Wednesday, December 06, 2006

On Beauty

A long wait has produced a fine review by the dependable Ms. Josselyn. We hope that this submission will spark a flurry of holiday reviews from those contributors whose hands have lain still these past months. - RD

At a dinner party a few nights ago a friend dropped the old freshman English standby, “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” into the conversation. What followed was an embarrassing moment, as more than a few of us (including the estimable editor of this literary review) fumbled around for author, quote or other proof that we’d ever had to read this bit in some long-forgotten Classics seminar. I bring this up not to condemn a generation that does not have Keats at our fingertips, or a mastery of Tennyson on the tips of our tongues, but to indicate my worry that much of what was assumed for these men is quaint and slightly arcane in today’s world.

Keats boldly declares truth beauty and beauty truth, and one can’t help wonder at the ease of his definition, or, in a society that continually perverts beauty with a tawdry mix of sex and money, marvel that they were ever interchangeable. For those worried this may be mere social rant or, worse, an overly ambitious review of Keats, fear not, it’s only intended to be a review of Zadie Smith’s newest novel. This choice was made because a) there aren’t enough women authors reviewed here, and b) it was the only thing that looked good as I whiled away a few days in Amsterdam some months ago. While Smith handily published this novel under the title On Beauty, it could just as easily have taken its moniker from the other element in Keats’ venerable equation.

For Smith’s title is confusing. Little of what she reveals in her characters, their motives, or even their best of intentions is beautiful. What it may be is true, or the truth their deceit exposes. The lies we tell ourselves, within our families, our social structures, and our relationships, and the further untruths the lies demand we tell to others, make up the conflict, character and catharsis of Smith’s third novel. Her judgment of its characters lies just as much in the truth their actions create or deny as the beauty they are performed within.

Set in a small college town, On Beauty introduces us to an array of families and social constructs across international and socio-economic borders and, in a story continually dissecting pretenses, none is allowed to be simply one-dimensional. Each character – Mother Africa, Conservative Widower, Christian Wife, Haitian Refugee, Bright Student from the Streets – could be the book’s hero, its villain or, as is often the case, both at once. None are limited to a single role. They are, like most of us, these things and more, a fusion of their best and worst characteristics – themselves and their better selves. The hero may not be heroic, or might be undone in his final decisions. The aggrieved wife may allow herself to be continually wronged, the successful family patriarch may be a thief, the boy from the streets may return there, even after the gift of the college campus is offered to him.

Smith understands people to be composed of attributes that conflict within their very bodies: intelligence and idiocy, loyalty and adultery, constancy and change, love and anger, ambition and naïveté; the one never precluding the other. As her readers judge her characters we are disappointed and confused by their choices, but Smith’s conclusions are still satisfying.

There is no great moment of catharsis, of undoing, in this work, which Smith’s critics are quick to point out and rightly criticize. Not everyone gets what they deserve, for better or worse; even the conflicts Smith creates don’t necessarily come with conclusions. Einstein once wrote: “Nothing happens till something moves,” and certainly, what Smith’s novel is lacking is a grand-scale moment of movement, or what could be called the lack of a plot or story. Her characters, the women in particular, seem content to continue on with their unfulfilled lives, without seeking change or the conflict necessary to rile the waters. They condone their husband’s affairs, secretly harbor romances and fantasies and die quietly with few dramatic moments. But when they finally do act, what actions they are! There are the destructions of fortunes, the terminations of engagements, the screams of fights in the streets and the drunken violent sex of teenage girls. After, Smith settles us in to wait quietly for the next great movement.

In these in-between times, what she tells are the smaller realities of life, the moments of truth, the capture of characters’ feelings and responses as they brush up against each other and move on. Ultimately, these pictures, painted with Smith’s finely detailed brush, are more rewarding than the grandiose would have been. They are affirmations of the truth we recognize from our own lives.

Amid all of this, On Beauty is told with a wit and satirical edge that make her reader laugh, but with a love for the people whose story Smith tells.

- Lessa Josselyn