On Beauty

From the book cover
WHAT ARE THE TRULY BEAUTIFUL THINGS IN LIFE - AND HOW FAR WILL YOU GO TO GET THEM?
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 the passions, ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives.
Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith's third novel is a brilliant look at family life, marriage, the collision of the personal and political, and an honest look at people's self-deceptions.
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Zadie Smith won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction for On Beauty.

I want to love On Beauty, but all I can muster is a strong liking. I really enjoy Zadie Smith's writing style; it's casual, smart, witty and unpretentious. I think the problem for me is there is just too much going on, even for 443 pages. Among the themes crowding On Beauty are race, politics, and social and economic class differences.

How much do colour (specifically blackness) and social and economic factors determine one's personality? Many of the character ask themselves similar questions privately. Kiki finds herself often putting on an 'Aunt Jemima' act to humour her white friends. Levi is desperate to get away from his upscale Wellington upbringing and make a life for himself hustling in the 'hood, cause to him that's what it means to be black. Howard is busy fighting to ensure that being black doesn't affect the opportunities available to his children. Monty Kipps is trying to prove that blacks are better off without affirmative action. These characters are among the 'loudest' voices in the race discussion in On Beauty.

Despite the seriousness of the main themes, much of On Beauty reads like a comedy of fools. There are comedic undertones in even the most serious scenes. Some of the funniest scenes are the ones in which characters are engaged in sexual intercourse. It was one such scene between Howard and Kiki that put my finger on one of the biggest issues I have with this novel. It's hypocritical. We're suppose to think that Howard is in love with Kiki despite her size and truly desires her, yet every time he expresses a physical desire for her, he comes off as acting cartoonish and clowny. I get the feeling Smith was trying to write Kiki as a big, beautiful black woman not embarrassed by her size but instead she's created a racial caricature.

I'm not sure that the title On Beauty fits this novel. I presume it is taken from a poem one of the character's published in a poetry book. The actual poem was written by Nick Laird.

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 beautiful useless.
It is always beginning to snow.
The beautiful know this.

Speech is beautiful useless.
They are the damned.
The beautiful know this.
They stand around unnatural as statuary.

They are the damned
and so their sadness is perfect,
delicate as an egg placed in your palm.
Hard, it is decorated with their face

and so their sadness is perfect.
The beautiful don't lack the wound.
Hard, it is decorated with their face.
No, we could not itemize the list.

What this poem has to do with the many crisis in the story, I do not know. Sure there are a few characters in the story who are described as exceptionally *eye roll* beautiful but there are beautiful characters in every story, why the title?

I really enjoyed this book but it was tiring. There is so much going on and much of it proves irrelevant to the plot.

4/5

Home

From the book cover

Glory Boughton, age thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother Jack - the prodigal son of the family, gone twenty years - comes home, too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with difficulty and pain. A troubled boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Robert Boughton's most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully and profoundly with John Ames, his godfather and namesake.

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Marilynne Robinson won the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction and a Pulitzer Prize for Home.

I don't get it. The first 200 pages are dull and boring. There are no chapters so it's a bitch for those of us who commute or simply have busy lives that don't allow us to sit down and read an entire 325-page novel in one go. Yeah, it does have some page breaks, but that's not the same as chapters. Until reading this novel, I never realized how important chapters are to the reading experience.

The main themes in this novel are redemption, grace and destiny. Jack and Glory's father, Reverend Boughton, is dying but can not do so in peace because he is worried about Jack's soul. Due to the main conflict, Robinson explores a lot of theological ideals as the Boughtons try to come to some sort of acceptance that will allow the Reverend Boughton to die in peace. Set in the 1950s, around the time of the Montgomery riots, racial injustice is subtly intertwined in the dialogue and plot.

Home is a companion to Robinson's second novel, Gilead.  Apparently Home and Gilead are set at the same time and tell the same stories from different perspectives. I'm putting Gilead on my reading list to see if it changes my impression of Home.

Recommendation? If you like dull and boring, give Home a shot!

2.5/5

Half of a Yellow Sun

From the book cover

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of Nigeria in the 1960s. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

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Half of a Yellow Sun won Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007. She made the shortlist in 2004 for her first novel The Purple Hibiscus.

Half of a Yellow Sun centers around Biafra's fight for independence during the Nigeria-Biafra War of 1967-1970. The title comes from the emblem on the Biafra flag - half of a yellow sun. On the Biafra flag it represents the glorious future. The story shifts back and forth between the early 1960s pre-war period and the late 1960s war period.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's decision to structure the novel in four parts (two parts in the early 60s and two parts during the war) and to employ three narrators from varying socio-economics classes ensures the reader gets a complete picture of this tumultuous decade in Nigerian history.

Ugwu is a village boy who left primary school early to help care for his family. When his aunt gets him a job with the professor an entire world of limitless learning opens up to him. He is able to continue his education and eventually develop a genuine desire for knowledge. Olanna, the professor's mistress, is the daughter of a 'big man.' She and her twin sister, Kainene, have had all of the benefits of money and power. They were raised in an opulent mansion with lots of servants, attended the best schools in Africa and abroad and have been set up for a life of ease, if they choose to take the paths offered by their parents. Richard is an English writer in Africa to conduct research for a book he hopes to write about Igbo art. When Richard meets Kainene he becomes enthralled with her and everything else becomes secondary, including his writing.

Adichie does a wonderful job with character development. Her characters are multi-dimensional. Almost all of the primary characters grow and evolve as they struggle to survive the war. Some of the characters discover hidden strengths, others are shown to be weak, and others prove capable of extreme cruelty. This is a truth of war. People who live through war are seldom the same people they were going into said war.

One of the most shocking plot developments belong to Ugwu, who is conscripted in the Biafra army and willingly takes part in the gang rape of a young woman. One doesn't expect the main character to be involved in a crime so detestable. Despite his crime, Ugwu remains a somewhat sympathetic character. It's clear that he would not have committed the act on his own but simply acquiesced to peer pressure. Ironically, at the end of the war, Ugwu returns to his village to find that his favourite sister, the one he was closest to, was gang raped by five Nigerian soldiers during the war.

My only squabble is the lack of a happy ending. But, I guess that too is a reality of war. At the end of the day, Half of a Yellow Sun taught me about a former country (Biafra), an ethic group (Igbo) and a war I had never heard of , and that's what a good historical fiction should do - teach and entertain.

5

Flag of the Republic of Biafra (1967-1970)

Larry's Party

From the book cover
Larry Weller, born in Winnipeg in 1950, is like a lot of people. He's never really liked his first name; "its Larryness has always seemed an imprisonment and a sly wink toward its most conspicuous rhyme: ordinary... He was just one more citizen of the Larry nation, those barbecuers, those volunteer firemen, those wearers of muscle shirts" But Larry Weller is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony and tenderness. Carol Shields gives us a resonant and unforgettable portrait of a man - a sensuously detailed CAT scan of his life.
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Larry's Party won Carol Shields the Orange Prize for Fiction in 1998. Shields is the second Canadian to win this prestigious award since its inception in 1996.

I've always kinda-sorta wondered what it's like to be a white male. Now, thanks to Larry's Party, I have a pretty good idea.

Larry's Party puts me in mind of movies like Forrest Gump and Fargo. The Fargo thing might be because we meet the main character (who, I imagine, looks like William H.Macy) in an icebox of a city. The Forrest Gump feel because Larry seems to be drifting through life and finding success despite not really searching for it. Each chapter reads like a short story or fictional essay about a specific area of Larry's life.

The story opens with a 26-year-old Larry walking down a street in Winnipeg, on his way to meet his girlfriend, Dorrie. This is the moment Larry identifies as the start of his adult life. It's also the moment that he realizes he is in love with Dorrie. Women play a huge role in Larry's life. In his early thirties, Larry comes to the realization that all of the important conversations in his life have been with women.

The last chapter of the book, "Larry's Party", serves up a great "ah ha" moment. Larry's feelings become shockingly clear. Despite the romantic ending, there were stretches of the last chapter that I did not enjoy. The dinner party conversation was dizzying. It was a relief to return to the first-person narration, and the letters and emails.

Despite some disappointing dinner party conversation, Larry's Party goes in my five pile. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Larry Weller's life and would have enjoyed another 100 pages. I highly recommend Larry's Party. The recap of pertinent information in each chapter make it a great book for commuters.

5