On Beauty (Courtney Novels)

by Zadie Smith

In this loose retelling of Howard's End, Zadie Smith considers the big questions: 

Why do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful?

Set in New England mainly and London partly, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families—the Belseys and the Kippses—and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kippses, the confusions—both personal and political—of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.

• ISBN10: 0143017632
• ISBN13: 9780143017639
• Publish Date: 12 September 2006 (first published 1 September 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: CA
• Imprint: Penguin Canada
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 464
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9780143017639

Reviews

[clementine]

This is such a tricky one for me! I really admire Zadie Smith's prose, and her ability to construct believable characters is second to none. I loved the focus on academic pretension - Howard and Claire were simply insufferable with all their obfuscating phrases so symptomatic of the insular academic world. But I couldn't help but feel that the point of this book was to show how clever it was. It felt very smug! Maybe that was the point, though. It also felt a bit scattered, almost a series of vignettes that never fully came together. I felt this way about Smith's NW too - the end just sort of fizzled despite the promise of her obvious talent. White Teeth remains, by far, my favourite of her novels, and now I'm left wondering if my love for that book is a sad one-off. I'll probably press on with her work, though, because White Teeth gives me such hope.

[jamiereadthis]

If I could strangle a book I’d strangle this book.