Zadie Smith: On beauty (2005, Penguin Books)
445 pages
English language
Published Jan. 5, 2005 by Penguin Books.
"Howard Belsey is an Englishman abroad, an academic teaching in Wellington, a college town in New England. Married young, thirty years later he is struggling to revive his love for his African American wife Kiki. Meanwhile, his three teenage children - Jerome, Zora and Levi - are each seeking the passions, ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives." "After Howard has a disastrous affair with a colleague, his sensitive older son, Jerome, escapes to England for the holidays. In London he defies everything the Belseys represent when he goes to work for Trinidadian right-wing academic and pundit, Monty Kipps. Taken in by the Kipps family for the summer, Jerome falls for Monty's beautiful, capricious daughter, Victoria." "But this short-lived romance has long-lasting consequences, drawing these very different families into each other's lives. As Kiki develops a friendship with Mrs. Kipps, and Howard and Monty do battle …
"Howard Belsey is an Englishman abroad, an academic teaching in Wellington, a college town in New England. Married young, thirty years later he is struggling to revive his love for his African American wife Kiki. Meanwhile, his three teenage children - Jerome, Zora and Levi - are each seeking the passions, ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives." "After Howard has a disastrous affair with a colleague, his sensitive older son, Jerome, escapes to England for the holidays. In London he defies everything the Belseys represent when he goes to work for Trinidadian right-wing academic and pundit, Monty Kipps. Taken in by the Kipps family for the summer, Jerome falls for Monty's beautiful, capricious daughter, Victoria." "But this short-lived romance has long-lasting consequences, drawing these very different families into each other's lives. As Kiki develops a friendship with Mrs. Kipps, and Howard and Monty do battle on different sides of the culture war, hot-headed Zora brings a handsome young man from the Boston streets into their midst whom she is determined to draw into the fold of the black middle class - but at what price?"--BOOK JACKET
Two hostile professors and their families become entangled in a web of fatal love affairs. The themes of racism and social inequality, especially in the university environment, are closely interwoven with the story. The novel is gripping and sometimes very funny, although it is really a family drama. A definite recommendation, although I found 'White Teeth' slightly better.
I really enjoyed this book. I read it faster than I'd been reading other books lately. I didn't find the book hilariously funny, as the cover suggests. It is an excellent read.
This story is saved by the far superior second half. Not as engrossing as NW, which I loved deeply, but proof enough that Smith is a master craftsman of personality and metaphor. Race, culture, privilege through comedy and farce. Slow in parts but worth working through.
Interesting characters, thrown together to interact in interesting ways. A thoughtful book, concerning itself more with class than with race. And above all, with beauty.
Time and again in this novel, the characters are overcome with the beauty of music, of art, of language, and, yes, of the human form.
I was enjoying the book, just reading along and minding my own business, when I suddenly slipped down a rabbit hole and found myself inside of [book: Howard's End]. Then I re-read the first couple of chapters and belatedly realized that that's where I'd been through the entire book. It was actually a bit distracting, because for the second half of the book I kept watching for [book: Howard's End] to resurface.
I have a quibble about the language. It seems as if she was trying for American, and didn't quite make it. So the book ended up as a …
Interesting characters, thrown together to interact in interesting ways. A thoughtful book, concerning itself more with class than with race. And above all, with beauty.
Time and again in this novel, the characters are overcome with the beauty of music, of art, of language, and, yes, of the human form.
I was enjoying the book, just reading along and minding my own business, when I suddenly slipped down a rabbit hole and found myself inside of [book: Howard's End]. Then I re-read the first couple of chapters and belatedly realized that that's where I'd been through the entire book. It was actually a bit distracting, because for the second half of the book I kept watching for [book: Howard's End] to resurface.
I have a quibble about the language. It seems as if she was trying for American, and didn't quite make it. So the book ended up as a British/American hybrid. Thus you have Howard searching out a bathroom in England, while in the States announcements come out over a tannoy.
