“This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience - these are the marks of living.”

“You don't have favourites among your children, but you do have allies. ”

“They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.”

“People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel -- before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by puffy tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”

“He was bookish, she was not; he was theoretical, she political. She called a rose a rose. He called it an accumulation of cultural and biological constructions circulating around the mutually attracting binary poles of nature/artifice.”

“Sometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.”

my favorite of zadie's, without a doubt. i loved each and every one of these characters and was so invested in their lives, even when they made terrible decisions and said horrible things. i imagine i'll reread it someday.

This was an interesting book. It was as if all the characters in the book knew everything that was going on, but it was only revealed to me slowly - back stories on the characters, issues between them, etc. A lot of writing on race relations on the east coast, also town/gown conflicts. I think I liked it, since I found myself thinking about the people after I was done with the book. I would like to try something else by her.

I haven't yet read Howards End by E.M. Forster but after finishing On Beauty I am even more interested in it. I didn't know what to expect going in to this book, in truth I found the cover striking, and my previous enjoyment of Swing Time was enough for me to want to read it. Zadie Smith's writing is excellent here, as I had thought it would be. I love her observations and the unexpected humour. Howard is an absolute cliché, though he is supposed to be, and she writes him so well. There were moments when I despised him, found him so pathetic and infuriating, but I always wanted to keep reading. His family, and the family of his rival, were equally well done, captured in brilliant ways.

I will be reading more of her books soon!

This is why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust. To that end she had tried banning television in the early years, and never had a lipstick or a woman's magazine crossed the threshold of the Belsey home to Kiki's knowledge, but these and other precautionary measures had made no difference. It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies - it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it. (p.198)

There was nowhere to park. They had to leave the car several blocks from the party itself. Zora had specifically worn the shoes she was wearing because she had not anticipated any walking. To make progress she had to grip her brother around his waist, take little pigeon-steps and lean far back on her heels. For a long time Jerome restrained himself from commentary, but at the fourth pit stop he could keep silent no longer. "I don't get you. Aren't you meant to be a feminist? Why would you cripple yourself like this?"
"I like these shoes, OK? They actually make me feel powerful." (p.408)

3.5

I am beginning to understand why Zadie Smith is celebrated as she is. White Teeth was funny but did not impress me all that much. Here, her craft is more mature and her accomplishments more wide-ranging. ZS is very perceptive and her insights into racism, academia, ideological divides, art, and families are very astute. The prose is clever, witty, humorous. It gets increasingly engaging as we traverse the length of the novel laden with sociopolitical observations.

The story is spun around two families, both with roots in England but currently put up in the US. One is a progressive liberal family; the other is a conservative family. Their ideologies aren't their only bone of contention. The fathers are professional enemies. The conservative professor is much more successful and rich than his liberal counterpart. The lives of family members become enmeshed in various ways and their saga plays out in a wild course to a strangely unsatisfying conclusion.

With their feud as the backdrop, ZS explores the ideological divide in America as neutrally as possible while taking digs at both groups. Both the groups are convinced that they are right and are reluctant to listen to the other one. Liberals almost always assume an air of moral superiority while the conservatives are eager to dismiss the liberals as hypocrites or snowflakes. The conservatives blind themselves to history and the trauma experienced by the minorities and surrender themselves to racism and sexism. The liberal ideology seems to be empty words most of the time, as their actions rarely catch up with their holy ideas. As a liberal myself, this novel made me examine the gap between my ideas and actions. Are my beliefs just a performance of wokeness or do I truly have compassion for my fellow people? A lot of uncomfortable truths this novel unearths.

Imagined threat as a result of casually racist assumptions is a constant thread in the novel and black people are constantly alienated everywhere, especially in wealthy surroundings, despite being legal citizens. ZS also highlights the hierarchy that exists within black communities and the hierarchy within families. Racism makes black people constantly evaluate themselves against society's racial clichés and this leads to many sinister effects. A tension prevails between black people of different classes and nationalities, and we view how the different groups perceive (and sometimes exploit) each other. This is probably the first time in literature I am encountering a black conservative family and I was nonplussed by their archaic ideas. ZS might have designed this family as an ultimate litmus test for liberalism.

In the families, despite their level of progressiveness, the women are constantly undermined and cheated on. The mother of the conservative household declares that the purpose of her life is to live and care for her family. The daughter in that family is expressly ignored whenever a decision is made. The mother in the liberal family is body shamed, cheated on by her husband of thirty years because she gained weight. Despite feminism and the progress in the 21st century, ZS depicts the still pervasive sexism due to which women are judged by their bodies and young women starve themselves to maintain a favorable body image.

ZS expertly charts the clash of these families while dealing successfully with larger political and personal themes. I loved the evolution of Belseys' decades-old relationship and the maturing of the Belsey kids.

But, I felt that the prose exuded a certain degree of coldness that always kept me at an arm's length. I wasn't really emotionally involved with the characters and it didn't help that they were more embodiment of ideas than actual people. Also, except for Kiki - and, to an extent Levi - none of the characters were likable. I did not understand the motivations behind Victoria's actions, and the author's intentions with her character remain unclear. Is the author passing some judgement on Victoria, or is she sympathetic? The inner lives of Howard and Monty are conspicuously absent from the novel. I was particularly interested in the way Monty's mind worked, to understand his conservative logic and feelings, but ZS is eerily quiet on that front. Given that a lot of energy is spent by these two professors arguing about Rembrandt, I expected those discussions to get somewhere. But it is detached from the main plot and they just remain as academic arguments hanging inertly by the side.

While not a modern masterpiece, On Beauty is an entertaining novel about families and race. I am definitely warming up to Zadie Smith's writing and I look forward to reading her other novels. A cozy, well-written, funny, thought-provoking novel that delivers admirably on many of its promises.

When I began reading this book I didn't think that it would be for me at all. I was thinking "uh oh, two middle class families, American collegiate town setting, low-key unfaithfulness unsuccessfully resolved, academics in a feud as main characters - we're in Bellow, Murdoch, Updike and Roth territory here and I'm really not going to be able to get into this". Also, at 450pp this wasn't a light tome, this was demanding a considerable investment of time, because I'm not the fastest reader. Add to this the fact that I wasn't that bowled over by White Teeth and things didn't seem rosy.

But. But. But.

I loved it. If I tried to precis the novel it would seem as though nothing happened, and yet I genuinely enjoyed spending time with these people, fully and roundly drawn people who appear to be portraits and never caricatures. The title was always apt too - we're always asked to reflect upon just what Beauty is and whether or not it has intrinsic worth. There are beautiful people in the book (the Kipps?), who always disappoint when human values are required, we have the continually messy and fucked up Belsey family who despite getting so many things wrong have their hearts in the right place - even Howard with his mid life crises, who has forgotten what Beauty is - whether in his always-loved wife or in his once-beloved Rembrandt - and why he needs it but can't show that he needs it.

Nothing in the novel is simple, but every part of it feels profound.

As I get older, I'm finding that I'm more and more attracted towards plot-driven books, and so nobody could be more surprised than I was to be so engrossed by this book which has so little plot, is quite long and just leaves you to marinade in a year in the life of this group of people.

This was probably one of the most accomplished books I’ve ever read and I look forward to rereading it again in the future. It’s the kind of novel, where you can get different things out of it every time you read it. Zadie’s wonderful writing style jumped off the page, and I cherished the reading experience. The plot was mostly character driven, and as a reader, these are the most enjoyable kind of books to me. This is the first book I’ve read by Zadie Smith, and I’m hoping to be captivated again by her.

Marinating... Zadie Smith is excellent at describing complex emotions and inner monologues. Great stuff!

Almost 4.5 Stars

Listened to Audible. Peter Francis James was a fantastic narrator!

Video with some thoughts now live! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F-3w...

On Beauty is, according to the author, an homage to Howards End and I made a point of reading that before this. I'm not sure it was a good idea. Not that one was necessarily better than the other, but the contrast placed On Beauty's flaws in relief. Howards End was carefully put together and tightly plotted. I didn't get that impression from On Beauty. It's momentum exhausted, it just sort of stopped. All the characters are so wrapped up in their own neuroses that you feel them more as caricatures than human beings (Kiki, the main matriarch, being a notable exception). In Howards End, the overall story is about how cleverness and class aren't as important as human connection. Here, the author is so busy being clever (and she is very clever) that the human connection is missing.

I find that often I start off saying awful things about a book and then go on to say, but it was good anyway. This is no exception. It was quite fun to read. The comedy works wonderfully. The prose is rich and the characters, while flat in some very important ways, are interestingly varied and not just straight from central casting.

I was floored by how much I enjoyed this book. In the way of most contemporary fiction, I can’t easily articulate why I enjoyed this book. I found myself immersed in the drama of the Belsey family, and loved watching the dynamics play out between the characters. This was a family which felt fully realized in all their love for each other and history and flaws. Smith shines in her portrayal of not only what makes each character tick, but the way their lives fit alongside one another and everything which influences the state of their relationships to each other.

This is a gorgeously rendered, and dynamically exciting and dramatic story of a family in flux. Though heavily focused on the characters, the plot of this novel clips along, dropping bombshells that will leave no one unchanged. I can't wait to read more Zadie Smith.