1 of 2 members found this review helpful.
“When I started on On Beauty, I hadn't realized that it's a re-telling of Forster's Howard's End. So the revelation was... unspoilt. I had some suspicion, but it was when I got to the part where Carlene suddenly and awkwardly insisted on visiting a house in the country with Kiki that a bell rang on my head. And the note and the burning of it. And then more clues piled up. It was a nice little unveiling.[br/][br/]The prose is very funny, thoroughly enjoyable, and surely as close to a page-turner as a 'literary' novel could get. There's plenty of insight and beauty in the fleshing out of the story to keep it from being too 'light.'[br/][br/]Even though the subject matter of Smith's book revolves around bi-racial issues and liberal versus conservative values, I can't help viewing it in comparison with Forster's book. Over there, conflicts revolved around class issues, and intellectual versus bourgeois values, which I feel to be more relevant and persistent, even at present. Also after reading that book (and watching the superb movie), I get a better sense of the purpose, the point of the story. [br/][br/]One of the problems, I feel, is that events that happened in On Beauty was somehow not disastrous enough, especially set in the modern Anglo-Saxon context. They were almost mundane compared to the tragedy and damage that befell the Wilcoxes, the Schlegels and Bast.[br/][br/]That said, Smith definitely shows flair in creating characters. Kiki is a favorite (markedly different from and more flawed than the Margaret character in Howards End, whom I love very much). Even Howard seemed familiar, with all his cluelessness and intellectual certitude. [br/][br/]As a footnote, I think the method of 'skipping' the most dramatic scenes in the stories was quite effective and judiciously employed. A trick from Chekov's page?[br/][br/]Personally, I will certainly keep an eye on Smith's works.”
