San Francisco Chronicle
In an author's note at the end of On Beauty, Zadie Smith writes: "My largest structural debt should be obvious to any E.M. Forster fan; suffice it to say he gave me a classy old frame, which I covered with new material as best I could." If it is true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Forster, perched on a cloud somewhere, should be all puffed up with pride. His disciple has taken Howards End, that marvelous tale of class difference, and upped the ante by adding race, politics, and gender. The end result is a story for the 21st century, told with a perfect ear for everything: gangsta street talk; academic posturing, both British and American; down-home black Floridian straight talk; and sassy, profane kids, both black and white.
Howard Belsey is a middle-class white liberal Englishman teaching abroad at Wellington, a thinly disguised version of one of the Ivies. He is a Rembrandt scholar who can't finish his book and a recent adulterer whose marriage is now on the slippery slope to disaster. His wife, Kiki, a black Floridian, is a warm, generous, competent wife, mother, and medical worker. Their children are Jerome, disgusted by his father's behavior, Zora, Wellington sophomore firebrand feminist and Levi, eager to be taken for a "homey," complete with baggy pants, hoodies and the ever-present iPod. This family has no secrets--at least not for long. They talk about everything, appropriate to the occasion or not. And, there is plenty to talk about.
The other half of the story is that of the Kipps family: Monty, stiff, wealthy ultra-conservative vocal Christian and Rembrandt scholar, whose book has been published. His wife Carlene is always slightly out of focus, and that's the way she wants it. She wafts over all proceedings, never really connecting with anyone. That seems to be endemic in the Kipps household. Son Michael is a bit of a Monty clone and daughter Victoria is not at all what Daddy thinks she is. Indeed, Forster's advice, "Only connect," is lost on this group.
The two academics have long been rivals, detesting each other's politics and disagreeing about Rembrandt. They are thrown into further conflict when Jerome leaves Wellington to get away from the discovery of his father's affair, lands on the Kipps' doorstep, falls for Victoria and mistakes what he has going with her for love. Howard makes it worse by trying to fix it. Then, Kipps is granted a visiting professorship at Wellington and the whole family arrives in Massachusetts.
From this raw material, Smith has fashioned a superb book, her best to date. She has interwoven class, race, and gender and taken everyone prisoner. Her even-handed renditions of liberal and/or conservative mouthings are insightful, often hilarious, and damning to all. She has a great time exposing everyone's clay feet. This author is a young woman cynical beyond her years, and we are all richer for it. --Valerie Ryan
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