On Beauty - Zadie Smith

3-Minute Presentation: On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Expanded Author Section)

Good evening. Tonight, we explore On Beauty, a 2005 novel by Zadie Smith, one of the most celebrated contemporary literary voices of our time.

Zadie Smith was born in London, England, in 1975, to a Jamaican mother and an English father. Growing up in the culturally diverse neighborhood of North West London, she was immersed in multiple cultures and perspectives, which would later influence her writing. Smith attended King’s College, Cambridge, where she studied English literature, and she published her first novel, White Teeth, in 2000, at the age of 25. The book was an immediate critical success and established her as a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Since then, Smith has written several novels, essays, and short stories, gaining widespread acclaim for her keen observations of society, culture, and human behavior. Her work often explores identity, multiculturalism, family dynamics, and the social and political forces that shape our lives. In addition to her literary achievements, Smith has received numerous honors, including being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and receiving the Orange Prize nomination for On Beauty. She has also taught creative writing at institutions like New York University, influencing a new generation of writers.

Now, turning to On Beauty itself, the novel centers on the Belsey family, particularly Howard Belsey, a British-born professor of art history, his wife Kiki, and their three children. Set in the United States, it explores the intersections of race, class, academia, and personal identity, as well as themes of love, loyalty, rivalry, and ethical conflict within families.

Smith’s writing in On Beauty is celebrated for its vivid character development, humor, and intellectual depth. The novel is loosely inspired by E. M. Forster’s Howards End, reimagining themes of connection, difference, and belonging in a modern, multicultural setting. It invites readers to consider how personal values, societal expectations, and historical context shape the choices we make and the relationships we form.

The novel was critically acclaimed, winning the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and earning a nomination for the Orange Prize, praised for blending literary sophistication with relatable, complex characters. Smith’s work encourages thoughtful discussion about ethics, aesthetics, and social dynamics, making it an excellent choice for an academic presentation.

In essence, On Beauty is a reflection on what it means to live fully, love deeply, and navigate the tension between ideals and reality, all through the lens of a vividly drawn family. Zadie Smith’s background, accomplishments, and literary vision enhance the novel’s significance, making it not only a compelling story but also a rich subject for discussion and study.

Reading 1

One may as well begin with Jerome’s e-mails to his father:

Hey, Dad – basically I’m just going to keep on keeping on with these

mails – I’m no longer expecting you to reply, but I’m still hoping you

will, if that makes sense.

Well, I’m really enjoying everything. I work in Monty Kipps’s own

office (did you know that he’s actually Sir Monty??), which is in the

Green Park area. It’s me and a Cornish girl called Emily. She’s cool

There’re also three more yank interns downstairs (one from Boston!), so

I feel pretty much at home. I’m a kind of an intern with the duties of a

PA – organizing lunches, filing, talking to people on the phone, that sort

of thing. Monty’s work is much more than just the academic stuff: he’s

involved with the Race Commission, and he has Church charities in

Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti, etc. – he keeps me really busy.

Because it’s such a small set-up, I get to work closely with him –

and of course I’m living with the family now, which is like being

completely integrated into something new. Ah, the family. You didn’t

respond, so I’m imagining your reaction (not too hard to imagine . . .).

The truth is, it was really just the most convenient option at the time.

And they were totally kind to offer – I was being evicted from the

‘bedsit’ place in Marylebone. The Kippses aren’t under any obligation to

me, but they asked and I accepted – gratefully. I’ve been in their place a

week now, and still no mention of any rent, which should tell you

something. I know you want me to tell you it’s a nightmare, but I can’t –

I love living here. It’s a different universe. The house is just wow – early

Victorian, a ‘terrace’ – unassuming-looking outside but massive inside – 

but there’s still a kind of humility that really appeals to

me – almost everything white, and a lot of handmade things, and quilts

and dark wood shelves and cornices and this four-storey staircase – and

in the whole place there’s only one television, which is in the basement

anyway, just so Monty can keep abreast of news stuff, and some of the

things he does on the television – but that’s it.

I think of it as the negativized image of our house sometimes . . . It’s in

this bit of North London called ‘Kilburn’, which sounds bucolic, but boy

oh boy is not bucolic in the least, except for this street we live on off the

‘high road’, and it’s suddenly like you can’t hear a thing and you can just

sit in the yard in the shadow of this huge tree – eighty feet tall and ivy-ed

all up the trunk . . . reading and feeling like you’re in a novel . . . Fall’

different here – much less intense and trees balder earlier – everything

more melancholy somehow.

Reading II

‘So . . . what’s going to happen? With you . . . you know . . . and Dad.’

He sounded almost tearful, anxious not to be told the truth.

It was wrong, Kiki knew, to be antagonized by this, but she was. These

children spend so much time demanding the status of adulthood from

you – even when it isn’t in your power to bestow it – and then when the

real shit hits the fan, when you need them to be adults, suddenly they’re

children again.

‘God, I don’t know, Jay. That’s the truth. I’m getting through the days

here. That’s about it.’

‘I love you, Mom,’ said Jerome ardently. ‘You’re gonna get through this.

You’re a strong black woman.’

People had been telling Kiki this her whole life. She supposed she was

lucky that way – there are worse things to be told. But the fact remained:

as a sentence it was really beginning to bore the hell out of her.

‘Oh, I know that. You know me, baby, I can not be broken. Takes a giant

to snap me in half.’

‘Right,’ said Jerome sadly.

‘And I love you too, baby. I’m just fine.’

‘You can feel bad,’ said Jerome, and coughed the frog from his throat. ‘I

mean, that’s not illega

A fire engine went by, wailing. It was one of the old, shiny, brass-andred-paint engines of Jerome’s childhood. He could see it and its fellows

in his mind’s eye: six of them parked in the courtyard at the end of the

Belseys’ road, ready for an emergency. As a child he used to go over the

hypothetical moment when his family would be saved from fire by white

men climbing through the windows.

‘I just wish I was there.’

‘Oh, you’re busy. Levi’s here. Not,’ said Kiki cheerily, wiping fresh tears

from her eyes, ‘that I see hide nor hair of Levi. We just do bed, breakfast

and the laundry for that boy.’

‘Meanwhile I’m drowning in dirty laundry here.’

Kiki was silent trying to picture Jerome right now: where he was sitting,

the size of his room, where the window was and what it looked out upon.

She missed him. For all his innocence, he was her ally. 

You don’t have favourites among your children, but you do have

allies.

‘And Zora’s here. I’m fine.’

‘Zora . . . please. She wouldn’t piss on somebody if they were on fire.’

‘Oh, Jerome, that’s not true. She’s just angry with me – it’s normal.’

‘ You’re not the one she should be angry with.’

‘Jerome, you just get to class and don’t be sweating about me.

Takes a giant.’

‘Amen,’ said Jerome, in the comic way of the Belseys when they were

putting on their ancestral Deep South voices, and Kiki echoed him,

laughing. Am

And then to ruin everything that had gone before Jerome said, in all

seriousness, ‘God bless you, Mom.’

‘Oh, baby, please . . .’

‘Mom, just take the blessing, OK? It’s not viral. Look, I’m late for class

– I’ve got to go.’

Kiki snapped her cell closed and wedged it back into the very small gap between her flesh and her jean pocket. She was on Redwood already. During the conversation she had hung the paper bag with the cake box in it from her wrist; now she could feel the pie shifting around dangerously. She threw the bag away and put both hands under the bottom of the box to steady it. At the door she pressed down the bell with the back of her wrist. A young black girl answered with a dishrag in her hand, with poor English, giving her the information that Mrs Kipps was in the ‘leebry’. Kiki didn’t have a chance to ask if this was a good time, or to offer up the pie and then withdraw – she was led at once down the hallway and to an open door. The girl ushered her through into a white room lined with walnut bookshelves from floor to ceiling. A shiny black piano rested against the only bare wall. On the floor, on top of a sparse cowhide rug, hundreds of books were arranged in rows like dominos, their pages to the floor, their spines facing up. Sitting among them was Mrs Kipps, perched on the edge of a white calico Victorian armchair. She was bent forward, looking at the floor with her head in her hands.

Reading III

‘That’s cool,’ said Levi quietly.

‘ Best movies, top movies, three for ten dollars! ’ called Levi into the

street. He dug into his pocket and found two individually wrapped Junior

Mints. He offered one to Choo, who declined it sniffily. Levi unwrapped

his own mint and popped it into his mouth. He loved Junior Mints. Minty

and chocolatey. Just everything you want from a candy, basically. The

last of the peppermint slipped down his throat. He tried really hard not to

say anything at all. And then he said: ‘So you got a lot of friends here?’

Choo sighed. ‘No.’

‘No one in the city?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t know anyone?’

‘I know two, three people. They work across the river. At Wellington. In

the college.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Levi. ‘Which department?’

Choo stopped organizing the money in his fanny pack and looked at Levi

curiously. ‘They’re cleaners,’ he said. ‘I don’t know which department

they clean.’

OK, OK, you win, bro, thought Levi, and crouched down to the DVDs to

pointlessly rearrange a row of them. He was done with this guy. But now

it was Choo who seemed freshly interested.

‘And you – ’ said Choo, pursuing him. ‘You live in Roxbury, Felix tells

me.’

Levi looked up at Choo. He was smiling, at last.

‘Yeah, man, that’s righ

Choo looked down at him like the tallest man who had ever lived.

‘Yes. That’s what I heard, that you live in Roxbury. And you rap with

them too.’

‘Not really. I just went along. It’s good, though – it’s got that political

vibe. Real angry. I’m learning more about the . . . like, the political

context, that’s what I’m into right now,’ said Levi, referring to a book on

Haiti he had borrowed (though it was as yet unread) from Arundel

School’s -year-old library. It was the first time Levi had ever entered

that cloistered, dark little space without the propulsion of a school

project or imminent exam.

‘But they say they never see you there, in Roxbury. The others.

They say they never see you.’

‘Yeah, well. I pretty much keep myself to mysel’

‘I see. Well, maybe we shall see each other there, Levi,’ said Choo, and

his smile grew wider, ‘down in the hood.’

Katherine (Katie) Armstrong is sixteen. She is one of the youngest

students attending Wellington College. She grew up in South Bend,

Indiana, where she was by far the brightest student in her high school.

Although the great majority of kids from Katie’s school either drop out

or go on to attend Indiana’s fine in-state institution, no one was too

surprised to discover that Katie would be attending a fancy East Coast

school on a full academic scholarship. Katie is proficient both in the arts

and sciences, but her heart – if this makes sense – has always resided in

the left side of her brain. Katie loves the arts. Given her parents’ relative

poverty and limited education, she knows that it would probably have

made more sense for her family if she’d tried for medical school or even

Harvard Law. rd Law. But her parents are generous, loving people, and they

support her in all her choices.