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Well, one more review of a book I didn’t love. I won’t do too many of these, but I’d been hearing so much about Zadie Smith — this up and coming young writer from England. Brainy (read English at Cambridge), winner of sevearl awards for her first book, White Teeth: The Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book). (There was a bidding war for this her debut novel!) Her second novel, The Autograph Man, was published in 2002, and won the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction. And On Beauty was short-listed for England’s Booker Award, so — it was on my want to read list. Now I’ve read. No doubt — this young woman can write. We will hear more of her. She can paint a character with the best of them. Howard Belsey, English ex-patriot living in America, teaching in a New England college. Kiki Belsey, his African American wife (she of the voluminous, mother-earth breasts), their three teenage children (I can feel it when son Levi does that rolling dude walk), Howard’s political and scholarly rival Monty Kipps (the conservative you love to hate), Kipps’ ailing wife and his seductive (and seducing) daughter Victoria. I still half believe I’m going to run into these people, spot them walking along some Boston street, spy them riding just ahead of me on the bus — so strong is my sense of their reality. But setting the stage, introducing characters, and naming the tensions…the story devolves into a soap opera (especially the sex scenes). Too bad. Such good material. But it went on too long. Smith let the characters run away from her, catching her up in a saga never reached a meaningful resolution (or even a meaningful non-resolution!). It’s still might be worth the read. Say for the joy of anticipating a writer who may be on the scene for decades. Or to learn learn from those character details. Or mabye just so you’ll be prepared for the movie that may appear. FilmFour has bought the movie rights for On Beauty, Alison Owen and Scott Rudin will produce the film. You’ll know Rudin for his adaptations of other literary works: Angela’s Ashes and The Hours. Maybe a screen play edit will dig out the treasures that ended up buried beneath too much melodrama. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. <back to list |
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