On Beauty

by Zadie Smith | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 014101945x Global Overview for this book
Registered by rem_DBB-120293 on 6/26/2006
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3 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by rem_DBB-120293 on Monday, June 26, 2006
People tend to think that Zadie Smith is a fantastic writer, but I'm afraid I just didn't see it here at all. I picked up 'On Beauty' expecting something really good, but I have to say I found it very bland.

I was waiting for something momentous to happen, but an Englishman cheating on his African American wife in a New England university town with one of his colleagues isn't very spectacular, neither is the way his wife, Kiki, deals with it. Kiki is built up to be this mythic figure by the end and I just thought, why?

There were a lot of stereotypes in this book too and I felt like I'd seen about a hundred movies with characters exactly like this. I suppose this is good since they're now going to make a movie based on the book.

The aspect of family relations that Smith explores here isn't all that interesting either. The book is well written, observant, but not really humourous and hardly a deserving Orange Prize winner.

Journal Entry 2 by rem_DBB-120293 on Thursday, September 7, 2006
Sent by post to WormyOne in Brighton, England on Wednesday 6 September 2006.

Journal Entry 3 by WormyOne from Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom on Monday, September 11, 2006
The blurb reads:

"Howard Belsey is an Englishman abroad, an academic teaching in Wellington, a college town in New England. Married young, thirty years later he is struggling to revive his love for his African-American wife, Kiki. Meanwhile, his three teenage children - Jerome, Zara and Levi - are each seeking the passions, ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives.

After Howard has a disastrous affair with a colleague, his sensitive elder son, Jerome, escapes to England for the holidays. In London he defies everything the Belseys represent when he goes to work for Trinidadian right-wing academic and pundit Monty Kipps. Taken in by the Kipps family for the summer, Julian falls for Monty's beautiful, capricious daughter, Victoria.

But this short-lived romance has long-lasting consequences, drawing these very different families into each other's lives. As Kiki develops a friendship with Mrs Kipps, and Howard and Monty do battle on different sides of the culture war, hot-headed Zora brings a handsome young man from the Boston streets into their midst whom she is determined to draw into the fold of the black middle class - but at what price?"

Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith's third novel is a brilliant take on family life, marriage, the collision of the personal and political, and an honest looks at people's self-deceptions. It is also, as you might expect, very funny indeed".


Blimey! After all that, I'm not sure I need to read the book any more. :-)

A massive thank you to FirelightSpirit for generously sending me this book from my wish list.

Journal Entry 4 by WormyOne from Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom on Tuesday, October 2, 2007
As in her other novels, Zadie Smith weaves a comic and tangled web of links and relationships between the members of two families (with the hopes, fears and pretensions of each member richly imagined), to examine both the minutiae of family life/marriage and grand-scale issues of class and race, tackling serious issues without getting bogged down.

The title suggests that beauty and the search for it is the theme that ties the threads of the book together though I'm not sure that Smith has realised the device entirely successfully.

The sex scene between an older man and a younger woman is well written and funny. :-)

Journal Entry 5 by WormyOne at Brighton Railway Station in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom on Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Released 16 yrs ago (10/24/2007 UTC) at Brighton Railway Station in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

On the seats nearest the ticket barriers, on the concourse, at about 11:30.

Journal Entry 6 by Robin-Wileman from Brighton & Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom on Tuesday, December 18, 2007
I found the book on Brighton railway station. Many thanks for that. It was a lovely surprise as I had never heard of travelling books.

I have to say that it didn't really grab me.

I left it at Gare du Nord international railway station - Eurostar terminal - on 7th December 2007 at 19.25. I hope it is enjoyed by many and goes a long way.


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