Book Review: Zadie Smith’s On Beauty

         When the paperback edition of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty came out in August 2006 I was working as a cashier for Borders Bookstore on Park Avenue in New York. When you work at the register for any retail company that sells anything that would be deemed entertainment the cashiers quickly notice patterns in customer buying habits and can easily influence what the customers buy by recommending the hottest selling title at the time, even without ever picking up the item themselves. So at the time even reading Smith’s book wasn’t going to be a priority to me. Fast Forward to 2013, the book has finally made it to the to-be read/read pile of massive books that have been put in front of me because I went back to school in the fall of 2012 a year after Borders closed due to bankruptcy. When I look back to when I was selling these books en mass to now when I have to read it for class I can now see why it would appeal to those who brought it, even though in all honesty it doesn’t appeal to me or even most of my generation. The highest selling novels of all time appeal to a multitude of demographics and sell millions worldwide and become movies almost immediately depending on the author’s willingness to have them become a movie, as well as whether they’re bankable for the movie companies. What makes these books great as both novels and movies (whether big-screen or made for TV) is that the story brings together people from all generations as well as all races. Does On Beauty appeal to the demographics in the same way as the Harry Potter’s, Lisbeth Salander’s, and Robert Langdon’s of the literary world? Or is this novel really something that would appeal to those who take what is written in the New York Times book review, or even what Oprah Winfrey recommends too seriously?

         The novel On Beauty happens in the fictional small college town of Wellington, Massachusetts and follows the lives of two families, the liberal atheist Belsey family and the conservative religious Kipps family. The novel also focuses on the clash between the heads of the households because of their many different beliefs both as professionals and in their own personal and cultural beliefs, as well as life in this small college town. Following the lives of the three Belsey children Jerome who finds himself attracted to finding religious beliefs and trying to impose some of these thoughts onto his family as well as his falling in and out of love with Victoria, Zora who tries to live up to what she believes is her father’s standards of academic success, and then there’s Levi who is attempting to live the “thug” life in a way, As well as Howard’s and Kiki’s turbulent marriage that is plagued by dishonesty and adultery that is felt throughout the novel both in the Belsey house and at the university where Howard teaches and his daughter Zora attends.
         With the novel there’s an understanding of the children of the Belsey family trying to fit into different social groups and trying to find themselves. There’s Jerome who finds himself attracted to finding religious beliefs and trying to impose some of these thoughts onto his family as well as his falling in and out of love with Victoria, Zora who tries to live up to what she believes is her father’s standards of academic success, and then there’s Levi who is attempting to live the “thug” life in a way. These differences in the children are normal in most families in America whether Black, White, Hispanic, or even Asian. The first born is an overachiever mainly because parents tend to over protect their first born child thinking about what’s best for them, they try with their second child as best as they can but at that point they have to split their attention so the second will grow up thinking that they have to live up to high expectations than their older sibling to gain the same attention. The third child will get the either the split loving parenting style or their will be times when they are ignored altogether.
         Jerome’s role isn’t as big as his younger siblings but he plays a big role in starting the novel. Scarlett Thomas’s review of On Beauty wrote “The emails that begin the narrative tell of Jerome's short-lived love affair with the Kipps family, with whom he stays while on an internship in London.” Thomas also discusses Jerome’s short lived time with the Kipps family and how they introduced him into a different kind of family than the one he currently has. The problem with Jerome is that it seems like he’s a temporary character because he only appears when the story calls for him to be home, such as during holidays or school vacations but other than that Jerome is a fairly non-existent character. Then there’s Zora who wants to be the best at everything at she basically throws herself at which in all seriousness is something most middle children suffer from especially when their elder siblings are always in the highest praises of their parents. Smith has incidentally a character named Smith who describes Zora’s tendency to work hard compared to the other students in her class, he says in the novel “Compared to the other freshmen, she was lahk a text-eating machine – ah mean, she strips the area of sentiment and goes to work. Ah’m dealing with these kids who are still saying Ah really like the part when and Ah love the way – you know, that’s their high-school-analysis level. But Zora….’ ‘She’s awl business. Whatever she gits in front of her she rips apart to see how it works.” (p. 145) Zora’s problems are much more than the book can offer, as well as the problem that she’s never truly expanded as a character or a person. The fatal flaws of Zora is that she’s thrown at you as this overly smart, overachieving middle child but the reason why she is the way she who she is isn’t truly explained. Why does she want to be acknowledged so badly?
         The youngest of the Belsey children has a stereotypical story and one that can irritate those of us who grew up in America. Levi is heavily influenced by what he believes is how to be black in America when he’s in fact just half. Heavily influenced by Rap and Hip-Hop music that comes from Massachusetts southern neighbor New York, as well as clothing and speaking styles (though it probably would have been easier for him to have a Boston accent).Smith describes Levi’s accent in the novel saying “This Faux Brooklyn accent belonged to neither Howard nor Kiki, and had only arrived in Levi’s mouth three years earlier, as he turned twelve.”(p. 11) Jennifer Reese’s review on the novel best summarizes the situation saying “Levi, at 15, has decided that to be authentically black you must wear a skull cap and ''ahks'' questions.” The problem with this is what exactly is the kind of “black” that Levi wants to be, because there’s no such thing as being black that’s just skin color. Levi’s reality is that he’s the youngest and his parents already raised two children who are very good students and very well-mannered and he’s the youngest which leaves him parents who will care just enough that he won’t starve but not enough to make sure he comes home at sensible times. Smith wrote Levi as a mesh of what is “Black” culture in America but he has no true depth he’s just like everyone else even though he thrives to special. The fact that he’s from a well to-do family makes his obsession to be authentically black seem as though he was used by Smith to further progress the story which isn’t truly fair to Levi.
         If Smith had taken the time out the further develop the younger characters in the story, not just the children of the Belsey family but all of them she would have been able to reach a much wider audience. The problem with Smith’s On Beauty is that it’s missing the different beauties that come from these younger characters growing up. She’s trying too hard to become this new wave of author’s who also have remnants of past authors but then over fills the novel with the most mundane things. She has this weird tendency of throwing descriptions of something so random like fixtures in the house but never mentions them again or why it’s important. All of these fillers can be used to further develop the younger characters so that the novel could appeal to a broader audience. If I had to give this book a rating like the kinds that are featured in magazines and newspapers I wouldn’t have the heart to even publish the review. The novel focuses too much on what Smith believes are a stereotypical interracial family in American of better yet any family in America that has the same kind of background. Jerome’s type of character would have not only be tops in academics growing up but he would also be the hero in a small town regardless of race especially if he had a sports background. Zora would be that awkward girl that everyone only knew because of her brother and Levi would have found his own popularity if he was in a band. Again those are stereotypes of American children but these backgrounds would have given them depth that would resonate closer to regular young adults. Smith could have used the youngest characters to build up a relationship to a younger audience so that On Beauty would have had a chance outside of the New York Times demographic. Instead the book falls into this area of just one set of readers that only love it because a book review in the Times told them it was great.

Works Cited

Reese, Jennifer. “On Beauty (2005).”EW.com. Entertainment Weekly, 14 Sep. 2005. Web. 17 Sep. 2013.

Smith, Zadie. On Beauty: A Novel. New York: Penguin, 2005. Print.

Thomas, Scarlett. “On Beauty by Zadie Smith At last – Howard gets his End away.”Independent.co.uk. The Independent. 11 Sep. 2005. Web. 17 Sep. 2013.

Thomas, Susie. “Zadie Smith’s False Teeth: The Marketing of Multiculturalism.” LiteraryLondon.org. Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London. 2005. Web. 7 Oct. 2013