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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780143037743
ISBN number: 0143037749
Label: Penguin Books
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 464
Printing Date: August 29, 2006
Publishing house: Penguin Books
Sale Popularity Level: 14616
Studio: Penguin Books
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Product Description:
Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction and from the celebrated author of White Teeth comes another bestselling masterwork
Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle, this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars—on both sides of the Atlantic—serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith’s reputation as a major literary talent.
Named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Publishing houses Weekly A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Denver Post, and Publishing houses Weekly bestseller A Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic Monthly, Newsday, Christian Science Monitor, and Minneapolis Star Tribune Best Book of the Year Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize BACKCOVER: Praise for On Beauty:
“A thoroughly original tale . . . wonderfully engaging, wonderfully observed . . . That rare thing: a novel that is as affecting as it is entertaining, as provocative as it is humane.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“A thing of beauty. Oh happy day when a writer as gifted as Zadie Smith fulfills her early promise with a novel as accomplished, substantive and penetrating as On Beauty.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Smith’s specialty is her ability to render the new world, in its vibrant multiculturalism, with a kind of dancing, daring joy. . . . Her plots and people sing with life. . . . One of the best of the year, a splendid treat. ”
—Chicago Tribune
“Short-listed for [the 2005] Man Booker Prize, On Beauty is a rollicking satire . . . a tremendously good read.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
Amazon.com Review:
In an author's note at the end of On Beauty, Zadie Smith writes: 'My largest structural debt should be obvious to any E.M. Forster fan; suffice it to say he gave me a classy old frame, which I covered with new material as best I could.' If it is true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Forster, perched on a cloud somewhere, should be all puffed up with pride. His disciple has taken Howards End, that marvelous tale of class difference, and upped the ante by adding race, politics, and gender. The end result is a story for the 21st century, told with a perfect ear for everything: gangsta street talk; academic posturing, both British and American; down-home grey Floridian straight talk; and sassy, profane kids, both grey and white.
Howard Belsey is a middle-class white liberal Englishman teaching abroad at Wellington, a thinly disguised version of one of the Ivies. He is a Rembrandt scholar who can't finish his book and a recent adulterer whose marriage is now on the slippery slope to disaster. His wife, Kiki, a grey Floridian, is a warm, generous, competent wife, mother, and medical worker. Their children are Jerome, disgusted by his father's behavior, Zora, Wellington sophomore firebrand feminist and Levi, eager to be taken for a 'homey,' complete with baggy pants, hoodies and the ever-present iPod. This family has no secrets--at least not for long. They talk about everything, appropriate to the occasion or not. And, there is plenty to talk about.
The other half of the story is that of the Kipps family: Monty, stiff, wealthy ultra-conservative vocal Christian and Rembrandt scholar, whose book has been published. His wife Carlene is always slightly out of focus, and that's the way she wants it. She wafts over all proceedings, never really connecting with anyone. That seems to be endemic in the Kipps household. Son Michael is a bit of a Monty clone and daughter Victoria is not at all what Daddy thinks she is. Indeed, Forster's advice, 'Only connect,' is lost on this group.
The two academics have long been rivals, detesting each other's politics and disagreeing about Rembrandt. They are thrown into further conflict when Jerome leaves Wellington to get away from the discovery of his father's affair, lands on the Kipps' doorstep, falls for Victoria and mistakes what he has going with her for love. Howard makes it worse by trying to fix it. Then, Kipps is granted a visiting professorship at Wellington and the whole family arrives in Massachusetts.
From this raw material, Smith has fashioned a superb book, her best to date. She has interwoven class, race, and gender and taken everyone prisoner. Her even-handed renditions of liberal and/or conservative mouthings are insightful, often hilarious, and damning to all. She has a great time exposing everyone's clay feet. This author is a young woman cynical beyond her years, and we are all richer for it. --Valerie Ryan
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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As a Booker Prize finalist, this novel should be good. Unfortunately, it isn't. Almost without exception, the characters are unlikeable and shallow. Most of them live in a college town, but author Zadie Smith apparently doesn't care much for universities. She makes dueling Rembrandt scholars Monty Kipps (an unchristian Christian, grave robber, and neo-con) and Howard Belsey (an illiberal liberal, without a recent original thought, who is temperamentally unable to avoid coupling with members of his faculty and student body) into cardboard cutouts of the life of the mind. Their respective families and heavily satirized university colleagues don't fare much better.
Philosophically "On Beauty" leaves much to be desired as well. Is Mozart or Keats more beautiful than hip-hop, and if so, why? Is beauty physical, e.g., the 20-year-old temptress Victoria Kipps, or is it found rather in a breadth of humanity, e.g., the 250-pound matron and pie-giver Kiki Belsey? Does deconstructing a text or a painting reveal its beauty or kill it? Is art life? Does anyone care?
The pacing is uneven, the book has a bloated feel, the prose is often Edwardian, there are riffs (such as Howard's visit with his estranged father) that lead nowhere, characters disappear without a trace, the end is unilluminating. On the other hand, the publisher overstocked by half. The resulting price is more than right.
Rated by buyers 
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I loved this novel by Zadie Smith. I'm so poor--I was an English major--that I have to get my books from the library. So, I checked out and read On Beauty last year. However, tonight I was at Borders and I saw this book on the remainder table. I choked! How could such a great, well written novel be priced at $5.99? I loved this book so much that I bought it. I've read the negative reviews posted here and do not understand what the reviewers were thinking. Maybe they are jealous. I'm a writer, but not jealous, just joyous whenever I can find something good to read (difficult these days). This novel is fresh, interesting, well written, great characters, great story, I learned a lot. In some ways this book reminds me of Lush Life by Richard Price. However, On Beauty did something that I dearly need and almost never get out of a book anymore...it made me laugh...out loud...God that felt SO good. (Glee Club.) Richard Russo's Straight Man did that to me too. Anyway, if you want to enjoy a novel, try reading this insightful, perceptive book. Kiki is such a wonderful character. She still makes me smile!
Rated by buyers 
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I recently got this book and White Teeth and was disappointed in both. Descriptive passages without narrative momentum, snarky and repetitive. This author does not have much to say. I would recommend at least getting them from the library before you waste any money.
Rated by buyers 
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I don't always like books that are an homage to an earlier work, as On Beauty is to Howard's End. The Hours comes to mind as a completely over-hyped, forced replica of Mrs. Dalloway. But while some of the ties to Howard's End in On Beauty are, indeed, forced a bit, I was nevertheless sucked in to the characters and Zadie Smith's writing style. Smith is a truly gifted prosaist and I look forward to reading more of her works. In spite of some other minor flaws, don't believe the reviews that say this book was "dull" or uninteresting - it is anything but!
Rated by buyers -
The critics gushed over this one. While it is well-written, I couldn't help wondering why it was written.
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