Book 'Em (Or "On On Beauty")

The book to which I've been attached at the hip for the last week has really been my Criminal Procedure text (whence comes the title of this post). But somehow in the meantime I managed to complete On Beauty, the latest addition to the oeuvre of Zadie Smith, literary darling of the NPR set.

Forgive the following "review...," it's only an off-the-cuff response of a pseudo-intellectual who misses college reader, and probably doesn't make much sense to anyone else. But in case you're interested, here are some trying-not-to-spoil-but-not-guaranteeing-anything thoughts:

As I told Ms. Joy Olivia when she asked, On Beauty was somewhere between okay and pretty good. What most people loved about White Teeth was Smith's extraordinary fluency with and insight into the families and communities it portrayed. I found that fluency not altogether missing in this book, but diminished.

Partly this flaw can be attributed to the fact that the Belseys, the family at the center of the story, are Americans (despite their British, er, patriarch). For one thing, if Smith were going for her characters sounding "American," she should have had an American editor pick out the British-isms from their dialogue. But there may be a more significant gap there than that. I hesitate to write much about Smith's characterization of race and "blackness" in America, since it's complicated, especially in the context of all the other "authenticity"-centered themes running through the Belsey family, and anyway I would not be the best authority - but there still seemed to me something off about it. I should say more to be fair, but this one needs more thinking through.

Still, Smith's other political themes were developed enough to make it a worthwhile read. The novel capably evokes the particular strain of political liberalism and postmodern relativism that Howard Belsey represents. This portrayal is intelligent and effective when seen through the very interesting character of Howard rather than his predictable arguments, both academic and political. The end of the novel (without giving anything away, I think) kind of bludgeons you with the question at the center of Howard: how can you achieve anything if you're against everything?

That question is posed, ultimately, by the character of Howard's wife Kiki. Kiki is interesting and likeable; she is the novel's (personal and political) protagonist. You like her because her character contains so many open questions, and her struggles with them seem really genuine in comparison to the artifice of the academic world around her. Again, not subtle.

The lack of nuance in the pairing of Kiki and Howard suggests On Beauty as a kind of parable about liberalism's path out of the 60s, of its unsuccessful "marriage" of moral relativism / "anti-"ness and its genuine desire to make the world a better place. But the way Kiki and Howard's marriage captures this intersection is complex and provocative. Kiki may "represent" X and Howard Y, but their relationship is much more deep and tangled than that. Their marriage is what elevates the book above parable, I thought, and makes it worth picking up.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Anyway, enough mental masturbation. In other book news, I just ordered Persepolis 2 and Folk Socks by Nancy Bush. Norwegian Stockings here I come!

Posted by jess at November 8, 2005 12:18 PM