Aaargh. I didn't want to like this book. I tried hard not to like it but there is no escaping that fact that as precocious as she is, Zadie Smith is a damn fine writer. It's a family drama but there aren’t omnipotent judgments or proselytizing about the book’s larger issues of race, love, and elitism.
An interracial couple struggles through the middle years of their marriage and the awkward social integration of their mixed children. Smith’s portrayal of a relationship falling apart is nothing new but her descriptions of it are eerily accurate and cause an uncomfortable shifting for those of us who recognize the agonizing stages of falling out of love and the sometimes futile attempt at trying to find it again.
Ms. Smith is equally adept at her depiction of the kids living in a predominantly white, intellectually elite culture and the two trying to come to terms with what it means to be Black and their slow approach to the question of whether or not one should despite outside pressures.
The family’s struggle is juxtaposed against another family that is bonded together by religious and social self-righteousness with their demons well hidden and their self-destruction implosive.
Beautiful.
Accurate.
Well done.
Damn you, Zadie Smith.

Read pre-GR.

About a month ago I stumbled on a sidewalk sale where, between cheese curd vendors, a 5-year-old magician with a stunning vocabulary and hippies juggling sticks, I found some castoffs from the public library: $1 for trade paper; $0.50 for mass market. I was in a rush. There was an Italian sausage calling my name half a block away. ("Meat me. Meat me.") But I like books. And typically I spend 25 times more for them than what the library was asking. So I deferred to my nemesis "thrift," and I dove in.

This was easy. Three carts filled front and back. I scanned the titles quickly: Dud. Dud. Religious fiction. Airport lit. Around me, people were carefully browsing, yanking books off shelves, reading the back, building piles. I was lapping them, two, three times over.

The fools, I thought. You have no idea. Cheap crime novels and menopause lit. WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE! DO YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT THE WORDS YOU PUT IN YOUR HEAD!?

And then I found Zadie Smith's On Beauty. I liked White Teeth, although ask me what it was about and I'll distract you with a coughing fit. (Sometimes "good" isn't enough to keep me from plot amnesia). I handed over my buck, happy to help the library buy something nice and hopefully put my name on it.

As I made tracks toward the meat stand, I was super impressed with myself. There I was, on day three of a book sale, eying the picked over remains. AND I found something good. Something the dull, untrained eyes my fellow readers had passed over for whatever reason that is none of my business. I re-visited the entire scene. My dexterity with the task. My skilled gaze, like someone who scouts antiques or appraises art. The way my hand instinctively made a grab for the gem of the collection. My poker face as I handed over the single bill, never revealing that I would have gone as high as $3, maybe even $5.
At the root of On Beauty are two fundamentally different families running parallel: The Belsey family is liberal, and find religious affiliation laughable. Father Howard is a white Englishman, married to Kiki, who is black. Their children are Zora, an overachieving college student, more right brained than left, although bent on living an artistic life, Levi, a high school student interested in street culture, and Jerome, who is trying to filter through his up bringing to figure out what values to take into the real world.

The Kipps, who are more in the background of the story as foils to the Belsey family, are black conservative Christians. Monty argues against affirmative action and conducts family breakfasts. His ailing wife is a "stand by your mom" figure. His daughter Victoria is operating under a chaste, virginal facade, but is a stunning-looking head-turner of a woman. His son finds a shiny woman who accessorizes with a cross necklace to marry.

Both Howard Belsey and Monty Kipps, the family fathers, are involved in art critique, and teach at the college level. They spar publicly over differences in opinion about Rembrandt. Their worlds collide when Jerome Belsey takes a job with Monty Kipps, and becomes enamored with the family. The exposure leaves him hungry for Christianity, and throbbing for Victoria -- whom he intends to ask to marry him in a quaint Jane Austin-meets-technology sort of way. The shit hits the fan, there is some humiliation involved, and Howard extracts his son from the Kipps' world.

Throughout the book, the families become even more entwined when Monty Kipps takes a job at the small liberal arts college where Howard doesn't have tenure. Their wives develop a supersecret friendship, despite and because of their political differences; Victoria Kipps oozes into Howard's art history class and tries to, ahem, befriend the instructor.

Adding to the layers of plot: Howard Belsey is in the doghouse over a three-week fling with a lifelong friend, a creative writing instructor at the university. His daughter Zora uses this info to get into the woman's class; Levi Belsey has taken up with some Haitians and becomes embroiled in the community's political struggles; A street poet named Carl becomes Zora's pet project, and a reason to wear unflatteringly tight clothing. Monty Kipps, meanwhile, has a few shady secrets of his own.

This is such a meaty, layered and satisfying story told from multiple perspectives. There are some flinchingly honest scenes capable of making a reader squirm. When Kiki and Howard finally address his infidelity, Kiki screams at him about sleeping with a woman who is her antithesis: "You married a big black bitch and you run off with a fucking leprechaun?" she cries. As meekly responds: "Well, I married a slim black woman, actually. Not that it's relevant."

Yowch.

And when Howard is damn-near forced to stick it to a young coed, she performs a choreography of grunts and moans and dirty talk, a truly embarrassing show of what she seems to think is sexuality.

Now she began to unbutton his shirt slowly, as if accompanying music were playing, and seemed disappointed not to find a pornographic rug of hair here. she rubbed it conceptually, as if the hair were indeed there, tugging at what little Howard possessed while -- could it be -- purring. ... And then came more of this purring and moaning, although his hands had not yet reached her breasts ...

Zadie Smith is so so good at building a story, forming characters, and developing a mix of honesty, realism and humor. Although this might be to a fault: It is so genuine, that I'm not sure I'll remember this one any better than I remember White Teeth.

“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”


This has to be one of my favourite Zadie Smith's work ever.
I read only two other of her work and I know how hard it was to read her work and understand it.
But On Beauty, I just flew through the book.
It was such a magnificent piece.
When I started this book, I was thinking what was the objection of the book, what am I trying to find out.
Later on I realise, the book is just a story that revolves around the Belseys family.
There is no specific things that I am trying to solve in the story but just reading the life's of each character.
Like again, Zadie Smith's work naturally talks on race, religion, gender, sex, racisms and everything which is just raw and hoenst.
Everything that happens in the character no matter who they are or their beliefs, everyone in the world can relate to.
Because it's honest and its just everyday problems in regards to marriage, education, growing up, teenage angst, sex problems and such.

I like the changes of pov of characters was written naturally and just smoothly without a confusion.
The relationship of each characters was easily seen and you can tell how their relationship was without the need of a definite description.
I feel like the book was a love story on Howard and Kiki. Of course it is also the story of the family which I find so beautiful. I love that at the end of the day, they still are a family no matter what the situation is.
Am i the only one who cried at the last chapter.


“No, Keeks - this is a good thing. It's been hell - I know it has. But I don't want to be without... us. You;re the person I - you're my life, Keeks. You have been and you will be and you are. i don't know how you want me to say it. You're for me - you are me. We've always known that - and there's no way out now anyway. I love you. You're for me.”

The impulse to gush inarticulately about this book is very overwhelming, but to do so simply to get it out of my system is to do it an injustice.

The second impulse I have is to try to revisit my University years and invoke the language of all those fuddy-duddy critical theorists (or, to go easier on my own poor brain, my professors) in order to disect a book about academia. This is much easier to resist, as the more difficult path of the two, though I do want to say right now that, like most of my reviews, this will be rambling, emotion-based, and any attempts to be critical will probably fall short of really getting to the nub of this wonderful book.

There, that's my disclaimer, so don't expect this to help you write an essay on it!

Apparently this is a modern version of E.M. Forster's Howard's End, which I've never read, though I have seen the movie a few times and I found it quite depressing. But a friend did recommend that I read Howard's End first, which I didn't do, and I don't think it's necessary.

On Beauty is about the Belseys and the Kipps and the somewhat run-of-the-mill feuding between the two families. Howard Belsey, a white, British, snobby in a liberal-arts kind of way, academic, married Kiki, an African-American who inherited a gorgeous old house in the better part of a town called Wellington, near Boston. They have three children: Jerome, a born-again Christian; Zora, a stubborn, persistent academic-in-the-making; and Levi, a teenager who pretends to be from the Hood and speaks Gangsta.

The story follows this family, for the most part, over the course of a couple of years as affairs come to light, university politics take over, friendships are formed and broken, and paintings are stolen.

The other family, the Kipps', is ruled over in a totalitarian way by Monty Kipps, another academic, black, British, snobby in a conservative way, with the complete opposite views from liberal-arts Howard. His wife, Carlene, is a kind and gentle soul who believes she lives for love, for her family, and not for herself - she encapsulates all the old-world traditions of what a wife should be and sets the bar very, very high. Their children, Michael and Victoria, are well-bred and attractive. Michael is a familiar character, just like his father and a bit scary too. Victoria is a beauty who deflowers Jerome and later has an affair with Howard (of course, her brother still believes she's a virgin). All the characters have a pretty high opinion about themselves which don't really match their real life existence.

Politics, racial tensions and gender issues play an important part in this book - which is why, apart from the university setting, you feel the expectation to critically analyse it, to match its cleverness, but since it's been a number of years since I've had to do anything of the kind, I'm not going to bother trying. Yes, this book is smarter than me, Zadie Smith is smarter than me, and a better writer - though, to be fair, it's never a good idea to compare writers or writing styles, but it's a persistent human flaw to compare ourselves to others, and does us little good.

Wit, irony and quotable lines abound, and while the characters have been called "unlikeable", the Belseys come off better than the Kipps'. Kiki especially is a lovely character, her large body praised as beautiful, and she too says "I gave up my life for you" to Howard - she is not the opposite of Carlene, but more of a realistic, contemporary version - or not version, that robs her of her self, but you know what I mean. The family dynamics are very believable, not at all depressing, nor black-and-white. No one character is presented as being completely dispicable (except perhaps Monty Kipps), but the Belseys are a complex bunch. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, their infuriating habits and nicer side. Howard, arguably the main character, is given some background - mother dying when he was young, unable to communicate with his father who didn't even want him to go to uni - but its not presented as some kind of excuse for his behaviour. None of them are excusable, they simply are. I think most readers would see similarities between the Belseys and their own families, not in likenesses, but in the sibling fights and moments of closeness and generosity, the natural flow of language, the underlying understandings based on years and years of knowing each other, close contact, prior history.

This is what Zadie Smith has excelled at: presenting humans naturally, realistically, without being in the slightest way boring, forced, pushy or mundane. The dialogue itself is a joy to read, a true triumph at writing how we actually speak without it sounding forced and tiresome. The twists and turns in conversation, the breaks and pauses, the short-cuts, the jumps, they're all there, but presented so well that it reads smoothly. Even Levi's ridiculous "gangsta" speak, and his cringe-worthy conversations with young black men who really are from the poorer areas, and refugees from Haiti, are instead quite beautiful. Levi is a surprisingly strong, sympathetic character, and a book just about him could easily be written. He encapsulates an entire generation, both black and white, of political ignorance and innocence, of a search for a feeling of belonging and identity. It is through this character that international politics - the situation in Haiti and class divisions - is explored, but explored as a character in itself, an aspect of numerous characters. For there isn't a strong sense of world events in this book, of a world outside the two families so hopelessly entangled, but through them you can see a wider world is there, peeked at as most of us do, in little asides and glances, not really dealt with, largely ignored, denied.

Howard, let me go back to Howard, since he is one of the only protagonists in the book. At one point, he remembers how Kiki wants him to put aside his academic-speak and use her personal-speak at home, and how much he hates that. Howard, a delight in mockery, cannot separate the two, and is a true academic. There are countless classic quotes in this book, but one scene was especially typical: they are at the park for a Mozart concert, during which Zora, naturally, has her discman on and is listening to a professor "carefully guide her through the movements". When they get up to leave, she accidentally takes someone else's discman, a young black man called Carl, and their conversation at the gates is superb. There is so much more I could say about this book, but that would take up way too much space.

On the negative side - since I know I'm often blinded to flaws in books I enjoy - I don't really have any comments. The only thing I can think of, and this is pretty is weak, is that while Smith uses British English when talking from the POV of a British character, like Howard, she switches almost seamlessly to Americanised English for the other characters - not just in their dialogue but in the narrative as well - only, sometimes I think she slips here, and the two "languages" get all messed up. That said, perhaps it's deliberate, a metaphor, or a side-effect of the characters being a bit of both. I don't know.

This book, perhaps because its author is British, connected to me. I don't think it could have been written by an American to the same success. Beneath it all, there's something very British about it all. This could be because Howard's voice is the most visited, and some of the other characters seem more like caricatures - a-ha!! have found a possible weakness!! - but the self-deprecating mockery and irony is not something you find in many American texts, if any. It was in A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian as well, and it is prevalent in British TV shows and movies, which I grew up on, thanks to the good ol' ABC, so perhaps that's why I found this book so comfortable and ... familiar, even though it's not my world.

Another possible weakness - wow, I'm really on a roll here! - is that Smith takes on perhaps too much. Although I don't personally think so, and I love the insight into the academic world (academic politics really put me off being a post-grad, not to mention the disappointment I felt at finding out how they turn on each other), it is a bit crowded with issues. For me, On Beauty is like a vivid tapestry that, from the back of the room, is a cognizent whole, but up close the larger picture is taken up with numerous tiny details which would take a lifetime to study and comprehend. As a lover of jigsaw puzzles and, when I was a kid, Where's Wally books, I enjoy this, and I think she made it work. Other people might feel overwhelmed, or pissed-off at the hoity-toity-ness of the characters, who can be pretty infuriating. But their flaws are intrinsic to their nature, and I love that while drama happens, it's not presented in a melodrammatic way - or, as my mum would say, it's not "self-indulgent crap".

And before I get ten different people all recommending her first book, White Teeth, let me quickly say: I have it, I will read it when I get a chance, don't you worry! And to them I will say: Please, read this one too. It's, well, it's simply wonderful, not to mention funny.

Esta ha sido mi última lectura del Black History July – iniciativa de Trotalibros – y tengo que decir que no podría haber encontrado un mejor broche para un mes que me ha resultado muy enriquecedor. Todas las lecturas han sido interesantes y me han acercado a autores que desconocía. Comencé por la estupenda Todo se desmorona de Chinua Achebe de quien pronto leeré las dos siguientes entregas de la trilogía. También leí dos obras de CF escritas por mujeres: Parentesco de Olivia Butler y Binti de Nnedi Okorafor y un noir ambientado en LA en los años 40, El demonio vestido de azul de Walter Mosley. Imprescindible la biografía novelada de Marysé Condé, Corazón que ríe, corazón que llora donde nos hace partícipes de los desgarros culturales que conlleva la colonización. Finalmente Volver a casa de Yaa Gyasi repasa – a través de dos familias – la historia del esclavismo y las cicatrices culturales que ha dejado.

Sobre la belleza también habla de racismo pero amplía el concepto; no es ya una cuestión simple de blancos oprimiendo a los negros sino que Zadie Smith retrata otros tipos de opresión además de la raza: la de clase social y la de género. Es una novela realista, pero al mismo tiempo muy densa y tremendamente intelectual – no en vano los protagonistas son dos profesores de una pequeña universidad de la Costa Este americana. En ellos y sus familias la autora parece encarnar la lucha dialéctica que se da en el mundo occidental entre las ideas socialdemócratas y el nuevo liberalismo económico y social que aboga por la no intervención del Estado y considera que no hay que sobreproteger a las minorías. Esta contraposición no va ligada necesariamente a la raza: en la novela el ultraconservador doctor Kipps es de raza negra, mientras que su némesis académica y abanderado de la discriminación positiva, el doctor Belsey, es blanco.

Creo que es ante todo una reflexión política, aunque lo que seguimos es el día a día – magníficamente relatado – de dos familias, lleno de anécdotas y subtramas aparentemente intrascendentes, que van tejiendo un retrato muy completo de un entorno concreto pero que se puede aplicar a cualquiera de nuestras sociedades multiculturales en la actualidad.

Zadie Smith pone en boca de sus personajes frases polémicas como la siguiente:

Al parecer todo el mundo tiene un trato especial: los negros, los gays, los liberales, las mujeres… todos menos los pobres hombres blancos.

Hay que ir con cuidado con el término ‘liberal’, ya que en USA equivale a nuestro ‘progresista’, mientras que en Europa representa la política contraria a la socialdemocracia.

También la juventud y la belleza están presentes en todo momento como factores que impulsan las relaciones – a menudo los choques – entre los diversos actores:

Es verdad que los hombres… son sensibles a la belleza… es una constante en ellos, este… interés por la belleza como realidad física en el mundo… y eso es algo que los condiciona e infantiliza… pero es la realidad…

Esta belleza, a la que aspira la creación artística pero que también puede destruir una familia o crear vínculos de amor y amistad, la autora a menudo la presenta asociada al concepto de raza:

Levi tenía la idea, que nunca expresaría en voz alta y que desde luego era una insensatez, la idea de que, en cierto modo, Félix era como la esencia de la negritud. Al mirarlo pensabas: ‘Ahí está toda la diferencia; eso es lo que los blancos temen y adoran y desean y temen.’

El papel de la belleza en la civilización occidental y en el concepto de racismo se encarna en las posturas antagónicas de los doctores Belsey y Kipps, ambos especialistas en Rubens, un pintor que define y fija los valores estéticos de la raza blanca. El primero considera que la belleza en el arte no es más que una máscara del poder y la opresión, mientras que el segundo reverencia a un pintor que conforma el canon estético de occidente.

El racismo y la marginación van también ligados a factores de clase social. Vemos como Levi, hijo de un profesor blanco y una madre activista afroamericana, al acercarse a los inmigrantes haitianos es consciente de su grado de marginación:

Prueba a ir por la calle con quince haitianos si quieres ver incómoda a la gente. Se sentía un poco como Jesús dando un paseo con los leprosos.

Zadie Smith va más allá del color de la piel para hablar de racismo; en su ambicioso análisis de las capas sociales retrata situaciones muy variadas y nos confronta con la alternativa de nuestro tiempo: protección de los débiles o la ley del más fuerte. Pero el gran mérito de la novela es que, tratando temas tan transcendentales, no abandona nunca el sentido del humor y una mirada benévola sobre los personajes que nos los hace muy próximos.

En fin, es una lectura tan rica y divertida que no aspiro a resumirla en estas pocas líneas; Zadie es una autora de gran talento que merece la pena conocer, pero ciertamente no es aconsejable para quien esté buscando algo ligerito y poco intelectual.

(3 From 1001 Books) - On Beauty, Zadie Smith

On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on Howards End by E.M. Forster.

On Beauty centers on the story of two families and their different yet increasingly intertwined lives. The Belsey family, consists of university professor Howard, a white Englishman; his African-American wife Kiki; and their children, Jerome, Zora and Levi.

They live in the fictional university town of Wellington, outside Boston. Howard's professional nemesis is Monty Kipps, a Trinidadian living in Britain with his wife Carlene and children Victoria and Michael.

The Belsey family has always defined itself as liberal and atheist, and Howard in particular is furious when his son Jerome, lately a born-again Christian, goes to work as an intern with the ultra-conservative Christian Kipps family over his summer holidays.

After a failed affair with Victoria Kipps, Jerome returns home. However, the families are again brought closer nine months later when the Kippses move to Wellington, and Monty begins work at the university.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و سوم ماه جولای سال 2007میلادی

عنوان: درباره ی زیبایی (از زیبایی)؛ نویسنده: زادی اسمیت؛

رمان «درباره زیبایی (از زیبایی)» اثر «زادی اسمیت» است، که سال 2005میلادی منتشر، و با تحسین منتقدان روبرو شد؛ از این کتاب فیلمی سینمایی نیز اقتباس، و ساخته شده‌ است؛ داستان، زندگی یک خانواده ی دو نژاده ی «امریکایی-بریتانیایی» را روایت میکند، که در «ایالات متحده ی امریکا»، زندگی میکنند.؛ درونمایه ی داستان، به «نژاد پرستی»، «سیاهپوستان امریکا و بریتانیا»، «ماهیت زیبایی»، «تضاد میان ارزشهای مدرن و سنتی»، و «انزوا در جامعه ی دانشگاهی»، میپردازد

چکیده داستان: «از زیبایی» داستان ِ دو خانواده ی «بلسی»، شامل «هاوارد (پروفسور انگلیسی سفید پوست)»، همسر ا«فریقایی-امریکایی» ایشان، «کیکی»، و فرزندانشان «جروم»، «زورا» و «لِوی»، که در شهرک دانشگاهی «ولینگتون»، خارج از «بوستون» روزگار میگذرانند؛

دشمن اصلی «هاوارد»، «مانتی کیپس»، بومی جزیره ی «کارائیب» است، که اکنون در «بریتانیا»، به همراه همسرش «کارلن»، و دو فرزندشان «ویکتوریا»، و «مایکل» به سر میبرند؛

خانواده ی «بلسی» در سراسر داستان، رفتاری روشنفکرانه دارند، به ویژه زمانیکه «هاوارد»، از رفتار پسرش «جروم»، خشمگین میشود، که او تازه، به مسیحیت روی آورده، و به عنوان «انترن (کارورز)»، همه ی تعطیلات تابستانش را، به همراه خانواده ی «کیپس»، که مسیحی بیش از حد و پیرو سنت هستند، سر کار میرود.؛ اما پس از شکست عشقی، که «جروم» با «ویکتوریا کیپس» داشت، به خانه بازمیگردد.؛

با این وجود، این دو خانواده، دوباره پس از نه ماه، باز هم باهم روبرو میشوند، درست زمانیکه، خانواده ی «کیپس» به «ولینگتون» میآیند، و «مانتی»، در دانشگاه آغاز به کار میکند.؛ «کارلن» و «کیکی»، علیرغم مخالفتهای خانوادگی، با هم دوست میشوند.؛ رقابت میان «مانتی» و «هاوارد»، تا جایی پیش میرود، که «مانتی» به مبارزه علیه نظرات روشنفکرانه، دست میزند، و مبارزه را تحت عنوان «فعالیت مثبت» معرفی میکند.؛

در کل، دیدگاه این دو خانواده، به همراه ارزشها و ایده های ناهماهنگشان، به آهستگی به هم پیوند میخورد.؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 25/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

‘On Beauty’ explores the lives of the Belsey family-the father Howard, a self-absorbed and somewhat unlikeable academic, his long-suffering African-American wife Kiki and their three children; Jerome, Zora and Levi. All of the characters are struggling beneath the weight of expectations which society places on them-in fact, Smith is able to brilliantly explore dynamics of race and gender in modern day America without resorting to clichéd or hackneyed characters. In fact, it is Smith’s ability to create well-rounded characters is her greatest strength as a novelist, as she is able to expertly draw you into the world her characters inhabit.

The relationship between Howard and Kiki forms the crux of the novel-in many ways their relationships sum up the roles and expectation of men and women within modern, Western patriarchal culture. Howard, who lurches from one infidelity to another, rarely thinks about how is infidelities affect Kiki, but instead is more concerned with how they affect himself-will Kiki stop loving him? Why don’t Kiki forgive him? Or, as in the case of both Howard and his friend, Eskrine, the blame is pushed onto the woman: it is the fault of their wives that they are not beautiful or lascivious enough, hence them pursuing affairs with other women-if only their wives were more beautiful or interesting then they would not need to have an affair-even outside individuals, such as Howard’s children, seek to blame their mother for being highly-strung or of over-reacting over the affair-after all their father is a man and this is what men are supposed to do. In contrast to the emotional immaturity of most of the male characters, the female characters, such as Kiki or Carlene Kipps, display an emotionally maturity and the ability to put the needs of others ahead of themselves which most of the other characters lack-in fact, the three emotionally strongest characters in the novel are probably the three black, female characters, Kiki, Charlene and Victoria Kipps, all three are Black women trapped within the myriad of prejudices and expectations which society expects or demands from them yet all, with varying degrees of success, are overcome and triumph over these expectations. In many ways Kiki reminds me of Mrs Dalloway- a selfless but emotionally unfulfilled woman who is haunted at having to give up every single part of herself to other people and like Mrs Dalloway, Kiki is sexually curious about other women. Smith explores the burdens attached to the labels society imposes on women- ‘mother’, ‘wife’ or as in the case of Kiki, Charlene and Victoria ‘black woman’ and how difficult it can be for women to overcome these labels-although none of the characters ever wholly overcome them any small triumphs they achieve are commendable.

The novel also explores race in modern American society. All three Belsey children are mixed-race and struggle to assimilate between ‘White’ and ‘Black’ cultures. The eldest, Jerome, briefly falls under the spell of Monty Kipps, the villain of the story, an ultra-conservative Black academic who displays a vitriolic self-hatred of minorities and liberal programmes such as affirmative action. For Monty there is no bias or prejudice against minorities in modern society and if there any it is the fault of minorities in being unable to assimilate to White, Western culture. Monty represents the self-hatred which individuals from ethnic minorities are expected to display towards their own cultures and to themselves in order to suceed within academic or other privileged Western circles-unless you actively deny your own culture and sense of ethnicity, you will never be truly accepted within certain circles of Western society. Zora, meanwhile, is slightly more successful in assimilating, although her sense of self-hatred is as complete as Monty Kipps’s it is more subtle and insidious and subtle, but is displayed in her disparagement of anything which represents African-American culture against the parochial views of American academia. Indeed, Smith brilliantly explores the narrow-minded and insular nature of American academia, in which academics who often come from privileged, White backgrounds actively segregate themselves via individuals from different background via their use of esoteric, academic language and ideas, which have little to no practical value outside of universities. Levi, on the other hand, is the one who sincerely develops a sense of black consciousness-although on the one hand his attempts to come across as ‘street’ or ‘ghetto’ or faintly ridiculous given his middle-class upbringing, his character is a reflection of the fact that society sees him as a black man (and all the baggage which goes along with this) first and foremost, irrespective of his upbringing and so he actively seeks to act within the narrow confines which society imposes on him. Yet, unlike his siblings, he is unwilling to act contemptuously towards Black culture and so he exists on the periphery of society.

The novel also contains a wonderful series of side characters-from the spoken word poet Carl, who for Zora and Levi represents an authentic experience of Black American culture, to the eccentric yet wonderful poetess Claire, in many ways it is the secondary characters who provide the real depth to ‘On Beauty’. My main gripe with the novel is the somewhat hackneyed, Dickensian conclusion to the plot point surrounding the missing painting-I feel such contrived scenarios are beneath a novelist as talented as Zadie Smith and represents a small blip on an otherwise brilliant nov

“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”

Officially a Zadie Smith fan. (And in the context of this novel, a Kiki fan too)

Oh, how I savored this book. I only read a few pages at a time. It was like a flour-less chocolate cake - too rich to have more than a few bites at a time.
It kept me on my toes. I was never sure which characters I liked and who I was rooting for, because they were all so beautifully flawed. I felt embarrassed of them, I rolled my eyes at them, and then I wanted only good things for them - because they were all so very real.
I loved this book. I'm sad it's over.

52 Weeks of Women of Color
Bailey's/Orange Women's Prize Project

n  "Beauty is one of the ways in which you might understand justice. Beauty allows you to see fairness. Beauty brings your attention close to a subject that is not you." Zadie Smith on Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Justn

This critically acclaimed novel deals with racism, classism, the patriarchy and elitism in academia. Loosely based on Howards End, On Beauty pays homage to one of Smith's favorite authors, E. M. Forster. Although there are parallels between the two novels, Smith's aim was more so to emulate Forster's style of writing. In an interview with Thalia Book Club, Smith said that what she admired most about Forster was how he did not pick sides in an argument. In On Beauty the opposite sides of the coin are represented by the Kipps and Belsey families.

Monty Kipps and Howard Belsey are arch nemeses. Revered in their field, their rivalry is protracted and well known. The Kipps are an affluent West Indian family living in Britain. They are deeply religious. Their political viewpoints are ultra-conservative and right wing. The Belseys are an interracial couple who are left leaning and decidedly atheist. Howard comes from a fairly modest background. He knows what it means to go without. A "pull yourself up from the bootstraps" type of guy, he is the first in his family to get a college degree.

Smith is very descriptive in painting well developed pictures of this dichotomy. And yes, she manages to remain impartial, exposing both sides as morally flawed.

Although Smith incorporates the aesthetic as a measure of beauty with cultural references to music, art and the physical form, her emphasis is on character. The world that she paints is not black and white but a kaleidoscope of colors.


Maitresse Erzulie by Hector Hyppolite

One painting mentioned in the novel that spoke to me was that of the Maitresse Erzulie. The Haitian spirit of beauty, Erzulie may take the form of a woman or a man. Their character is a two-edged sword. On one hand they are representative of love, goodwill and fortune. On the other they bring about jealousy, vengeance and discord. The warning here is clear: we cannot be so binary in our thinking. The world is not a collection of opposites but is populated by people who are both good and evil. Our focus therefore should not be on harboring grudges based off of our differences, but be on cultivating that goodness that is within each of us.