RSSOn Beauty, by Zadie Smith
As lauded as she continues to be, Zadie Smith hasn’t yet received all of the credit she deserves for the creation of On Beauty. To read the critics, Smith’s tribute to E.M. Forster’s Howards End is “an extraordinary academic comic novel” (Salon) about “the divisive cultural politics of the new century” (The New York Times) and whose characters are “troubled by the question of the use or value of art and literature in a post-9/11 world” (Guardian Unlimited). These observations are all quite true, but reading them after having stepped away from the pages of the novel, they are also frustrating. I had a more visceral reaction to the novel, and it was all about the prose. On Beauty was so well written, so vividly painted, that it just made me want to pick up another book—and a very, very good one at that.
In “On Beauty, or Gee I Sure Like Novels,” blogger Mark Little captured it better than more-established reviewers:
Some of my favorite fiction … reflects a theoretical understanding of the world as a glimpse into lived lives, real conversations, non-’philosophical’ ruminations.… Zadie Smith accomplishes this thing, this theory-into-fiction thing, so well.
It’s the beauty of prose, life, and family that Smith is examining, and it’s a beauty far more transcendent than divisive cultural politics or the established genre of the comic academic novel.
Right from the novel’s opening pages, Smith takes the reader on an extraordinary exploration of family dynamics. It reminded me of The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, but with an important distinction. Smith embraces her characters and their humanity with far more generosity and love than Franzen does his. Where Franzen’s harsh observations made me wince, Smith simply seemed to know her characters in the way that one would beloved, if eccentric, family members. Her characters clearly may be headed toward an emotional train wreck, but she had me hoping against hope that they would correct their bad judgements.
On Beauty was nominated for Britain’s Orange Prize this week—one in a long string of nominations and awards Smith has deservedly racked up for this novel. I can’t say whether I think she should win, because I’ve only read two of the other shortlisted books so far (more on those another day). But if the company they keep is any indication, I’ve now got my own shortlist of very, very good novels to pick up—and very fast at that.