Nonetheless, I enjoyed this book tremendously. I felt l could see what Smith was doing there I was onto all her tricks. I am more cynical now and not so easily impressed as I was back then.

I can’t quite recall now what it was about ‘White Teeth’ that spoke to me so but it was as if a curse was lifted and I could read and use my brain again.įor this OCD reason or another, a decade had to pass before I read another Zadie Smith’s book. I had no idea there were books like that, that there were stories like that and that people were telling them. I checked it out, went home and started reading. I was just browsing idly when I saw a book called ‘White Teeth’ with an interesting cover. I had no idea what to read or how to choose. I was about 21 when finally the fog surrounding my brain cleared a little and I decided to go to my local library. For the next five years my brain didn’t see much action (I somehow managed to finish high school and got accepted into the University of Warsaw but generally I found education a big distraction to my social life). Here is something you should know – I was a serious book-worm up until I turned 16 (more or less) at which point I lost all interest in anything that wasn’t parties, boys, alcohol, drugs or sex. It is also, as you might expect, very funny indeed.īefore we talk about Zadie Smith, let’s talk about me first. Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith's third novel is a brilliant analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, intersections of the personal and political, and an honest look at people's deceptions. How do you choose the work on which to spend your life? Why do you love the people you love? Do you really believe what you claim to? And what is the beautiful thing, and how far will you go to get it?

An infidelity, a death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that sees all parties forced to examine the unarticulated assumptions which underpin their lives. Then Jerome, Howard's older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register. Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college.

On beauty by zadie smith