While I did not absolutely hate this book, I really disliked it from the beginning and kept reading in hopes it would redeem itself. Alas, it did not. In fact, there really isn't many redeeming qualities in the story or the characters whatsoever. The book was written with some style, but as far as the storyline and the characters go, the book should have been called On Destruction...which is, as it seems to me to be, where every character was bent on going in their own oblivion. I did not have any sympathy for or empathy with any of them and that I think is a huge fault in the development. Furthermore, the colloquialisms in some of the dialogues were off; the scenes as well as the characters fell a little flat.

Don't believe the hype: this book is neither clever nor funny.

Either my expectations have gotten higher, or Zadie Smith has gotten worse. I'm going to say it's a combination of the two. My local library has so few books that I decided to give this a try, finally. I read two-thirds of it and I'm not sure how I even got that far. There is at least one italicized word, em dash, and ellipsis on every page, if not more. That's what makes the dialogue so awful. While I was reading it I kept thinking, "Is this how Americans speak?" which eventually became "Is this how anyone speaks?"

I haven't read Howard's End, so I don't care that this book is supposed to be a homage to it. I just want to be entertained and enlightened. This book did neither. There is no plot. Or, should I say, there is nothing particularly interesting about this plot or these characters. They're all lame East Coast and/or British snobs. I'm more street than Levi will ever be, and I'm a nerdy architecture student. I normally enjoy stories that take place on or near college campuses. This was an exception. It's as if Smith sucked out all the most boring, trite details of university life and distilled them into the characters of Howard (loser British art history prof who thinks he's "liberal," whatever that means), Zora (a type-A+ who takes everything, especially a poetry writing workshop rejection, way too seriously), and Claire (a pretentious artsy-fart with no common sense, or any sense, for that matter). And then there's Carl, who is supposed to be "street," who also happens to be gorgeous, friendly, AND such an amazing rapper (who uses words like "Klingon") that Claire snaps him up into her poetry class, just like that. And then! Some people meet some other people! How profound. I came in expecting to read about an intense intellectual battle between Howard and Monty and all I get is this meandering tripe. It felt like decades passed within the book AND within my own world while I was reading this. And I only got to page 270 or so.

What's funny is that just before I read this, I read an article by Clive Cussler in Writer Magazine about how to "make your story fly." He advised against too much description, particularly character description, and said that readers don't need to know details about the bends in someone's eyelashes. He also said that one of his pet peeves was when authors have their characters speak in French (etc.) without providing a translation. And, lo and behold, both of these travesties appear in On Beauty! I can't tell you how many eyelashes were described, but way too many. And God. I do not need to know the race of every single character. It doesn't matter that the author herself is biracial--racial markers for the sake of showing how "multiculti" and "exotic" (or, conversely, how not so exotic) these people are is still annoying. And unnecessary, as this book has nothing new to say on the topic of race.

As disappointed as I was with White Teeth, I'd recommend it over this. Highly. Its first half was so promising and wonderful that I still wanted to read more of Smith's work even after the awful second half. That's what led me here. This book actually reminds me of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections in that it also features an ensemble cast of snobbish SOBs, but Franzen's writing was both crueler and more exciting. I couldn't finish that book because it made me feel homicidal. I don't hate the characters in On Beauty nearly as much, but only because they're so devoid of unique and engaging characteristics that it would be a great waste of energy to devote any thought to hating them, just as it was a great waste of energy to even read two-thirds of this book. If this is supposed to be the best of contemporary literature, then I can almost see why people nowadays don't read.

Dopo aver letto l'esordio dell'autrice, Denti bianchi (considerato il suo capolavoro), che mi era piaciuto ma non mi aveva conquistato del tutto, ho approcciato la lettura di questo romanzo con aspettative non troppo alte ed invece mi ha spiazzato completamente.
Un romanzo familiare che segue le vicende di due famiglie dalle ideologie opposte le cui strade si intrecciano, dando vita ad un mix esplosivo.
La prosa della Smith è ovviamente più limata in questo romanzo rispetto alla sua opera prima, così come più maturo e consapevole è il modo in cui l'autrice si destreggia tra i vari momenti della storia, gestendoli alla perfezione.
Le varie vicende vengono poi narrate sempre con quella sottile ironia che l'autrice usa in modo intelligente, non scadendo mai nella caricatura anche nelle situazioni più buffe e divertenti.
Tra le letture preferite di quest'anno.

This book is narcissistic on some level. A study of a family on a New England college campus, a literary, academic father with variously disinterested children and a wife and lovers. Literary people writing about their own kind has the potential to be self-indulgent, but I don't really find this book so. Or if it is, it only makes the characters more real.

I think for reading this book it is helpful to have read "Howard's End," or even just see the movie. I think the satire is much more funny when you see where she's worked from and how perverse she really is. It's actually rather wicked. I love it.

This book only gets three stars from me because I found the jumping around from character to character rather stilted and odd and not connected enough for me. I didn't think the composition was very even either. She would wax rhapsodic, beautifully, on a subject, and then go off on a completely different style that I don't think was appropriate to follow it, or jarring. It threw me out of the story to get my bearings several times. I find this a problem because it took me a little longer to get interested in the characters, and throwing me away from them is really not the thing to do. I think this book needed to decide if it was a tragic character study or a satire. I don't think that Zadie Smith, as talented as she is, was able to do both effectively here.

Llama la atención el tono desenfadado de la novela, el aire de comedia que tienen las grandes y pequeñas tragedias que sacuden a sus personajes, y, aunque uno es consciente de la lucidez que la autora demuestra en cada escena, en cada diálogo, en cada comentario, quizás sea esta la razón de que uno termine preguntándose si la novela es en verdad tan brillante como le ha parecido, si no hubiera sido mejor concentrar las balas sobre muchos menos objetivos. De cualquier forma, lo que es innegable es que la literatura de Zadie es un río que fluye rápido, caudaloso y sonoro que te engancha desde el principio y ya no te suelta hasta el final.

La autora retrata aquí la situación que viven dos familias conectadas por la enemistad y rivalidad entre los dos maridos, profesores universitarios ideológicamente enfrentados y muy vulnerables a las crisis que se suelen producir a cierta edad, esa edad en la que los bríos sexuales de la juventud aún resisten el paso de ese tiempo que empieza ya a celebrar sus victorias sobre nuestro cuerpo y nuestra mente. Un estado que se ve complicado con un mal que suele afectar de modo especial al sector masculino con el agravante de pertenencia al mundo académico: la vanidad, la necesidad constante de admiración, de nuevos admiradores y, sobre todo, admiradoras, que les lleva a distorsionar la perspectiva que tienen de lo que poseen en sus vidas y de lo que realmente importa.

Junto, delante y detrás de estas batallas docentes, con las que la autora se muestra implacable, de los lances matrimoniales y de la siempre problemática relación con los hijos, que sobrellevan como pueden sus etapas de maduración, en la novela se dispara con distinto grado de puntería sobre una amplia lista de conflictos - raciales, culturales, económicos, de género…- abundando los comentarios más o menos ácidos sobre lo que los miembros de cada estamento piensan sobre los miembros de cualquier otro, y, aunque no caben dudas sobre cuáles son sus preferencias, la autora reparte bien los golpes.

Por supuesto, la obra es además una novela sobre la belleza, sobre las distintas formas de verla, de encontrarla en objetos y personas, también sobre la esclavitud que supone rendirle culto, que es casi siempre una esclavitud al deseo ajeno.

n   “Seguirían siendo objetos de deseo en vez de sujetos que deseaban... Aun se mataban de hambre, aún leían revistas femeninas que explícitamente odiaban a las mujeres, aún se hacían cortes con pequeñas cuchillas en sitios que no se veían, o eso creían ellas, aun fingían orgasmos con hombres que les desagradaban, aún mentían a todo el mundo acerca de todo.” n

This is a book full of unbeautiful people: obnoxious teenagers, philandering academics, stuffy professors, right-on street rappers, wispy rich kids and more obnoxious teenagers. Zadie takes a scalpel to Anglo-American academic relations, probing away at the race/class issues with her usual mordant unflinching cruelty and compassion. She plants a series of depth charges in the lives of her wibbling characters, watching them each explode in turn into quivering heaps of gloopy suet. As ever, the ride is a scream.

I find myself liking Zadie Smith more and more. The blurb about this wasn’t immediately promising; another novel about a middle-aged academic having an affair resulting in a family and personal crisis. However, there is much more going on. Smith herself has acknowledged that it is an Homage to Howard’s End. The author creates a multitude of voices, all interesting in their own right. It is set in a fictional American university town, Wellington (a thinly disguised Harvard).
The novel revolves around the Belsey family; Howard, the white male academic described earlier, his African-American wife Kiki and their three children, Zora, Levi and Jerome. Howard is a left wing (ish) liberal and he has an academic rival, Monty Kipps, a Trinidadian who is rather right wing (whilst writing this I am suddenly reminded of Naipaul who is Trinidadian and was a fan of Thatcher; but the resemblance ends there). Monty’s wife Carlene and Kiki become friends and the two families become entwined in a number of ways. The Belsey children are really well drawn. Smith captures the right level of warmth, hope, youthful verve and irritatingness for three teenage children.
There is a warmth and humanity to all the characters, even Howard and Monty, both hypocrites. The university and academia types are brilliant and capture the machinations of academic life; thankfully there isn’t too much of them and usually the children take centre stage. Smith satirises everyone on all sides of the cultural divides we all inhabit; but without losing the warmth mentioned above. The politics of race and gender are handled here with great humour and Smith maintains a serious moral compass and shows the importance of connections in human relationships. There are some genuinely funny moments; Howard’s reaction to the glee club and his relating of it to his wife for example. There are also moments of great perception; Howard simply does not seem to understand the reactions to his infidelity. As for the second infidelity; it is breath-taking in its timing and inappropriateness. His family around him understand him all too well and let him know.
This is a good comic novel, which has great humanity and is a seriously good read.

I should start by saying I think Zadie Smith is a gifted writer. I was first introduced to her writing in college when I read "White Teeth" for an African-American Lit class. I identified deeply with the characters being first-generation Jamaican-American myself and thought she articulated the first-gen experience and the tension between immigrant parents and their children brilliantly.

One thing I've come to terms with her writing is that she is verbose. She can write a 400+ page novel that has a ton of good content but it gets clouded by about 100 pages of text that is unnecessary. This is where I struggle with Smith's work, and On Beauty was no different. I identified with this novel for different reasons: the life of an academic. Though Howie being an academic was not a central piece to the novel (IMO the family aspect was much more prominent) I could identify with some of the ridiculousness that academics engage with. There are some other endearing themes in the novel that prompts me to rate this with three stars instead of four. The relationship between Zora, Levi, and Jerome is undeniably compelling (and another part I appreciated, being the youngest of four siblings, people I have very rich relationships with). As individuals, however, I'm not sure I really felt like I knew them as people. There was a lot of space given for Levi throughout the novel, and because of this, his character was the most nuanced. Zora, though interesting in her own right, needed more time. Her storyline felt disjointed and bumpy, with parts of her story having a consistent thread throughout the novel and other parts being dropped halfway through. I would have liked to learn more about Jerome's character but the little I did know about him from the story made me feel for him as the oldest sibling.

Overall, this novel was a struggle for me to read. I picked it up and left it alone for about three weeks, then finished it in a matter of two days simply because I was waiting to get to the point. Not sure I ever did.

"On Beauty" is a bit tough to summarize. Zadie Smith got very ambitious with this book and threw a lot of stuff in there: academia, race, gender, class, privilege, cultural identity, religion, sex, coming-of-age; and then hung everything on an elegant E.M. Forster frame. Smith's prose is beautiful, and reads smoothly: I breezed through the book in a couple of days. She has that light British humor that never fails to make me smile and a good dose of compassion as well. The Belseys and the Kippses are all completely flawed but you can't hate them, you can only feel for them. Messy characters who struggle with their humanity are tricky to write, and Smith does a wonderful job of fleshing them out realistically.

The rivalry between the two families of academics and their petty resentment and hypocritical behavior is nothing new: the amount of books written about middle-aged university professors having affairs probably can't be counted anymore. It becomes eventually obvious that "On Beauty" is quite aware that a middle-ages professor sleeping with a nubile student is a complete cliché. But that is not really the point of Smith's story; it's just a set-up to get the readers to look more closely at the way people react to their environment.

The very obvious homage to "Howards End" (a book I personally love to bits) works extremely well. "Howards End" is all about class criticism, the opposition of the intellectuals vs. the empty-headed but wealthy upper-crust. The capacity for empathy is crucial to "Howards End", and it obviously is the corner stone of "On Beauty" as well. It brings similar concerns into a completely contemporary light, illustrates how hard a time people have looking past the boundaries they set between themselves and other people. Many things have changed since the 1900's, but the challenges of forming real human connections obviously remains a complex problem.

Smith is an incredibly intelligent and talented writer and I will be reading her other books! 4 and a half stars.

This was a slow read for me. I'm not actually a particularly cerebral person, so I got bogged down in the parts about academic life. But I enjoyed the people in the story. A lot of them were supremely unlikable, but as was once pointed out to me, you don't necessarily want everyone in your fiction to be likable. Kiki is the character who resonated the most with me. I'll definitely read more by Zadie Smith.

I hated this book at the beginning. Good God, I thought, do I really need to read this annoying drivel for another 400 pages? And I prematurely assigned it 2 faded stars in my head.

But it drew me in. Zadie Smith picks out bits of human interactions, what goes on in our minds, out of our mouths, that give me pause. Her approach to race is multi-faceted (how boring, how tired a word, I can hear Zora saying) and should make you feel uncomfortable. I still think the novel is flawed in many ways. The number of times characters would bump into each other in a large city is downright ridiculous. In my entire life, I have bumped into one of my brothers downtown exactly twice, over the course of years of haunting the same neighbourhoods, and the rest of my family never. And if liberal arts colleges really are this intellectually uppity, then boy am I glad that I never knew that world. Still, I have to hand it to Zadie for keeping me entertained to the end, and not being afraid to blow apart the myth of a monolithic African-American experience. Cringe-worthy is a compliment here.

I wish I could have liked it - it's so immensely readable. But it's also so incredibly constructed; none of the characters felt like more than a mouthpiece for what the author wanted to say. The things is: I agree with what she wants to say, I find it interesting. I also love the books where you can see the backbones, the structure, where the double layer of story and story construction is an essential part of the reading experience (see Christa Wolf, see Milan Kundera). But here it never felt to me like this was an intended metatextual layer. And Chekhov's gun after Chekhov's gun, all clearly visible, until it became boring: of course she found out about the painting. Of course the power point mattered in the end.
(Another problem of this book - but this one is very much of my personal taste - is that so much of it is about miscommunication or lack of communication. Yes, yes, it happens in real life. But I am bored when this is all that a book is driven by. It's very nicely written miscommunication between very different people in very different situations, see the original remark on the book being very readable, but it just bores me to death.)