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In 2001 Zadie Smith burst onto the literary scene with an award-winning debut novel, White Teeth, but two years later disappointed fans with her sophomore effort, Autograph Man. Smith is almost back on track with her third novel.
On Beauty is a funny kaleidoscope of 21st century life. The book confirms that Smith is a talented writer with an original approach to race, class and politics. But at the tender age of 30, Smith may not be refining her voice so much as still clarifying what she means to say.
The Belseys are an interracial family with liberal politics living outside Boston on the campus of Wellington College, where Howard, the father, teaches art history. Dr. Belsey's arch enemy, Monty Kipps, has neo-conservative views on everything, including art. Since an intellectual battle doesn't quite grip the reader in the way a more human conflict might, plot is developed as the warring families mingle in bed, in faculty meetings and on the streets.
Beauty as a theme is most potently fleshed out in Smith's female characters, who at the brink of adulthood, menopause and death, explore their inner beauty. Kiki Belsey, the matriarch of the Belsey family, is the most powerful character, wise about friendship and marriage. Smith has a strong clear voice on female issues, but, unfortunately, she juggles the development of so many people here, that voice isn't given a chance to triumph.
As a group, the Belsey children voice Smith's underlying restlessness with adults and their ideologies. As one son becomes a conservative Christian, another breaks rank with academia and descends into a street life rife with criminal activity. The Belsey daughter outs her parents and all their peers with sheer intellectual and political power.
The book makes the point that ideologies, any ideologies, are dangerous -- a timely notion in a Red and Blue nation. The beautiful descriptions of north London, winter on a New England campus and a college library are worth reading more than once. But the coincidental meetings that propel the plot are weak. For every sparkling phrase like "chalky sclera of his eyes" there's an awkward one, like "...the troubling aspects of her future in all its futurity."
Zadie Smith is talented; there is no doubt. She needs to be a bit more careful.
On Beauty
by Zadie Smith (Penguin Press, 443 pages, $25.95)
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Robots, Rockets, & Rovers @ The Schiele Museum of Natural History and Planetarium
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Double Trouble Improv Comedy Night @ CATCh
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ANNIE LEIBOVITZ / WORK @ Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts
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Summer arts camps @ McDowell Arts Center
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