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On Beauty

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 27,568 ratings · 2,693 reviews

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, Zora and Levi—are each seeking the passions, ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives.

"A...more

Paperback, 445 pages

Published August 29th 2006 by Penguin Books (first published January 1st 2005)

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May 31, 2012 oriana rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2012

I was deeply displeased with this book. I can't believe I actually finished it; I liked neither the characters nor the language nor the style. I only read it because I got it for free (found it on the street in a pile of other middling titles), but though that excuses my starting it, it does not at all excuse my slogging through, stubbornly determined, all the way to the end. The truth is this: I was too lazy to figure out what to read next, which is incredibly idiotic, so I deserved what I got....more

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Oct 06, 2007 Audrey rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: The people who recommended it to me?

I'm beginning to think the problem isn't the books, but me. I was really, really primed to like this book. Not only had one friend spoken favorably of it, another had seen to it that the book was carried all the way from Malawi, Africa to New York and then sent to me.

I am embarrassed to report I had a hard time even finishing it. My primary complaint is contrivances. The dialogue was unnatural to me...and the plot, my goodness. It was hard enough to believe in such a deep academic feud between...more

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Sep 23, 2008 C. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to C. by: 1001

Shelves: family-drama, undeservedly-popular, to-be-re-read

Zadie Smith's book On Beauty is about two families on opposing sides of the culture war: The atheist, liberal Belseys on one side and the ultra-religious, ultra-conservative Kipps' on the other. It's also about race and racial identity: black versus white and the influx of poor Haitian immigrants into Boston. It's about Howard Belsey's affair with an old friend of the family and his wife Kiki's attempts to deal with it. It's about Kiki's developing friendship with Carlene Kipps, the wife of her...more Zadie Smith's book On Beauty is about two families on opposing sides of the culture war: The atheist, liberal Belseys on one side and the ultra-religious, ultra-conservative Kipps' on the other. It's also about race and racial identity: black versus white and the influx of poor Haitian immigrants into Boston. It's about Howard Belsey's affair with an old friend of the family and his wife Kiki's attempts to deal with it. It's about Kiki's developing friendship with Carlene Kipps, the wife of her husband's sworn enemy.

All in all, it's not my thing, but it's a stunning example of something that's not my thing. I don't go for domestic drama - I find it too mundane - but I quite enjoyed this one. And that's really almost everything I have to say about it, my other comments being somewhat tangential.

I really liked the dialogue. It's real, it's energetic, it's got heart. It's so strong you can almost hear the characters' voices in your head. On the other hand, I didn't think the characterisation was particularly good. I didn't have a clear picture of any of the characters by the end, which is pretty pathetic.

A culture divide, perhaps? I think it probably was. I couldn't take them seriously because they used the word 'totally' too often. Here in Melbourne, Australia we (or at least, the people in my speech community) use 'totally' either in its original sense ('fully', 'completely') or as a joke, a parody of some American stereotype we don't really understand. Like "omg, you should, like, totally dye your hair orange! It would be like soooooo great." Dripping with sarcasm. In On Beauty they use it liberally in the slang sense, which is similar to my example above, except minus the sarcasm. They're serious about it, but I can't take it seriously. It really put me off.

Then there's the whole black/white thing. The extent of the racial divide shocked me. Again, here in Melbourne NO ONE CARES. One could argue it's because there are very few black people, and that a similar thing happens between whites and Asians instead, but it was just weird for me. In On Beauty, no one could just be "a person". They had to be "a white person", "a black person". Like their race was just as important a factor as their status as a human being. That really distracted me too.

It was mainly those cultural thingies that interested me about the book. It was funny, I guess, and sometimes depressing, but not at all the sort of thing I'd usually read and all in all rather disappointing considering its reputation.(less)

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Feb 06, 2011 Shovelmonkey1 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone reading the 1001 books list

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: 1001 books list

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, read-in-2011

When I first started reading this book I immediately started comparing it to White Teeth and my first thoughts were that I wouldn't enjoy this book as much. Turns out I was wrong about that! I found this story very absorbing and really grew to enjoy the characters and their individual views of life in Wellington. I particularly liked the character of Kiki for she, above all others in this book seemed genuinely at one with herself. The teenagers, Jerome, Zora and Levi all face their own struggles...more

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Aug 07, 2009 Sally rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: extreme-readers

I think On Beauty is brilliant. I loved the extra layer of meaning that my reading of E.M. Forster's Howards End provided -- but I don't think it's necessary to do background reading to enjoy this novel. The characters are "messy," as Zadie Smith would say -- most of them make a lot of mistakes, but, for the most part, you love them, or sympathize with them for all of their deficiencies. It's a book with many layers, which is just the kind of fiction I love the most!

Zadie Smith has experience in...more I think On Beauty is brilliant. I loved the extra layer of meaning that my reading of E.M. Forster's Howards End provided -- but I don't think it's necessary to do background reading to enjoy this novel. The characters are "messy," as Zadie Smith would say -- most of them make a lot of mistakes, but, for the most part, you love them, or sympathize with them for all of their deficiencies. It's a book with many layers, which is just the kind of fiction I love the most!

Zadie Smith has experience in many worlds, crosses many boundaries, and has interesting things to say from a variety of perspectives (including as both a fiction writer and as an academic). She's not only an extremely talented novelist, but she is super educated and smart, with interesting opinions on art, writing, and reading that can be appreciated by anyone. For example, her stance on the value of reading fiction in one sentence, which I really like: "When we read with fine attention, we find ourselves caring about people who are various, muddled, uncertain and not quite like us (and this is good)." (Read "Love, Actually," published in the UK Guardian, Nov. 1, 2003, to understand the fullness of what that means.)

In On Beauty Smith tells an engaging story centered in a Harvard-like community, with lots of political, social, and academic battles that make you laugh and cringe at the same time. The dialogue is snappy and entertaining. We get the most concentrated view of Howard, a middle-aged, untenured professor (his stalled book-in-progress and unpopular art history lectures argue against Rembrandt's artistic genius), and his practical, down-to-earth, and wise wife and three young adult children. Howard gets himself deeper and deeper into trouble, putting his 30-year marriage on the line for extramarital nonsense, as his career continues to go nowhere. There are lots of controversy-filled themes packed in this novel: race, immigration, class, gender -- along with love, family, friendship, coming-of-age, and aging. Everyone is trying to figure out their place in the world and with each other.

One of the many memorable scenes is when Howard makes an unplanned visit to his father during an emergency trip to London. It has been four years since their last failed visit, and they both can't help -- despite their best intentions -- but clash. Howard and his father speak different languages. It pains Howard to confront his father's ignorance just as his father is shocked by Howard's incomprehensible views of art and puzzled by his interracial marriage and family. Smith skillfully captures the chasm between father and son, painful memories, and the impossibility of successful communication and a meaningful relationship.

Readers of Howards End won't have any trouble recognizing the parallels - but Smith goes way beyond the framework provided by Forster, to make this a book that addresses contemporary personal and social contradictions in an entirely fresh, creative, and relevant manner. I highly recommend this outstanding novel!(less)

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May 07, 2008 Emma rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would probably give this book three and a half stars, which is not an option here. I thought it was well-written and had many interesting, memorable scenes, but the book did not really feel like a cohesive whole. The story follows an interracial family in an academic setting. The father is a white art history professor at a private liberal arts college in a fictional suburb of Boston; his wife is a black southern woman and they have three kids.
The title "On Beauty" comes from a poem, which is...more I would probably give this book three and a half stars, which is not an option here. I thought it was well-written and had many interesting, memorable scenes, but the book did not really feel like a cohesive whole. The story follows an interracial family in an academic setting. The father is a white art history professor at a private liberal arts college in a fictional suburb of Boston; his wife is a black southern woman and they have three kids.
The title "On Beauty" comes from a poem, which is quoted at one point during the book. The book did comment on different types and perceptions of beauty as well as different kinds of intelligence and intellectual styles. These themes are conveyed through the novel's many characters. For example, there is the wife, Kiki Belsey, a large black woman with beautiful skin who radiates with a goddess-like presence, who notes that people expect this like her as a black woman of her size. She is not in the academic world, but is perhaps the most emotionally intelligent character. Her husband Howard is an average-looking white middle-aged man, who struggles with finishing and publishing his academic scholarship and whose style tends to dispute common understandings about the art world. (His main thesis is that Rembrant wasn't really anything special, he was just painting to fulfill the requests of the clients who commissioned him.) Another professor, Claire Malcom, is a petite, thin white woman who wears no make-up and might seem not to care about her appearance, though it is revealed that she has been ordering salads almost her entire life, practices yoga in order to stay young and flexible, and pays careful attention to her bikini line. Claire is a poet and is somewhat looked down upon within her department for not being a "real" academic. Howard and Kiki's daughter Zora tries too hard in both respects. She spends considerable time getting ready in the morning and pledges at the beginning of the semester to swim everyday and lose weight. She also works inredibly hard in her classes (she is a sophomore at the fictional college, Wellington), but does not seem to have any real opinions of her own. What she lacks in natural beauty or talent, she makes up for with hard work and persistence.
Similar analysis can be made for almost every character, some we barely meet at all. For instance, in the course of three pages we are introduced to a college freshman who was the academic star in her high school who is terrified to open her mouth in Howard's class for fear of saying something stupid. As quickly as she is introduced, she is gone, never to be mentioned again. This breadth of characters provides these various human idiosyncrasies, but in some ways damages the story as a whole, never letting us get to know one character or storyline in depth. (less)

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Nov 02, 2007 Addie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone

just as my idealized fantasies about academic life were getting a little out of control, the characters in this book come along to make me realize academics can be just as gross as lawyers at times. i also realize i have never read a book about a professor-family before.

in the middle of the book, i told someone that i didn't like any of the characters (except for levi, who is amazing), yet i liked the book - which speaks well for the author. by the end, i liked the characters more. the black ch...more

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Mar 20, 2011 MJ Nicholls rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, sassysassenachs, tortured-artists, distaff

This is a book full of unbeautiful people: obnoxious teenagers, philandering academics, stuffy professors, right-on street rappers, wispy rich kids and more obnoxious teenagers. Zadie takes a scalpel to Anglo-American academic relations, probing away at the race/class issues with her usual mordant unflinching cruelty and compassion. She plants a series of depth charges in the lives of her wibbling characters, watching them each explode in turn into quivering heaps of gloopy suet. As ever, the ri...more

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Aug 09, 2007 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I did not absolutely hate this book, I really disliked it from the beginning and kept reading in hopes it would redeem itself. Alas, it did not. In fact, there really isn't many redeeming qualities in the story or the characters whatsoever. The book was written with some style, but as far as the storyline and the characters go, the book should have been called On Destruction...which is, as it seems to me to be, where every character was bent on going in their own oblivion. I did not have a...more

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May 26, 2008 Alys rated it 5 of 5 stars

Deliciously brutal take on how class, race and gender are actually dealt with in the society of academia. Excellent stuff if you're into that sort of thing. At any rate, Smith again makes good on her gift for making the reader feel tenderly towards her reliably flawed protagonists.

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Jan 28, 2008 Kirstie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people interested in: race and youth in America, politics, universities

(3.5 stars)

I don't often feel this way about books but I felt at an inherent disadvantage reading this as a white girl. The main ideas explored have so much to do with race and racial conflicts in particular. Set primarily in Boston, it concerns a marriage between a white professor and a black woman and their kids who struggle to fit into their world. For example, the younger of the two brothers who wants to talk "street" but is ashamed that he lives in an upper middle class area of Boston. The...more (3.5 stars)

I don't often feel this way about books but I felt at an inherent disadvantage reading this as a white girl. The main ideas explored have so much to do with race and racial conflicts in particular. Set primarily in Boston, it concerns a marriage between a white professor and a black woman and their kids who struggle to fit into their world. For example, the younger of the two brothers who wants to talk "street" but is ashamed that he lives in an upper middle class area of Boston. The idea is to not be privileged and when he runs into some Haitians, he's even more convinced that he shouldn't be living in his current rich neighborhood. There are questions of beauty too, as the subject suggests both in terms of the wife and mother of the family and a work of Rembrandt's (I've always hated that artist, I have to admit, which made it much more difficult for me to enjoy the book in some sections.)

Besides delving into the politics of Haiti, the book also speaks about affirmative action with two angry professors. The one who opposes the other speaking out on affirmative action doesn't want to tread on democracy but he's torn to say the least. Both arguments-for and against affirmative action are stated and perhaps the most powerful is the one in which suggests that issues of class became more important to politicians like Condi than their race.

You also have alot of immorality from both sides-the Christian right wing and the completely liberal. Affairs abound and it seems poorly written at this point...too stereotypical and uncreative. Predictable. Really, the only person who is without artifice and could be described as beautiful is the professor's wife and the mother of the story who is a feminist to her core even if she's not an intellectual. Despite her weight, she's a rather proud woman who cherishes her children and is forgiving as possible about many things.

Without giving away too much, the book also doesn't really leave you with a definitive ending. Though it's clever the way she it finishes, I felt overall a little disappointed even though it vaguely reminds me of The Crying of Lot 49 in terms of that anticipation. But then again, as I said before I really couldn't care less about Rembrandt. Overall, I was more impressed wth The Autograph Man...still have to finish White Teeth. (less)

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Nov 14, 2007 Talia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Zadie Smith makes a literary comeback with On Beauty, an ode to EM Forster's Howard's End. Like her first novel, White Teeth, Smith examines the complex lives of two families - the Belseys and the Kipps - battling it out in the fictionalized college town of Wellington. Howard Belsey is a liberal Rembrandt scholar who is on the brink of tearing his family apart after having an affair with a fellow professor. His long suffering wife, the lovable Kiki, tries to keep together the sanity of her three...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Lavande rated it 4 of 5 stars

Aaargh. I didn't want to like this book. I tried hard not to like it but there is no escaping that fact that as precocious as she is, Zadie Smith is a damn fine writer. It's a family drama but there aren’t omnipotent judgments or proselytizing about the book’s larger issues of race, love, and elitism.
An interracial couple struggles through the middle years of their marriage and the awkward social integration of their mixed children. Smith’s portrayal of a relationship falling apart is nothing ne...more

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Aug 23, 2007 Diana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Read "White Teeth" last summer, and was expecting more zippy North London dialect and semi-outrageous, often hilarious characters.

This time, though, most of the novel is set in a Boston suburb, so we get a convincing helping of the American teenager, including the three children of the main character: an "uppity," precocious college student; a soft-spoken, burgeoning conservative Christian; and the youngest, who, despite his solidly middle-class and British heritage, is trying his best to preten...more

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Aug 17, 2007 CJ rated it 2 of 5 stars

i loved, loved white teeth. i did not like on beauty. i'm afraid zadie smith wasn't able to capture american-speak very well. kiki has southern roots and, at times, she supposedly "went florida" in her speech and mannerism, but this was something smith simply stated rather than demonstrated. i could excuse levi's not entirey successful attempts at urban dialogue given his suburban/academic family background, but not carl's. maybe i'm extra critical b/c, in a past life, i spent some time in the s...more i loved, loved white teeth. i did not like on beauty. i'm afraid zadie smith wasn't able to capture american-speak very well. kiki has southern roots and, at times, she supposedly "went florida" in her speech and mannerism, but this was something smith simply stated rather than demonstrated. i could excuse levi's not entirey successful attempts at urban dialogue given his suburban/academic family background, but not carl's. maybe i'm extra critical b/c, in a past life, i spent some time in the spoken word scene, but carl was a shell of an idea rather than an authentic, believable character. whatisname's assistant, the other southerner, really showed some of smith's weakness in writing regional/cultural dialects. one "accented" word in a character's sentence - e.g. "pahpoint" - w/o keen attention to how other more common words should be spoken does not make for very convincing dialogue.

i was so distracted by the characters' inauthentic language that i didn't have the patience/interest to hone in on the themes about beauty...which seemed a bit shallow anyhow. ok, the fat character is sympathetic and fun and smart and good-looking despite her rolls...the thin beautiful character is too often taken merely at face value and people don't make much of an effort to get to know her beyond that...but the reader can't get to know her beyond that b/c smith also isn't interested in her other than for her looks.

the good stuff: the father felt genuine and gave an honest look at academic/intellectual pursuits when stagnant. his thoughts about his family and marriage also felt real and were interesting to me, especially b/c...well b/c i'm not a man and he seemed to offer a real "man's" (albeit an older man's) point of view. i thought his musings on his relationship w/ kiki were more thoroughly drawn out than kiki's, interesting since smith is herself a woman. kudos to her for being able to represent the husband so well. (though i wonder if a male reader would disagree about smith's success with that.)(less)

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Jul 06, 2007 Doogyjim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Now, I'm one of those people who's a little jealous of Ms Smith's success, believing that she's caught a lot of attention due to her ethnicity, fabulous name and great looks plus she's clearly one smart cookie. From what I've heard her first book was marred by a bad ending and her second was just plain bad. I'll reserve judgement, but this reworking of Howard's End is expansively warm and attuned to nuances of behaviour and psychology. It's her great acheivement to make us sympathise with all of...more

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Sep 13, 2007 Alicia rated it 1 of 5 stars

I heard so many rave reviews of Zadie Smith. But all were recommendations for her book White Teeth. I wanted to throw this disappointing book against the wall. The characters were stock and predictable. The liberal art history professor. The self-righteous college student. The woman poet. The “uncle tom” Black academic. The strong Black woman. And so on and so on. None of their actions were surprising. So many characters, so many missed opportunities to illustrate race relations. Needless to say...more

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Nov 24, 2007 Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2007, in-by-of-england, reviewed

On Beauty is a reinterpretation of E.M. Forster's Howard's End, a classic by one of my favorite authors. Smith had a lot to overcome with that background, and, unfortunately, she couldn't do it. On Beauty is a pedestrian book. It makes a few points about race, class, art, and academia - all of which have been made before but she doesn't do any real harm in making them again. But I just don't care that Howard (a man, not a house in Smith's version) has an affair, ruins his life and his marriage,...more

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Jul 14, 2009 Maria rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book

It took me a very long time to get into this book. I found it to be annoyingly stereotypical and I boring drivel. I am 3/4 of the way through and it is getting better - I feel like the first 2/3 she was just warming up. The one part of this novel I really enjoyed and was heartfelt was the the scene where Kiki and Carline have tea. I don't mean to be corny but it was so touching to "watch" the process of a friendship forming. I do feel like the dialogue of the novel in general was a bit lacking -...more

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Jun 06, 2007 Megan McMurry rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Pretentious Snobs

Shelves: definiatelynot

Three "signs" led me to this book: It became available on the "3 for 2" shelf at Boarders, my friend mentioned that it was one of the biggest sellers at her book store, and my professor read a very captivating passage from it that related to our class material. I picked it up as a beach read over Spring Break, and I was sorely disappointed with my choice. I struggled through from start to finish, not liking the main character, Howard, or the plot in general. The ending was abrupt, and the conten...more

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Jan 31, 2011 Franck rated it 2 of 5 stars

Zadie Smith can sometime be a great author, but I think that On Beauty is by far her weakest effort. The characters are despicable one-dimensional clichés and the writer likes to explain their simplistic thoughts and pulsions forever and ever. There's a handful of good moments, but it's definitely not on level with her previous two books. Disappointing.

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Aug 26, 2007 Ken-ichi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: snoot

I recall it was good, humorous, but I found it difficult to forget the author is a half-black British academic writing about an African American experience. I found all the University faculty and students and their various escapades and entanglements believable, both because I have lived in that world and based on what I knew about the author, but when the book delved into issues of being black in America rather than being black in academia, it felt a bit clunky. But then again, I'm not black, s...more

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Aug 03, 2008 Steph rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: canon

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 27, 2010 Akiva added it

On Beauty is, according to the author, an homage to Howards End and I made a point of reading that before this. I'm not sure it was a good idea. Not that one was necessarily better than the other, but the contrast placed On Beauty's flaws in relief. Howards End was carefully put together and tightly plotted. I didn't get that impression from On Beauty. It's momentum exhausted, it just sort of stopped. All the characters are so wrapped up in their own neuroses that you feel them more as caricatur...more

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Mar 23, 2009 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

After reading Howard's End, I wanted to go back and reread On Beauty to see if knowledge of the former would help me enjoy the latter. Short version: yes it did.

There's a lot to like about On Beauty. Zadie Smith's prose is a pleasure to read. Her descriptions of fall in the Boston suburbs jibe with my memories, and make me nostalgic. The real strength of the book is in the characters: Kiki and her kids provide the most pleasure. For all the talk about class, race, education, etc., Smith is a rea...more

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Mar 18, 2009 Sasha rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked this one up at the airport because I had heard of it and because (well, partially) the back cover said something about 'real beauty.' So in the hope that it might say things like 'it's ok to put on weight because even a fat person can be beautiful,' I started reading it.

The book surprised me. It explores the differences between two families: The Belseys and the Kippses. Howard Belsey and Monty Kipps are as different as can be. One is a left wing atheist who believes in affirmative actio...more

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Mar 12, 2009 Marianna rated it 3 of 5 stars

I vacillated between thinking that Smith portrayed her subjects in a realistic, satisfying manner and somehow feeling like it was all a bit too contrived. It was interesting to read a novel that really tackles race relations on a covert, symbolic level (much like they exist in real life). But it felt like Smith tried to cram too much in. It was a little like Saved by the Bell where you have every high school stereotype represented (the jock, the nerd, the cool kid, the geek), but you realize tha...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Tisa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: prose-fiction-and-prosefiction

To properly rate this book, I need a half-star between "it was ok" and "i liked it". I generally admire writers of-color who endeavor to rewrite "classics" and "greats," so that kept my interest, more structurally than on the level of actual prose style. Smith is no stylist, and, media hype notwithstanding, is no heir of Forster's on that score.

The most enduring, complex, memorable characters, for me, are the wives of the feuding husbands. Smith's great strength is in humorously, and sometimes...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Virtuella rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Okay, critically acclaimed author, critically acclaimed novel. What can I say in its favour? It's easy to read and fairly entertaining. There is a lot going on in the story. Zadie Smith has a nice way of turning a phrase, she can capture a setting well and she makes many interesting and insightful observations like that there is no small talk between siblings. Okay, that's nice. But “shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize”? And Zadie Smith considered one of the best authors of her generation? Real...more Okay, critically acclaimed author, critically acclaimed novel. What can I say in its favour? It's easy to read and fairly entertaining. There is a lot going on in the story. Zadie Smith has a nice way of turning a phrase, she can capture a setting well and she makes many interesting and insightful observations like that there is no small talk between siblings. Okay, that's nice. But “shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize”? And Zadie Smith considered one of the best authors of her generation? Really? Really?

The plot of the book is pretty much a novellised soap opera with lots of drama, lots of vulgar sex, lots of ugly scenes with people falling out, everybody feeling soooo betrayed all the time. The constant academic name dropping – ooh, Heidegger, ooh, Adorno, ooh, Foucault! - doesn't mask the fact that it is a book of very little intellectual substance. And in typical soap opera style, it contains plotholes the size of Lake Victoria. For example, when Monty Kipps arrives in his office and finds it broken into and the painting stolen, he does not contact the police. Instead he consults a few colleagues and between them they come to the random conclusion that Carl is responsible, and then they summon Zora with extreme urgency to ask her the very crucial question, “Do you know where Carl Thomas is?” Because, after all, Zora is friendly with Carl, so it is the absolutely logical thing to do to ask her first before, say, trying to contact Carl via the contact details the university holds. And obviously not call the police. Why would anyone call the police to report the theft of a £300000 painting? Now, that would be absurd... Speaking of the painting, the “five foot painting” which Jerome and Kiki between them can barely lift, we are expected to believe that a sixteen-year-old boy, alone and on foot, carried it unnoticed out of the university and across the town to his house. Aye right.

But okay, plotting is not everybody's strong point. Does the novel perhaps make up for this by compelling psychology and insightful characterisation? Um, nope. In fact, many of the characters (Howard, Monty, Victoria, Levi, Claire, Zora, Jerome, Jack) are one-dimensional and little more than caricatures. How does a conservative Christian household bring forth a daughter like Victoria, who sends pornographic pictures of herself to all and sundry via university e-mail and sleeps with her professor (and in an extremely vulgar manner) in her father's house on the day of her mother's funeral while downstairs the guests reminisce in hushed voices about the deceased? We are not given even a hint of an explanation, just as we never find out how Raised-on-Critical-Theory-Jerome turned into a conservative Christian. Apparently it is enough to assume that teenage rebellion will turn young people into the opposite of what their parents hoped for. And Kiki – why exactly does she love Howard? He asks her this question himself towards the book, and I was dead keen to find out the answer. Drum roll: It's the sex, apparently. But when she finds out about Victoria, Kiki finally moves out, decides to get her life back, doesn't even let Howard know where she stays. But, oooohh, four pages later she sits in the audience at his lecture and smiles at him. Why? WHY? And no character was ever introduced without a precise description of their skin colour, you know, blacker than X but not as black as Y. Maybe this is me being a delusional white liberal, but I always thought people were defined by more than just their skin pigmentation.

Then there is the language. Perhaps things are different in London and in East Coast university towns, but in my experience, most educated middle-class people use the f-word extremely sparingly if at all. In this novel, however, they are incapable of holding a conversation without it. A lecturer of Art history, his wife and children, they cannot sit at the breakfast table for ten minutes without effing and swearing. Very authentic.

Oh, and funny! I was promised funny! “Wonderfully funny” and “very funny indeed” it says on the cover. Seriously, I got more laughs out of “Daniel Deronda.” On 450 pages, I didn't laugh once. I didn't as much as grin. Yes, I can see that a lot of her portrayal of academia is meant to be satirical. But it isn't funny. Funny is when you laugh.

Finally, though this is not the author's fault, the book is shoddily edited. In fact, this is the second 21st century novel I've read in recent weeks that had a noticeable amount of typos, grammar mistakes and factual inaccuracies and it makes me wonder whether contemporary publishing houses have done away with editor altogether.(less)

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Apr 08, 2013 Sjerlive rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is such a strong, opinionated book with strong, unforgettable characters living diverse, sometimes clashing, lives. I've had a whirlwind sort of a relationship with all of the characters: loved sometimes, hated at some point, given empathy often. There's just something about the way Zadie Smith created her characters in such a way that they are all remarkable in their ways (except for Monty Kipps who was awfully predictable, but I guess that's how he is intended to come across). The way she...more

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About Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith (born Sadie Smith October 27, 1975) is an English novelist. To date she has written four novels, and is widely regarded as one of England's most talented young authors; in 2003, she was included on Granta's list of 20 best young authors.

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“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.” — 163 people liked it

“Right. I look fine. Except I don't,' said Zora, tugging sadly at her man's nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust. To that end she had tried banning television in the early years, and never had a lipstick or a woman's magazine crossed the threshold of the Belsey home to Kiki's knowledge, but these and other precautionary measures had made no difference. It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies-- it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.” — 91 people liked it

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