Dave's Book Blog: "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith

Thursday, 18 September 2025

"On Beauty" by Zadie Smith

One may as well begin by acknowledging that although the plot is based on Howard's End by E M Forster, Zadie Smith has written a novel that not only translates the action to American academic life but spectacularly transcends her original.

The bare bones of the story are there. It starts with the line: “One may as well begin with Jerome's e-mails to his father” (Kipps and Belsey: 1) Jerome Belsey, going to stay with the Kipps family (whose right-wing patriarch is at academic war with Jerome's dad, Howard) falls in love with Victoria Kipps, daughter of the family. Howard pays a visit and spectacularly causes embarrassment. But his wife Kiki Belsey forms a friendship with Mrs Kipps, an ethereal woman very much in the mould of the original. This friendship prompts Mrs K to scribble a hand-written unwitnessed codicil to her will, leaving the family's most valuable painting to Kiki, a donation the Kippses hush up and burn.

Leonard Bast appears to, in the figure of cool and gorgeous hip hip artist Carl, with whom Zora Belsey, Howard's daughter falls in love and whom her poetry class at college patronise (in both senses).

I guess the sixteen year old Levi Belsey is supposed to mirror Tibby in Howards End but Tibby is academic and so vague as to be translucent while Levi fizzes with life and hooks up with some Haitians in an attempt at revolutionary socialism with all the misguided zeal of his youth.

Victoria's equivalent disappears to Africa for most of the Forster book but Victoria makes a huge impression on the text by sleeping not just with Jerome but also with his father and with Carl. So the plot element of the man whose secret affair becomes known is still there but with the 'wrong' family.

But why worry about the correspondences? The characters in this book are wonderfully and anarchically real, taking the plot by the scruff of its neck and forcing it into the shape they want.

Of all the characters it is Howard who experiences the most 'only connection' when he has a series of epiphanies in the middle of the book.

At Mrs K's funeral “a man in front of Howard checking his watch as if the end of the world (for so it was for Carlene Kipps) was a mere inconvenience in his busy day, even though this fellow too would live to see the end of his world, as would Howard, as do tens of thousands of people every day, few of whom, in their lifetimes, are ever able to truly believe in the oblivion to which they are dispatched.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 2) which is too much for Howard and he has to run out of the church.
Then he finds himself in a London street with all the variety of people there. “We scum, we happy scum! From people like these he had come. To people like these he would always belong.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 3)
He then finds himself in a pub watching football on the television. “Soon he was cheering and complaining with the rest.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 4)

But it is Levi who articulates it, in a scene interpolated into the three scenes of Howard's: “Sometimes it's like you just meet someone and you just know that you're totally connected, and that this person is, like, your brother - or your sister.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 4)

And the beauty? There is a poem entitled 'On Beauty' and there are many discussions of aesthetics. There are questions such as whether hip-hop is 'proper' poetry (the poets try to make Carl write a sonnet). Zora is transfixed by Carl's physical beauty. Howard gives lectures debunking Rembrandt and is told by Victoria (who becomes one of his students) that there comes a point when he should stop discussing tomatoes and just say 'I like tomatoes'.

But the analysis deadens a book which, otherwise, is brimming with life, driven by some unforgettable characters.

And it can be very funny:

“She lived through footnotes. ... so intent was she upon reading the guidebook to Sacre-Coeur that she walked directly into an altar, cutting her forehead open.” (Kipps and Belsey: 7)
“Whenever Howard saw an opportunity to take the moral high ground he pretty much catapulted himself towards it.” (Kipps and Belsey: 9)
“When confronted with people she knew to be religious she began to blaspheme wildly.” (Kipps and Belsey: 12)
“Jack’s two PhDs, in Lydia's mind, made up for all the times he tipped coffee into his own filing cabinet.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 2)
“Zora's silent sulks were always oppressive, and as belligerent as if she was screaming at you from the top of her lungs.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 6)
“Somehow if you ordered the cheesecake as an afterthought it had fewer calories in it.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 6)
“These shoes took stairs in only one direction.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 11)

Selected quotes:

“It's very cool to be able to pray without someone in your family coming into the room and (a) passing wind (b) shouting (c) analysing the ‘phoney metaphysics’ of prayer (d) singing loudly (e) laughing.” (Kipps and Belsey: 1)
“When you are guilty, all you can ask for is a deferral of the judgment.” (Kipps and Belsey: 2)
“The windows retain their mottled green glass, spreading a dreamy pasture on the floorboards whenever strong light passes through them.” (Kipps and Belsey: 3)
“He thrilled at the suggestion that Art was a gift from God, blessing only a handful of masters, and most Literature merely a veil for poorly reasoned left-wing ideologies.” (Kipps and Belsey: 5)
“Levi treasured the urban the same way previous generations worshiped the pastoral.” (Kipps and Belsey: 8) And why not?
“Faced with the smallest slight to himself or his character, and, in particular, his clothes, Levi would argue for justice for as long as he had breath in his body, even when - especially when - he was in the wrong.” (Kipps and Belsey: 9)
“Summer left Wellington abruptly and slammed the door on the way out. The shudder sent the leaves to the ground all at once.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 1)
“Bottom line? I'm not a big talker. I don't express shit well when I talk. I write better than I speak. ... Talkin’? I hit my own finger. Every time.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 1)
“She too had spent much time in universities. She understood the power of the inappropriate.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 3)
“‘I don't ask myself what did I live for,’ said Carlene strongly. ‘ that is a man's question. I ask whom did I live for.’” (The Anatomy Lesson: 4)
“Levi was still only sixteen, living with his parents in the middle class suburb of Wellington, and therefore not really a viable stand-in father for her three small children.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 5)
“Situationists transform the urban landscape.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 5)
“This concern with beauty as a physical actuality in the world ... that’s clearly imprisoning and it infantilizes ... but it's true.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 6)
“Try walking down the street with fifteen Haitians if you want to see people get uncomfortable.” (The Anatomy Lesson: 6)
“And now the practical hats of the Kippses were put on. The women in the room were not offered hats and instinctively sat back in their chairs.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 1)
“Opportunity ... is a right - but it is not a gift. Rights are earned.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 8)
“She was the kind of person who never gave you enough time to miss her.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 9)
“Inside Levi's room the smell of boy, of socks and sperm, was strong.” (On Beauty and Being Wrong: 12)