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Description edit
Howard Belsey is an Englishman abroad, an academic teaching in Wellington, a college town in New England. Married young, thirty years later he is struggling to revive his love for his African American wife, Kiki. Meanwhile, his three teenage children — Jerome, Zora and Levi — are each seeking... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters edit
- Howard Belsey: A liberal lecturer at a near Boston university
- Kiki Belsey: Wife of Howard Belsey.
- Levi Belsey: Bi-racial son of Howard and Kiki Belsey. In search of an identity in the world.
- Zora: Howard and Kiki Belsey's only daughter.
- Mann: Add a description of this character.
- Kopf
- Claire
- Carlene Kipps: Wife of Monty Kipps
- Frau
- Jerome Belsey: Eldest son of Howard and Kiki Belsey. Works for Monty Kipps for a while, falls for his daughter.
- Jack
- Blick
- Gott
- Michael
- Tisch
- Weise
- Schatz
- Stelle
- Dann
- Boden
- Ende
- Sohn
- Wasser
- Sie
- Schulter
- Geld
- Howard Belsey: British professor for art history, specializing in Rembrandt, working at Wellington College. He has a very liberal world view.
- Mrs. Kipps
- Bruder
- Kiki Belsey: Howard's African-American wife.
- Zimmer
- Jerome Belsey: The Belseys' oldest son, who attends Brown.
- Stirn
- Garten
- Recht
- Lage
- Klar
- Fenster
- Zora Belsey: The Belseys' daughter who is starting college at Wellington.
- Levi Belsey: Belseys' youngest son, who is still in school.
- Hals
- Monty Kipps: British art history professor and Howard Belsey's academic enemy. His specialty are Caribbean native arts. He is a conservative Christian.
- Carlene Kipps: Kipps' wife of Caribbean origin.
- Danke
- Michael Kipps: Kippes' adult son.
- Dr. Belsey
- Knie
- Bett
- Grund
- Victoria 'Vee' Kipps: Kippes' beautiful daughter. She just finished school.
- Claire Malcolm: Poet and teaches poetry at Wellington University. She is a friend of the Belseys.
- Carl Thomas: Kid from the Boston ghetto about Zora's age.
- Jack French: Dean of the humanities faculty of Wellington and a friend of the Belseys. He has the trademark of speaking very slowly.
- Murdoch: Belseys' dog, especially loved by Kiki.
- Bailey
- Choo: Haitian that inspires Levi a lot.
- Warren
- Katie
- Smith: Howard's assistant at Wellington.
- Tom
- Chantelle: is a black girl from the Boston ghetto. She attends classes at Wellington without qualifications.
- Harold
- Monique: The Belseys' Haitian housemaid.
- Erskine Jegede: Teaches at Wellington and is an old friend of Howard. He has Nigerian origins and went to Oxford with Howard.
- Liddy: Jack French's secretary.
- Ron
- Daisy
- Felix
- Meredith
- Clotilde: The Kippses' Haitian housemaid.
- Amelia
- Caroline
- Harry
- Mike
- Burchfield
- Greenman
- Doc Brown
- Anderson
- Fontaine
Quotes edit
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“In Claire’s presence, you were not faulty or badly designed, no, not at all. You were the fitting receptacle and instrument of your talents and beliefs and desires.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers -
On Beauty No, we could not itemize the list of sins they can’t forgive us. The beautiful don’t lack the wound. It is always beginning to snow. Of sins they can’t forgive us speech is beautifully useless. It is always beginning to snow. The beautiful know this. Speech is beautifully useless.
Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers -
Claire spoke often in her poetry of the idea of ‘fittingness’: that is, when your chosen pursuit and your ability to achieve it – no matter how small or insignificant both might be – are matched exactly, are fitting. This, Claire argued, is when we become truly human, fully ourselves, beautiful.
Highlighted by 23 Kindle customers -
And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here, in the world, with other people. Neither as hard as she had thought it might be nor as easy as it appeared.
Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers -
When you are no longer in the sexual universe – when you are supposedly too old, or too big, or simply no longer thought of in that way – apparently a whole new range of male reactions to you come into play.
Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers -
It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies – it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.
Highlighted by 18 Kindle customers -
He just did not believe, as his father did, that time is how you spend your love.
Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers -
This interested Howard, for a moment: the idea that he could no longer gauge the luxuries of his own life.
Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers -
She had packed them too heavy. The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.
Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers -
You don’t have favourites among your children, but you do have allies.
Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers
First Sentence edit
One may as well begin with Jerome's emails to his father.
Table of Contents edit
1 kipps and belsey
2 the anatomy lesson
3 on beauty and being wrong
author's note
Series & Lists edit
This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
This is book 25 of 1271 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)
Preceded by Fingersmith, and followed by Everything Is Illuminated.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Zadie Smith (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Hamish
Country: England
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Hamish
Country: England
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 464
Awards edit
- Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2005, shortlist)
- Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2006)
- Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (2006: South Asia and Europe)
- Orange Prize for Fiction (2006)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 823.914
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