Books

On BeautyZadie SmithHamish HamiltonIn a note at the end of her latest novel, On Beauty, Zadie Smith writes, “My largest structural debt should be obvious to any EM Forster fan; suffice it to say he gave me a classy old frame, which I covered with new material as best I could.” However, her writing, with its panoramic scope and unnerving eye for detail, perhaps most resembles not EM Forster, but Tom Wolfe. Specifically, Smith shares Wolfe’s penchant for all-encompassing inclusion, turning her gaze toeveryone from Haitian men selling fake designer handbags to the highest echelons of elite academic institutions in her newest novel. Unfortunately, while powers of description are comparable to those of Wolfe, her writing also shares some of his weaknesses. Smith tries to describe everyone and everything and as a result some of her many themes – race, Rembrandt, the nature of beauty – get lost amid the myriad details and descriptions of her characters.The novel focuses mainly on the Belseys, a family living in Massachusetts. Howard Belsey is a white Englishman who teaches Art History at Wellington, a fictional version of an elite American liberal arts college. He is also an adulterer who, just out of a disastrous relationship with a colleague, is trying to finish his long-due book on Rembrandt and make peace with his wife Kiki, a 250-pound black Floridian. Their three children, Jerome, a devout Christian, Zora, amilitant feminist in her second year at Wellington, and Levi, a teenager who feels lost in the academic world of his family, all have problems and concerns of their own. The plot then splits into a number of different stories, as the characters struggle to reconcile their lives and attempt to reconnect with each other. However, if this multiplicity of scope is the novel’s great asset, it is also perhaps its greatest weakness. Smith tries to do and describe too much and as a result her insights about life are less clearly expressed than they might have been in a simpler novel. Nevertheless, Smith’s eye for descriptive detail and lyrical, often quite humourous descriptions make On Beauty a novel well worth reading.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005