Collideoscope

Thanks for such a welcoming introduction, David. Here we go . . .

I’ve conquered my first official book of summer reading—On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

I was introduced to her via recommended short story and it piqued my interest, so I did a bit of research. I found that Smith published her first book, White Teeth, when she was only 24, and that it was an internationally bestselling hit which garnered many awards. I immediately hit the library and, failing to find White Teeth, checked out the only novel of hers (she’s written three so far) that was available. I was not disappointed.

The story follows the sometimes comically dysfunctional Belsey family who lives in the fictional college town of Wellington—containing a university bearing the same name—which is located right outside of Boston. The father, Howard, is a white Englishman employed at Wellington as a professor of Art History. We find that his African-American wife, Kiki, is struggling to deal with her husband’s recent infidelity. As the story begins, their oldest son, Jerome, goes off to England in rebellion to intern with his father’s academic arch nemesis—right-wing ideologue Monty Kipps. Joined by second-oldest, stubborn and intelligent daughter Zora, and laid-back, wannabe gangsta son Levi, the Belseys eventually learn about themselves, that people can’t be categorically judged, and that the beauty in life is worth fighting for.

I would like to call Smith a cultural and linguistic chameleon. As a London born daughter of an English father and Jamaican mother, she has a multicultural background, but I’m impressed with her ability to negotiate the nuances of speech and mannerism of people whose background would be alien to her. Another thing I rather liked about the book is that her writing is not bottom line-oriented. She’s not pushing an agenda. She criticizes and satirizes the liberal sensibilities represented by Howard’s character as much as she does the rabid conservatism represented by Kipps. In the end, she shows that people are not categories, political ideals, races, or classes. They are contradictory, surprising, and fallible; by turns stubborn, tenderhearted, selfish, and forgiving— human beings.