February 2011 - On Beauty

I should be packing. Instead I am here.

On Beauty  - Zadie Smith


First, some back story. I first read Zadie Smith's White Teeth when I was in London. It was a very fashionable thing to do at the time - sit on the tube with your Zadie book. Actually, Audrey assigned it and it was amazing! Kelly picked up On Beauty when it was still in hardcover and I always intended on borrowing it. Fast forward to a year or so later and I'm at the Denver Public Library. I pick up a hardcover version of the book and think "Great, I'll read this." Unfortunately, it was right around the time I graduated and the only books I could even contemplate reading - after four years of being subjected to whatever the English and History departments demanded I read - were the Harry Potter books. So of course I forget about it entirely and it becomes another book in my apartment. And then one day I realize I owe a lot of money in late fees and the library now considers the book as "lost." I dig it up and one rainy day put it in the drop box at the Cherry Creek branch... which was a mistake.

Six months later, I get a job interview at DPL! I decide to check to make sure I don't still owe any fees and I do. Somehow the book was lost. I decide to charge the fees with the last of my credit line so that it hopefully doesn't come up during my interview. Interview goes poorly. I don't get the job. I still haven't read On Beauty.

Finally, three years later I get a lovely paperback copy from a nice girl in Japan via bookmooch. My only successful bookmooch acquisition in fact. And then a year later I read it.

I enjoyed it but I feel like maybe it was saying things about art, beauty, and academia that I wasn't fully understanding. From my own experience I understand that academia is it's own bubble, safe from the problems and realities of the outside world. I'm happy I didn't go to school in a college town like the one in the novel. But I did go to a school in one of the most educated cities in the United States. I overhear so many conversations that I think anywhere else they might verge on pretentious but here they fit right in. Ha! Or maybe D-town is just one big pretentious love fest?

I do love Smith's ability to draw complex characters with believable attributes. Each character has his or her own distinct voice and in many ways resemble people that I know, or could know. She also does something that I found refreshing - she approaches questions of identity in a realistic way. Her characters have multiple identities, multiple roles they play and they all handle them differently. The identity crises that occur throughout the novel are nuanced and manage to steer clear of being stereotypical. And while Smith is slowly unpacking all of these characters and asking questions about the world they live in, she still manages to be funny.