Zadie Smith's On Beauty

“The street, the global street, lined with hustling brothers working corners from Roxbury to Casablanca, from South Central to Cape Town” (245-246).

I am unsure what to think of Zadie Smith's On Beauty...but undoubtedly my favorite character is the wannabe-gansta Levi Belsey, son of a British professor at an elite university and living in suburban Boston, yet pretending to be from Roxbury and speaking in an incomprehensible manner 99.9 percent of the world cannot understand (yet he thinks it's 'hood'). In addition, Smith reveals some deep appreciation for poetry, Haitian art, transatlantic families and the New England urban/suburban landscape, as well as a scathing look at university politics. The above painting, "Maitresse Erzulie" by Hector Hyppolite, a legendary Haitian painter, depicts the loa associated with love and sexuality, very appropriate for a novel about the pursuit of beauty in all its forms as well as the dangers of such pursuits. Oh, and Zora Belsey, a 'big' mixed-race girl, is very similar to Irie from White Teeth, since both are 'big girls' in love with young men out of their league. Haitian immigrants appear everywhere in the novel, from the cleaning ladies and maids of the Belseys and rival family of conservatives, the Kipps (also transatlantic, with Afro-Caribbean/British identities instead of the African-American/White English Belsey clan), to the cleaning staff at Wellington, the elite private university in the town of Wellington, a suburb of Boston. Haitians feature prominently to highlight 'essentialized blackness,' beauty where you'd least expect it (Haitian art, specifically, the paintings of the Haitian loa associated with beauty and sexuality, or beauty from a land of misery and ugliness, as one may assume from Levi's one book he read on Haiti) and the racial/class hierarchies of New England. In addition, the emphasis on the part of Howard Belsey, the English liberal professor specializing in Rembrandt and European art history is matched by the emphasis on Haitian painting, suggesting some equivalency in terms of artistic merit, despite the lack of universal recognition of Haitian art, unlike that accorded to Rembrandt. 

Anyway, it is difficult not to think of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God when reading this novel, since some of the characters, particularly Monty Kipps' daughter, Victoria, could be read as personifications of the Haitian Vodou pantheon, particularly Erzulie. Indeed, the theme of the pursuit of beauty as the cause of one's downfall could be read in Howard's infidelity with Victoria, the young, amazing-looking black woman who, despite being the daughter of his enemy, Monty Kipps, a black British conservative of Afro-Caribbean roots who despises affirmative action, liberals, gays, and wants to take "the liberal out of liberal arts," represents the power of beauty to distract and lead one to one's destruction. Likewise, the Hyppolite painting and it's beauty (as well as worth), leads Levi astray into theft, stealing it from Kipps' office at Wellington University, so clearly the potentially negative power of beauty is something Smith stresses. Indeed, perhaps some of this beauty is more akin to Lasiren, and sirens more generally. But like Zora Neale Hurston (notice how one of Howard and Kiki's children is named Zora?) the dialogue of the text often contains some more form African-American vernacular English (primarily through the slang spoken by gansta-wannabe Levi) and a general love story ransacked by infidelity and marital troubles, just as Kiki, like Janie, learns to love herself (though taking joy in the creations of her marriage to Howard, their three children). The homages to Haitian Vodou loa of beauty, Erzulie, as well as a reference to the motif of crossroads in African-American music, an obvious allusion to Papa Legba, a trickster figure important for opening the doors to communication with the gods (which occurs since Carl, the disadvantaged employee in the African American Music Library at Wellington essentially paves the way for Levi to return and steal the Hyppolite painting!). Thus, Haitian Vodou and influences from Haitian popular religion, as well as echoes of Zora Neale Hurston, rear their head in the novel's characters and plot, a sign of the archetypal Vodou lwa. 

The E.M. Forster homages are beyond my understanding, since I have yet to read any Forster. But if there is an influence in the prose of Smith, then perhaps I should. The novel is humorous, very British in its narration, and, like White Teeth, slightly hysterical at times in its vivid descriptions of characters and settings. It also serves as an ugly reminder of class stratification within Black America as as source of divide, the insidious politics of universities and the battle between left and right within the ivory tower, censorship, and, of course, marital strife, the family as a metaphor for the troubles of the human condition and nations, the notion of diaspora and transatlantic family, and, more broadly, the moral weaknesses of both liberals and conservatives in the battle for the soul of the US and the UK. Overall, this is a fascinating novel replete with a plethora of insightful themes and commentary, as well as a prominent place for Haitian Boston and the centrality of race on both sides of the Atlantic. Though not nearly as moving or strong as White Teeth, I enjoyed this novel far more than NW, which likewise featured a diverse cast of characters living in northwestern London. I would give this a 4 out of 5 stars. For an interesting look at the novel focusing on Haitian influences, check out this.