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What are readers saying about On Beauty?
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Linda posted a review at 2010-01-07 11:34:10.
(Language: English)
  
The ladies of my book club loved On Beauty and were amazed that the author who was born in 1975 was so able to get into the minds of characters in their 50s. She sets up two academic families, one in England and one in Massachusetts. The English family is black and conservative while the American one is mixed race and liberal. There is professional competition and hard feelings between the two patriarchs; and when the English professor comes to teach at his competitor's college, the men take opposing stands with regard to academic politics. In the small town environment their families also develop interesting relationships.The juxtaposition of liberal and conservative attitudes is interesting and I kept watching to see which the author was going to prefer. However, she revealed no bias and showed both liberals and conservatives as a mix of good and bad traits with a touch of hypocrisy and a little infidelity here and there. Good novel. 
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-05-24 06:13:29.
(Language: English)
Zadie Smith's 'On Beauty' is particularly funny if you find yourself wanting to throw precise, well-timed, and totally deserved barbs at academia. Furthermore, as in Smith's previous novels, there is an awful lot sad about an awful lot of events and social trends.Furthermore, the characters are all lovable, even though one of them may be the most disgusting character I have encountered since reading 'Lolita.'As in Smith's previous work, there is a somewhat damaging disconnect between actual knowledge given of characters and what the text would suggest the speaker knows. This can be a little trying and borders on obnoxious when a book is this long.The book will make you laugh, in a good intelligent way. And it will make you think.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-08-08 04:10:03.
(Language: English)
In my opinion this book is the strongest of her three novels - to date. It's humorous but a little more serious than White Teeth and her take on intergenerational issues of romance and ethnicity, class, culture and history is truly magnificent. Quirky and heart-warming - in less than a paragraph Smith brings every issue to a beautiful close, with grace and poise. I closed this book with a smile and wanted to read it all over again. There has definitely been a maturity that has developed with this book that was somewhat missing in White Teeth and Autograph Man - though each book is as delightful, and accurate as the one that preceded it. I think though that with this book Smith has begun to find her feet, and is beginning to recognize where she stands on the common themes that are interwoven in all of her stories.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-06-18 08:16:53.
(Language: English)
for x-mas, my bosses bought me a book by zadie smith called on beauty. i read it in two days. here i present not so much a review as a series of observations. reading this book is like spying on a real family. when i write, i know that my characters never quite lose their character-ness. they are a little false. smith's characters are authentic and possible. on beauty is presented more as a series of moments than a narrative. i can't decide whether the ending (if it can be called that) is dissapointingly vague or whether it is an obvious continuation of the realism found in the book. real life does not follow a comfortable literary flow. this is a book without heroes. i like that about it. if characters decide the quality of a book for you, i recommend it highly.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-08-25 02:52:15.
(Language: English)
ok... i was with this book for over 3 months now, finally approaching the end... 30 more pages to go, and this is not really abt the book, just something while i was (am) reading it... i was gonna gave up so many times in the beginning... for start, i was not really reading it at all... i was soaking in the "togetherness" with another nerdy nerdy slow reader... and then that dude went "missing"... i put this book aside for awhile. then i picked it up again right before i met jon. and albert... and they still think this book is totally over-rated... i dunno, i am not a writer. but it was really hard to keep reading it... i dunno, i guess i wasnt in the mood of reading. and then two months later (today) i am liking this book and finally get it... and its going to end pretty soon... i dun think i might re-read this shit all over, but i glad i didnt just give up on it... i dun like giving up on books... i just like to respect someone's effort and hard work (i assumed they did had to work a little bit hard to write a novel like this) i guess in between knowing someone actually frds with zadie smith made me wanna finish this more than ever... this is how i felt after 3months... i dunno whether is the fact that howard is an art history professor, or the 'beauty' of vee... i was totally captivated by the idea of "beauty"... and i am still thinking abt it
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-04-30 11:35:27.
(Language: English)
Very enjoyable, easy to read but nothing special
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-08-28 02:58:31.
(Language: English)
Glorious, richly comic novel about family relationships and the nature of love and beauty in the real world of family life. Laugh-out-loud at times, deeply moving at others. Smith's dialogue is crisply and mischievously observed and deftly communicated. So much of this book I enjoyed enough to be eager to reread in the near future just to savour it. For instance, the scene dealing with liberal Howard's visit to his vulnerable elderly father. Heartwarming without sentimentality. A truly adult book for our times, and a sheer joy to read.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-07-29 07:40:15.
(Language: English)
Hilarious read. I loved this more than White Teeth (how controversial of me). I just bathed in it - the characters are so convincing, so well observed. A good observation of human strengths and weaknesses. Funny funny funny. I cried at the end - through laughing and because I was sad it was over. If I knew who I'd lent it to I would reread it now this minute. Hugely enjoyable.omg I LOVED this book!! It was funny, captivating, engaging. I loved the way it was written, I read White Teeth after this and didn't enjoy it so much. Maybe it helps if you didn't read E.M. Forster. I just think it stands alone and is hilarious and I am in love with her characters. I cried at the end, with laughter and also sadness that I'd finished the book. I will be re reading it soon! Please read this book!
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-16 04:43:38.
(Language: English)
I didn't connect with any of the characters. It was clunky. Storylines jumped around all over the place - may not have mattered if I cared about the characters more. It was full of predictable, cliched relationships. I get the feeling Zadie was under the pump and rushed this one out. The story could've been good, but not to be. Had a pretty cover though.Maybe I'll just borrow her next one from the library, rather than buy it. I loved White Teeth.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-07-02 06:47:23.
(Language: English)
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. Smith's descriptions of the eccentric and self-centered lives of academics were eerily familiar. For example, Smith describes a party held at the central character, Howard's house and the organization of party-goers by department: "A circle of strange young anthropologists Howard didn't think he knew remained in the kitchen all night, hovering by the food, fearful of going anywhere where there was not an abundance of props -- glasses, bottles, canapes -- with which to fiddle" (107). The irony of anthropologists who are painfully anti-social never ceases to be funny to me. I was engaged with all of the characters, although at times, wished the story could have concentrated more deeply on a few of them, especially toward the end where several of the characters experienced direct contradictions in their political convictions and agendas. The ending seemed rushed and almost shallow compared to the pace and depth of most of the book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-03-04 09:28:59.
(Language: English)
It took me a little while to get in to this book. I liked Kiki right off the bat, but nearly all the other characters irritated the snot out of me until almost the middle of the book. Except Howard. I found him disturbing. (He doesn't like Mozart. Who doesn't like Mozart??) I guess it's hard to fathom a person who has an affair after 30 years of marriage, but then can't seem to explain why. As if he was unfaithful just to see what would happen, or because he wasn't paying attention. Is it maybe a case of he doesn't realize what he has until he just about loses it? That certainly seems to factor in to it. He just doesn't seem to be thinking. There are a couple other characters that echo this distracted attitude, as if Smith is warning us that we can lose something precious if we don't pay attention. If we take it for granted. Like Howard did his wife? The old story where he goes looking for something different, realizes he had what he wanted all along, only to discover it's too late when he starts to appreciate it again? I enjoy how tangible Smith's characters are. Distinct voices for each of them, and they all feel so physical, as if you could poke them and start a conversation. But why so many characters? Why have a separate viewpoint and voice for a character who only exists for one chapter? Or a couple chapters? I wind up missing them when they are gone, personally. Although I guess that's just more proof of what a good writer Smith is. I look forwards to reading more of her books.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-08-16 11:56:55.
(Language: English)
The thing that continues to amaze me about Zadie Smith's work is her character insight. She has an amazing talent for really getting inside the heads of the characters, and therefore making them amazingly believable and *real* for the reader. The character of Howard, a 50-year-old white male, a long time professor of art history, currently going through somewhat of a mid-life crisis, is just as convincing as the portrait of his wife, Kiki, a black woman from Florida who doesn't tend to intellectualize everything the way he does. There are so many different types of characters, each portrait just as good as the last. In addition to her characters, Smith has a wonderful way with language that allows you to accuratly paint a picture in your own mind of exactly what she is talking about in any given scene. The use of langauge is so inventive, but it doesn't stick out. You just sit there appreciating the scene as she paints it. Example? An old, moneyed couple comes to a party that she and her husband are giving, and she describes them as "two Atlantic shrimp shells in evening wear." The whole book is full of her innovative use of language. If you end up liking this book, read *White Teeth* by her, which also carries similar characteristics and techniques.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-07-17 02:53:59.
(Language: English)
On Beauty was not an easy book to 'get into'. It only really grabbed me beyond midbook, but it tickled my curiosity nonetheless. Although the story itself left me with a not-so-pleasant aftertaste, I have to praise Zadie Smith's talent as it shone through the pages, the incidents and the characters. It was long, at times it left me wondering why there was so much extra information that was not so essential to the story, but I reached the conclusion that this is Zadie Smith's style, she narrates as if she is watching the scenes unfold, and she gives utmost importance to the psyche of her characters. On beauty is a book about families, ideologies, race, social classes, adulthood, marriage, loneliness, betrayal, the American dream... to be able to put all of these parameters in a cohesive story is worthy of a prize indeed! The characters flow through the story and we glimpse their interactions, the chemistry, the author never revealling her personal preferences but rather, letting the arguments debate among themselves. We glimpse a 30-year old iter-racial marriage scarred with betrayal, a fight to the end between liberalism and conservatism. The paradox of children wanting to pursue their vocation irrespective of their parents' beliefs, the clash between a comfortable middle-class family and those 'on the street'. It's an ocean of pivotal arguments brought to us in a narrative fashion. We witness the pros, the cons, the trivial, the essential, all intertwined, all very very insightful. This is a very good book, a book that throws many questions and opens many arguments very deliberately but always neutrally. The genius for me was the title, 'On Beauty'. I found beauty to really be the common theme to many problems the book has dealt with; beauty being the cornerstone of art, and many times the cause of social disruption. Very clever indeed! I am interested in reading more by the same author, but not just yet, as the book did leave me on the 'blue' side, probably because many of the discussed arguments are simply too heavy to swallow. However, I highly commend the author's talent, if anything, the book is worth reading just to glimse it.
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Tracey posted a review at 2010-01-18 02:05:34.
(Language: English)
In my opinion, one of the best books of the last 10 years. At the hands of one of the world's most promising young writers, this book takes an interesting view of the racial and moral ambiguities in an English neighbourhood. Zadie Smith is a formidable writer. Astonishingly aware of her characters, each moment is executed perfectly and you are immediately drawn in. I could smell Kiki's cocoa butter, hear Levi's music, and physically sense the tension whenever Claire Malcolm entered a room. All avid readers should give this one a shot. A few characters to keep track of in the beginning, but well worth it. If Smith gets any better, they'll throw her the Nobel Prize some day.
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Ryan posted a review at 2011-04-25 10:40:29.
(Language: English)
This hilarious account of a midlife crisis in progress reminded me a lot of John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom books; if it wasn't so funny, I'd be crying.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-02-24 01:57:41.
(Language: English)
I think it really helped me in appreciating this book that I just recently read Howards End by E.M. Forster. Smith admits in her introduction that she idolizes Forster and it clearly shows in this book. She plays with events from Howards End and cleverly incorporates them into a modern novel about race and class in America and Britain. She also satirizes the private university environment with all its hypocrisy and elitism. This book is essentially about a mixed-race family and its dealings with crisis and change. It also deals with the issues of race, free speech, liberal and conservative politics, creative writing, and, of course, beauty in all its aspects. A gem of a book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-22 02:29:03.
(Language: English)
***SPOILER ALERT*** This novel is loosely based on E.M. Forster's novel "Howard's End" and tells the story behind a marriage in collapse and the effects this has on the members of a family. Howard Belsy is an art history professor at a liberal arts university in Boston, he is originally from rural England. His wife Kiki is Black and from the southern U.S. Both partners have changed over their 30 years of marriage, particularly of note for Howard is Kiki's weight gain. Howard stumbles into two affairs (one with a colleague, one with a student) that become public and finish off his marriage and almost destroy his relationship with his three children Jerome, Zora and Levi. Jerome is the only child living away from home as the novel opens he is visiting London and working for an academic rival of his father's, a black conservative and has a brief affair with his daughter Victoria (the student Howard will later have sec with). Zora attends the university where Howard teaches and is very outspoken and gets herself into a creative writing class where she is not necessarily wanted. The professor teaching this class (Howard's first affair) then turns around and uses Zora to help keep her class open to a number of talented non-students. Zora falls for one of these students and then has a subsequent meltdown when he rejects her for-Victoria. Levi is still a teenager and is troubled about his place in society as a young black man. He becomes friends with a number of Haitian refugees and steals a p...
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-07-08 12:41:54.
(Language: English)
It isn't nearly as funny or memorable as "White Teeth," but "On Beauty" does have its moments. Here, Zadie Smith's characters shine with piquant humor as her commentary on their tragi-comic lives makes you wonder about your own. This book is marred by bad perfunctory sex scenes that'd make you holler out loud in laughter. Nonetheless, these and so much more are vividly described with such poignancy and wit that you'd hardly be able put this novel down--if only to see what random absurdity could possibly happen next.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-06-09 04:29:27.
(Language: English)
In reading On Beauty, I could not help but think of Philip Roth's The Human Stain. Both books tell a story of race, class, and family through the fraught prism of liberal New England academic and cultural life. Zadie Smith lacks Roth's defiant, Fruedian misanthropy, which makes his work so devastating and rewarding. There's always something harrowing about reading Roth, like I'm manfully (that definitely seems to be the way Roth sees it) skating on the edge of the abyss. Smith's genius seems to be her ability to inhabit the various cultural "registers" (as one blurb put it), of English usage: from American black to Hatian immigrant to transatlantic academic to British working class speech. Smith speaks all these languages, all varieties of English, with brio and style. Smith helps me understand the ways in which the language we inhabit and move between mark both our identities and commitments.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-12-02 03:38:43.
(Language: English)
This is a wonderful book that can be read on several different levels, as an entertaining soap-opera, or as a profoundly moral tale. The story revolves around two academic families of mixed ethnical backgrounds. The patriarchs in the families are competitors in the same academic field (Experts on Rembrandt), one is a conservative, the other a liberal. The share a well developed ability to mess up the lives of their families and their own lives. The soap-opera narrative level of the book is very entertaining. The philosophical aspects revolves about what is true, beautiful and valuable in life. Heavy stuff, but very engaging. I strongly recommend this book, but it may not be for everyone. There is no happy ending :-).
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-12-18 09:30:07.
(Language: English)
It has been many years since I read 'White Teeth,' so time warped my memory of that book, probably making me more nostalgic about its better parts, but I preferred it to this one. I enjoyed this one enough, but I happened to read 'The Emperor of Ocean Park' immediately before this one, so I was quite fatigued on the themes of race (esp. African-American) and college politics. I would give a mild recommendation of this book, certainly not a waste of time, but you wouldn't miss it. On to Cold Mountain. Because it's snowing.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-12-27 11:17:59.
(Language: English)
I didn't like this book as much as Smith's first because it was more of the same. While Smith does a great job handling the intricacies of competing multiethnic families, she does so with so much grace that her writing begs for a little more ugly. Where White Teeth had characters who had physical yet unattainable desires, On Beauty focuses more on more abstract concepts and, I think, suffers from that.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-08-20 02:42:13.
(Language: English)
I think Zadie Smith could have done so many better things with "On Beauty" than she did. I got the feeling that she was trying to be a writer she isn't, as the book lends itself to copious amounts of overwriting. Smith herself is incredibly longwinded. "White Teeth" was a much better read with rounder, more real characters. While some parts held my attention, they were few and far between, and I found myself forcing the read most of the time. Of course, it wasn't all bad. The issues Smith wrote about were very real - race, culture, infidelity - I just think she could have done so in a more upbeat (and certainly less wordy) way.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-11-14 06:50:33.
(Language: English)
Ah, beauty! In this book it seems to be defined as that ineffable quality which unable-to-resist bystanders all wish to possess whether it's the prettiest college girl in Boston (transplanted from the author's home Great Britain) or a primitivist Haitian painting depicting a goddess, or Mozart's Lachrymosa or a young rapper's lyric poem (well, maybe not the last one.) All possessors of such beauty, plus Rembrandt, seem to have been mysteriously, inexplicably touched by God. The surprising thing about this book is that everytime one expects the novel to take a turn for the ugly, its characters don't, which stands as a testimony to the power of a novel's title, I suppose. I guess Smith wants us to read our Forster, although I heard echoes of Henry James herein which is never a bad thing. To end on a trite note, if beauty is truth and truth beauty than seek either and you shall find the other.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-10-25 05:41:57.
(Language: English)
Ca y est, j'ai déjà épuisé la bibliographie d'un des écrivains les plus prometteurs de sa génération. Vivement qu'elle publie à nouveau. On Beauty, je pense pouvoir m'avancer jusque là au bout de trois livres, traite de sujets typiquements smithiens, comme le métissage, la famille, l'intégration sociale des minorités. Ici, à part quelques scènes à Willesden, North London comme dans White Teeth, la plus grande partie de l'action se déroule à Wellington, à côté de Boston aux Etats-Unis. C'est l'histoire de deux familles, les Belsey et les Kipps, dont les membres entretiennent des liens différents entre eux. Les filles se détestent, le jeune graçon est amoureux de la fille, les mères sont meilleures amies, les pères, tous deux profs d'Histoire de l'Art, sont opposées sur tout, de la politique à l'étude de Rembrandt. Je n'irai, une fois de plus, pas plus loin dans la description des rapports entre tous ces gens, car ce serait déjà vous priver de pas mal de surprises du livre. Le comique de situation est à mourir de rire, mais le fond du sujet l'est moins. En fait, On Beauty est une présentation des difficultés d'être Noir aux Etats-Unis. Tous les clichés sont représentés. Monty Kipps est un vieux chrétien noir farouchement opposé à l'Affirmative Action, coupable selon lui de victimiser les Noirs, et de réduire la valeur de leur diplôme ou de leur travail; Kiki Belsey, noire américaine mariée à une anglais blanc, est une libérale qui pense que Condolezza Rice et Colin Powell sont des vendus qui haissent leurs origines ; l'adolescent Levi Belsey, fils de bonne famille, rejoint la lutte de ses "frères" haitiens, à la recherche d'une cause et s'en voulant d'être riche, etc. Smith est très probablement l'une des meilleures des jeunes auteures de sa génération, à la fois un poil Cool Britain mais avec du fond, engagée sans l'être, qui vous faire réfléchir, pleurer, rire en l'espace de quelques pages. Fait nouveau, ce roman comporte des scènes d'amour adultérin, et fait nouveau aussi, des réflexions sur la beauté dans l'Art, qui sont toutes deux tout à fait bienvenues. More on : http://laminutelitterairedelouisbernard.blogspot.com/
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