On Beauty, book review. (Zadie Smith)

On Beauty, the second Zadie Smith novel I have read, has a lot going for it: great characters - although, towards the end what two of them do isn't that believable - great settings, I've never been to New England but feel like I have now and I know London well enough that that part of the book was a comfort; great story, interwoven with love, betrayal, naivety, passion, lies, deaths and new beginnings, and great dialogue, I really felt the generation gap, the race gap, the religion and to some degree the nationality gap between the parents and their children, men and women, university professors and students the English and Americans, and all in all it really did feel like I had lived alongside the Belseys and the Kippses for a year, wow.

The diversity of the two families backgrounds' is explored to add context, there's Howard Belsey's affair, which ends up being far more than the small indiscretion he had claimed it to be when one of their oldest friends is exposed as the other adulterer, religion and its confines on being able to see people as people, not just gay or straight, black, white or mixed, American or Haitian, poor or rich, and the bigotry that goes with it is, and you have the naive pursuit of a beautiful young woman by an inexperienced young man, being overweight, having a voice and a platform on which to be heard, and more, and it's not until you get to the end of this book and think back that you realise just how many different facets of normal life the author has managed to almost subliminally include in the narrative.

There is little pace to the book so I did at times find it a bit ploddy, which is a shame because it meant I found it hard to pick up when I only had a few minutes to read, instead I had to plan ahead, read when I knew I had an hour or two, which isn't always the case and so it took a little longer to finish than most but, whenever I did put that time aside I was quickly sucked back in and thoroughly enjoyed it.

So the lack of pace and the fact that a fifty-seven-year-old man seemed to have enough irresistible charm to entice a nineteen-year-old woman into bed, twice - although he walked out on her on the second occasion - are my only gripes.

The writing is beautiful - pure prose - and it felt like I was entrenched in the two families love's, lies and misdemeanours, so much so that I now hankering after a sequel, to find out what Levi is up to, whether Kiki is happy, what Victoria may have made of her life, whether Howard is still around, et-al.

Well, here's hoping.

Four stars for On Beauty then and as I've already done NW, I think I'll try Swing Time next.

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