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On Beauty |
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by Zadie Smith
ISBN: 0143037749
Pub. Date: August 2006
ISBN-13: 9780143037743
Format: Paperback, pp. 464
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Sales Rank: 2,323
List Price: $15.00 |
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Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman
abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts
college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no
longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children
passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness,
Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to
be a believer in a family of strict atheists. Faced with the oppressive
enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life
are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Or the encore.
Then Jerome, Howard's older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of
the right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown
together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war
against the background of real wars that they barely register. An infidelity, a
death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that sees all parties
forced to examine the unarticulated assumptions which underpin their lives. How
do you choose the work on which to spend your life? Why do you love the people
you love? Do you really believe what you claim to? And what is the beautiful
thing, and how far will you go to get it?
Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith's third novel is a brilliant
analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, intersections of the
personal and political, and an honest look at people's deceptions. It is also,
as you might expect, very funny indeed.
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