2 stars

I like Smith as a person, but I just didn’t like this book. It’s probably one of the most uneven books I’ve read. The first part was so poorly constructed that I almost DNF’ed it. Smith throws us in the middle of what is meant to be a dramatic occurrence but without sufficient context for us to appreciate the drama, so I was lost for 50 pages or so. I could have tolerated this had the characters been interesting, but they were insufferable. I couldn’t understand why they were acting the way they did, and the dialogue was cringe-worthy, highly stylized, and artificial. In terms of storytelling, Smith preferred to tell the readers about the most dramatic moments after they’d happened, instead of showing them on the page. I can recall more descriptions of FURNITURE rather than actual drama in the first part.

The second part was better, which is saying something, because books hardly get better for me once I’ve spent 100+ pages disliking them. I was surprised actually highlighting for an interesting turn of phrase or insight rather than out of spite. It’s in the second part that Smith really tackles her themes—race, class, beauty, liberalism and conservatism, the utter pretentiousness and impenetrability of academia, etc. While the scope of her work is admirable, I found that she tried to do too much without going too deeply into each theme—I found myself agreeing a lot with Smith’s points, but she never made me reconsider any of those subjects in a new light. She also seemed to be using her characters as a way to make her points, and it was so heavy-handed I couldn’t enjoy it.

The third part was just... okay. All the plot points converged here in a rather predictable way. Here, many of the tension-filled scenes actually play out on the page, and it WAS entertaining, but again just very predictable in a soap-opera sort of way.

I won’t be opposed to reading Smith’s other works, and I still definitely plan to read her essays and short pieces, but On Beauty just didn’t work for me on so many levels. Bleh. If anything I’m relieved it’s finally over.

Este foi o primeiro que li de Zadie Smith, embora este seja o terceiro romance da autora. Entre Londres e Boston, no pós-11 de Setembro, a história centra-se no conflito entre dois intelectuais ingleses, nos meandros de uma universidade norte-americana. Fez-me lembrar a trilogia de David Lodge (“A Troca”, “O Mundo é Pequeno” e “Um Almoço Nunca é de Graça”) sobre a vida num campus académico, embora neste livro de Smith as questões de ideologia política (liberais vs. conservadores), raça, valores morais, familiares, sociais e intelectuais tenham mais peso do que as peripécias vividas pelas personagens de Lodge.

O livro tem cerca de 500 páginas, que parecem insuficientes para o desenvolvimento de tantos temas, pontos de vista e conflitos. A autora dá-nos apenas uma impressão daquela realidade ali retratada, ficando o leitor com a sensação de uma leitura inacabada.
É uma leitura interessante, mas ficou aquém das minhas expectativas, pois embora pareça contraditório, história, situações, personagens e temas estão muito condensados, embora o livro seja demasiado longo.

This novel tells the story of two families of vastly different ideologies. The Belsey family lives in a university town near Boston. Howard Belsey is a British art history professor married to Kiki, an African American woman. They have been married thirty years and have three children aged sixteen to mid-twenties. Monty Kipps, another academic, lives in London with his wife, Carlene, and their two college age children. The Belsey family is intensely progressive. The Kipps family is ultra-conservative. Howard Belsey and Monty Kipps have been adversaries for many years.

There are a large number of characters and it takes a while for the numerous storylines to come together. It is written in third person from a number of perspectives with no single protagonist. It is a blend of diverse voices, representing race, social class, politics, and relationships. Art, music, poetry (including rap), and physical beauty are integral to the plot. These play into the narrative of aesthetics – how the characters view themselves and each other.

I recommend reading this book slowly – it is not one to be rushed. I very much enjoy Smith's witty and insightful storytelling style. I can also recommend White Teeth.

Gostei da Kiki. E do Howard quando pensa na Kiki.
Gostei de como Zadie vê os quadros de Rembrandt.
Até metade do livro, portei-me bem e penei lendo tudo. A partir daí, passei os olhos pelas páginas e só lia quando havia Kiki e Howard e Rembrandt.
No todo, não gostei...

I was deeply displeased with this book. I can't believe I actually finished it; I liked neither the characters nor the language nor the style. I only read it because I got it for free (found it on the street in a pile of other middling titles), but though that excuses my starting it, it does not at all excuse my slogging through, stubbornly determined, all the way to the end. The truth is this: I was too lazy to figure out what to read next, which is incredibly idiotic, so I deserved what I got. There were a few moments right there toward the end when she pulled all the semi-disparate plotlines together and I was fairly impressed seeing how it all fit, but all in all? This book sucked and I kind of suck for reading it.

On Beauty may be inspired by EM Forster but it’s in no way just an updated version of Howards End. If you’ve read that, you’ll appreciate the way many elements have been cleverly adapted (though not always without a bit of awkwardness); if you haven’t, then you’ll just notice a few places where the storyline seems a bit forced.

But no matter. In this complex and many-layered satire, Zadie Smith neatly dissects both conservative and liberal middle class attitudes; her ear for dialogues and internal monologues is simply priceless.
As in Howard’s End, it’s a study of two contrasting families: the conservative religious Kipps (Sir Montague, his wife Carlene and two children) and the liberal Belseys (Howard, his wife Kiki and their three children).

Monty is a pompous, opinionated English celebrity and visiting professor in a small university town near Boston in the USA, where the equally opinionated but much more insecure Howard (also British) is manoeuvring towards tenure. Their historical animosity is brought into sharp relief by a brief, aborted love affair between the older Belsey son and the Kipps daughter.

But mirroring Forster’s work, there is a bond that develops between Kiki (who is also Black and from the American South) and the older Carlene that creates the real connection and tension between the families, with the two women presenting a strong counter-force to the male academic preening and – as ultimately revealed – utter hypocrisy.

The final denouement is a crazy cascade of interlocking events triggered by a student party, though the story peters out a few months later, where “Howard’s End” is not a house but essentially the end of his comfortable life.

I loved On Beauty, laughed out loud in many places and winced at the self-delusion of half the characters. But still, it was a little too long and unfocussed, with too many peripheral themes: the Belsey daughter Zora and the rapper/poet Carl, Levi Belsey and his work protest, Howard’s visit with his father and so on; they were all more or less important but not actually necessary.

I will say though that when Zadie Smith writes about sexual tension, the underclass (Haitian street people and servants among others), and the tension between White and Black, she is way, way more acute, entertaining and believable than Forster, who never seemed comfortable with sex or his working-class creations. Four and a half stars at least.

Very good. A perfect mix of socially conscious (race, class, power, beauty) and personally dysfunctional.

Zadie Smith's deep and beautiful insight into the lives of undeep and unbeautiful people is astoundingly brilliant (yes, I am aware that I just made those words up. Let's just call it poetic license).

The book's angle is a pretty simple one: the reader follows the movements of the various members of the Belsey family, and those they come into contact with, over the course of a year or so, and begins to form an insight into how they interact with the world and the people around them. In reality, it is so much more than this.

The Belsey family - comprising of an African American mother, a Caucasian father and three mixed-race children - all struggle with an identity crisis that centres around a multitude of things including their race, gender and their place in the academic world of Wellington (a thinly veiled Harvard) that they reside in.

The complex issues that this novel confronts forced me to confront myself as more than a self-contained entity. We are all so much more than individual beings. Who are we is denoted by our heritage, our ancestry, our upbringing, our peers... We are an amalgamation of everything that came before us and everything we come into contact with, but it is how we process and respond to these factors that defines who we are as a person. And we are all a walking political statement for something, whether we like it or not.

As the characters begin their individual journeys of self-discovery, I departed on one of my own. This book helped me to think about my own place in my own society: every thing I touch and everything that has touched me, no matter how seemingly insignificant, has all made up the person who sits here and writes this today.

If anyone is still reading this self-absorbed waffling then I urge you to pick up and read this book. It touched me soul, and I hope it does yours.

Из архивите - рецензия за в. "Гласове".

За хубавите хора
"За красотата", Зейди Смит, прев. Невена Дишлиева-Кръстева, "Прозорец", 2008 г.

"...Тя наричаше розата роза. За него розата бе съвкупност от културни и биологични конструкции, кръжащи около взаимно привличащите се полюси по оста природа-изкуство..."

Беше много странно, че Зейди Смит още не е излизала на български; изглежда закономерно, че я откри такова внимателно към добрата англоезична проза издателство като "Прозорец"; получи се отлично, че я е превела Невена Дишлиева-Кръстева, която за разлика от много други преводачи на "Прозорец" разполага с необходимия информационен, речников и артистичен потенциал, за да излезе от изпитанието с чест.

Казано накратко, Зейди Смит обича да пише пространно за групи от често несъвместими и винаги леко периферни хора (поради цвета на кожата си, естеството на заниманията или вярванията си, интелектуалните си необходимости или едно крехко, юношеско усещане за неприложимост към света, което мъчи най-интересните от тях). Все едно кой колко е откроен за целите на повествованието, те до последния са нееднопланови, нюансирани личности, всички по своему ценни, като за целта Смит не е като да прави резервати от изключителни създания – тя просто проявява чудотворна способност да гледа в дълбочина и с погледа си да додава смисъл.

Нейните персонажи обикновено са от различни поколения (забележително умение да се синхронизира със страшното и смешното на всяка възраст), сплотени от неизтребими сантименти (в семейства, приятелски компании от детинство/младост и пр.), което ги прави същевременно особено привилегировани (при нужда имат безусловната подкрепа на клана зад гърба си) и обречени (длъжни са вечно да се обясняват, оправдават, извиняват; носят отговорност). Хорът от гласовете им би бил достатъчен, за да запълни томове и томове с читава лека литература, но авторката винаги добавя и някоя "коагулираща" случка, около която конфликтите се изострят, очертанията се засилват, гласовете се вдигат и се появяват поводи животът да бъде погледнат право в очите. Така че романите й са от най-романовия тип – онзи, който увлича и привързва. Моделът писане "Зейди" включва още извеждане на всички нишки докрай, без мъгляви пози, недовършени мисли и премълчавания. И ако такава изчистена функционалност на структурата ви се струва неприлично директна, е хубаво да знаете, че авторката компенсира в съдържанието – с артистичност, ексцентричност, хумор, нонсенс и почти журналистическо желание да осведомява относно контекста.

Семейство Белси е в центъра на историята на "За красотата", чието жило е безцелната, но разрушителна изневяра на мъжа и чиято главна героиня в крайна сметка се оказва жената: белият съпруг Хауард, специализиран в академичен анализ на Рембранд, но с изсушена душа; чернокожата съпруга Кики с проста чиновническа работа, но с живи чувства и въображение ("...дори душата ми е направена от сурово месо, от плът..."); три деца с различни характери и в различни фази на метаморфозата си от миловидно притежание на своите родители до понякога чепати самостоятелни индивиди ("...бяха млади, весели и интелигентни, живееха с лекота, комуникираха енергично..."). Семейство Кипс – също съпруг-интелектуалец и недоразбрана съпруга плюс две движещи се в съвършено други орбити деца – е вариация по темата "семейство Белси" и затова само негов фалшив контрапункт (с течение на страниците става ясно, че дрязгата между двамата глави на семейства нито е важна, нито определяща за частните им действия или общата посока на сюжета). Белси и Кипс се озовават в едно и също място, измисления Уелингтънски университет в Щатите, и преживяват приближавания и разминавания от различен порядък между разните си членове. Но драмата не е толкова между тях, колкото в порасването. И то не толкова това на децата на двете семейства или хлапетата, с които те имат вземане-даване, колкото на Хауард и Кики ("...всяка двойка е отделен вариететен спектакъл..."). Порасване, при което симпатичните пози от зелената младост се превръщат в жалки пози на повяхващата възраст и хората започват да се боят от истината като от смъртта.

Романът е стрòен, почти филмово непосредствен в някои диалози и ситуации (браво на преводачката за разтропаното рапиране в "Спирката" и за напълно убедителния жаргон на най-младия Белси, Леви – ето защо хубавият превод е хубаво приключение). Едни от героите на Смит са красиви, други – не, някои разбират от красотата или поне се опитват, някои грешат, трети им понасят грешките, но всички са достойни за внимание и дори съчувствие. Неизчерпващи се с единия или двата проблема, с които се сблъскват. Позитивни, като авторката си, хубави хора.

* * *
Зейди Смит (1975) е лондончанка от ямайски произход, завършила английска литература в Кеймбридж, която през 2000 г. стана много известна с първия си роман, "Бели зъби". Освен талантлива писателка, способна убедително да оркестрира множество разнородни персонажи, Смит е и интересна за медиите неординерна личност, сред чиито предимства не на последно място е безспорната й фотогеничност, така че в последвалия й почти еднозначен успех нямаше нищичко случайно. ("Почти" заради възмущенията на някои от желанието на Смит за всеобхватност – в рецензия "Гардиън" критикът Джеймс Уд й измисли специален жанр, "истеричен реализъм", който бил "следващата спирка" след магическия реализъм заради "страха си от мълчание" и "виталността си на всяка цена". Така или иначе, в него той я постави редом със Салман Рушди, Дон ДеЛило и Томас Пинчън, та дори неодобрението му се оказа комплимент.) "Бели зъби" беше удостоен с всякакви книжни отличия и през 2002 г. последван от не по-малко любопитния "Човекът с автографите", след който Смит попадна в списъка на двайсетимата най-обещаващи млади британски романисти на списанието за "ново писане" "Гранта". ("Гранта" са всеизвестен печат за качество – през 1983 г. те "узакониха" в един подобен списък литературата на бъдещите звезди Иън Макюън, Джулиън Барнс, Казуо Ишигуро, Мартин Еймис).

Публикуваният през 2005 г. трети роман на Зейди Смит, "За красотата", смени декора (от Лондон на предградията минахме в Щатите на университетските градчета) и спечели прочутата британска награда "Ориндж" (дава се от 1996 г. за проза, писана от жена). "Скъпият Леърд" от посвещението на книгата е съпругът на Зейди, поетът Ник Леърд, цитиран впрочем със стихотворението си "Родословие" от един от персонажите: "Намираме убежище един във друг...". Елементите на флирт с класиката в "За красотата" са с "Хауардс Енд" на Форстър, в случай че Форстър не ви е настолен и не ги разпознаете. А определението, което "Прозорец" дават на задната корица на авторката – "екзотичното цвете на новата британска литература" – може да се сметне за единственият им, макар и симпатичен гаф спрямо нея: в поне две от книгите на Смит нейните красиви чернокожи героини буйно протестират срещу екзотизирането им с "африканска кралица" и подобни леко кичозни свеждания на човека до обвивката.

Before we talk about Zadie Smith, let’s talk about me first. Here is something you should know – I was a serious book-worm up until I turned 16 (more or less) at which point I lost all interest in anything that wasn’t parties, boys, alcohol, drugs or sex. There, I said it. For the next five years my brain didn’t see much action (I somehow managed to finish high school and got accepted into the University of Warsaw but generally I found education a big distraction to my social life). I was about 21 when finally the fog surrounding my brain cleared a little and I decided to go to my local library. I had no idea what to read or how to choose. I was just browsing idly when I saw a book called ‘White Teeth’ with an interesting cover. I checked it out, went home and started reading. Soon I was mesmerized. I had no idea there were books like that, that there were stories like that and that people were telling them. I can’t quite recall now what it was about ‘White Teeth’ that spoke to me so but it was as if a curse was lifted and I could read and use my brain again.

For this OCD reason or another, a decade had to pass before I read another Zadie Smith’s book. I am more cynical now and not so easily impressed as I was back then. I felt l could see what Smith was doing there; I was onto all her tricks. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this book tremendously. All this mixing of race, politics, academia, art, love and death – what’s not to love? Even if some of the observations were not particularly revelatory to me I have to give it to Zadie – she knows how to write people. That’s what the characters in ‘On Beauty’ were – people, rather than characters. They were so well put together I feel I would recognize them if I chanced upon them at a party (you know, I still go to parties). Zadie Smith is at the same cruel and merciful towards her subjects. She won’t hesitate to point out all the silliness of their lives but allows us to feel compassion for them and look upon their futile attempts to practice what they preach with forgiveness.

Also the climax was quite astonishing. I begin to believe that the ability to write a good climax, to make the reader understand you knew exactly what you were doing from page one is exactly what separates great writers from everybody else.

But we shouldn’t forget humour either:

‘[…] A brother don’t need a gate – he jumps the fence. That’s street.’
‘Again, please?’ said Howard.
‘Street, street,’ bellowed Zora. It’s like, “being street”, knowing the street – in Levi’s sad little world if you’re a Negro you have some kind of mysterious holy communion with sidewalks and corners.’

And descriptions. Here is my personal favourite (for obvious reasons):

The African women in their colourful kenti cloths, the whippet blonde with three phones tucked into the waistband of her trucksuit, the unmistakeable Poles and Russians introducing the bone structure of Soviet Realism to an island of chinless, browless potato-faces, the Irish men resting on the gates of housing estates like farmers at a pig fair in Kerry…

Bone structure! You can thank us for that later.

When I first started reading this book I immediately started comparing it to White Teeth and my first thoughts were that I wouldn't enjoy this book as much. Turns out I was wrong about that! I found this story very absorbing and really grew to enjoy the characters and their individual views of life in Wellington. I particularly liked the character of Kiki for she, above all others in this book seemed genuinely at one with herself. The teenagers, Jerome, Zora and Levi all face their own struggles with identity, politics and morality. However one way or another they generally come to some sort of understanding, harmony and equilibrium. Howard on the other hand is thelearned professor, patriarch of the Belsey family and oldest of them all and the one who just should have known better. But he managed to stumble into the social, sexual and political pit falls which his young and inexperienced off-spring manage to avoid.
Overall this book is probably not as tightly written as White Teeth but I did enjoy it more.

Smith accomplishes much in this, her third novel. "Autograph Man" was sadly not memorable enough & "White Teeth", the novel that quickly turned her into the valedictorian of all modern young writers, was epic but also did not engage me too much.

"On Beauty" is exceptionally readable, relevant/modern, complicated, witty. She's honed her skills, & one must be a 'lil jealous.

Like I told G. just yesterday: it contains that Middlesexian moment of profound awe. Modern novels, at least those that are implemented into the canon (think: The Poisonwood Bible, The Corrections...), must either have that moment where a tear kinda materializes because emotions are too vivid, or because the scene contains awesomely understated beauty. "On Beauty," on second thought, has both. If I reveal that the scene where once was there was a closet-full of colorful clothes and now only a suit remains... well I don't reveal too TOO much. This is well written, poignant.

I must say that I AM a fan of Smith. Before I would say it too bluntly, I guess because that was en vogue. But after reading this novel, in close competition with "The Corrections" as the Great (American....British) Novel (version: 21 st century), I honestly say I can't wait for the next one. On "On Beauty"'s fate: It will be harvested for its amazing prose, insightful jewels of paragraph, and transplanted onto Sophomore-level English textbooks to be read by future generations.