Bibliofreakblog

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

There’s a Facebook Group called Zadie Smith Snubbed My Short Story and I will Have My Revenge.  The description is “…On that pretentious E.M. Forster plot-stealing whore.”  Recent news reports that she is still freckly, wearing head scarves, and smugly in love with Nick Laird.  Evidently this group is a joke, as the founder posts, “look you douche, its a joke alright, Zadie Smith never has and never will reject any of my (frankly hilarious) short stories. I find it odd and strange that six other people have joined this total non-event of a group, especially someone called Rusty Trombone.”  You can check it out but I pretty much just included the funny bits here.  

The reason I mention it at all, is the “E.M. Forster plot-stealing” part.  Because really, that is the basis for On Beauty, the most recent of Smith’s three novels.  

That and a poem by her husband, poet Nick Laird (whom I’m sure she loves, smugly or not), and some rap lyrics by her little brother, rapper Doc Brown.

But yeah, On Beauty is an update of Howard’s End, only it goes further and throws race and gender issues of inequity into the mix of class strife.  

Howard, the main character, is an English professor of Art History at New England college, married to a black woman with three children.  He gets romantic with another (white) colleague, who his daughter (Zora) has as a professor.  Meanwhile his youngest so (Levi) is having issues with identity and is trying to reconcile his black heritage with his upper-middle class upbringing.  His oldest son (Jerome) is interning for Howard’s intellectual nemesis.  When Howard’s wife (Kiki) and the nemesis’s wife become friends, the families collide and you get a nice Forstery plot, but updated and spiked with Zadie’s inexplicable talent for writing and character development.

So, to give you a little taste, here is a passage, near the beginning.  Jerome is forcing taking the family out for a night of Mozart.  While waiting to go inside, Levi, Zora, and Howard have a conversation about what it means to be black, to be urban, to be American.  Sorry if the passage is a little long.

[Levi said,] “You wait in line you’re a fool, seriously.  A brother don’t need a gate–he jumps the fence.  That’s street.”
    ”Again, please?” said Howard.
     “Street, street,” Bellowed Zora.  ”It’s like, ‘being street’, knowing the street–in Levi’s sad little world if you’re a Negro you have some kind of mysterious holy commmunion with sidewalks and corners.”
     “Aw, man, shut up.  You don’t know what the street looks like. You ain’t never been there.”
     “What’s this?” said Zora, pointing to the ground.  ”Marshmellow?”
     “Please.  This ain’t America.  You think this is America?  This is toy-town.  I was born in this country–trust me.  You go into Roxbury, you go into the Bronx, you see America.  That’s street.”
     “Levi, you don’t live in Roxbury,” explained Zora slowly.  You live in Wellington.  You go to Arundel.  You’ve got your name ironed into your underwear.”
     “I wonder if I’m street…” mused Howard.  ”I’m still healthy, got hair, testicles, eyes, etcetera.  Got great testicles.  It’s true I’m above subnormal intelligence–but then again, I am full of verve and spunk.”
     “No.”
     “Dad,” said Zora, “please don’t say spunk.  Ever.”
     “Can’t I be street?”
     “No.  Why you always got to make everything a joke?”
     “I just want to be street.”
      ”Mom.  Tell him to stop, man.”
      ”I can be a brother.  Check it out,” said Howard, and proceeded to make a series of excruciating hand gestures and poes.  Kiki squealed and covered her eyes.
     “Mom–I’m going home, I swear to God if he does that for one more second, I swear to God…”
     Levi was trying desperately to get his hoodie to cover the side of his vision in which Howard was persisting.  It was surely seconds before Howard recited the only piece of rap he could ever remember, a single line he’d mysteriously retained from the mass of lyrics he heard Levi mutter day after day.  ”I got the slicked quickest dick–” began Howard.  Screams of consternation rose up from the rest of his family.  ”A penis with the IQ of a genius!”
     “Dat’s it–I’m gone.”
Buy On Beauty on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:
 

(my reviews in blue)

Howards End by E.M. Forster
More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Zadie Smith: Critical Essays by Tracey L. Walters (editor)
The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L Carter
New England White by Stephen L Carter
To a Fault: Poems by Nick Laird
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

Other works by Zadie Smith

White Teeth 
The Autograph Man
Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays
The Book of Other People (editor)