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A review by nicoleswiggard
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
4.0
(i h8 howard belsey and im sticking to that.)
zadie smith’s talent for character is genuinely astonishing. the voice, the psychology, mannerisms, reactions, they are all so well shaped across the numerous people we get to know throughout this book.
what makes people beautiful? what makes them ugly? why is it so often the same thing? passion, identity, love, knowledge, religion, belief. nothing is so simply binary for humanity. we’re complex and messy and glorious. hate us, love us.
it’s practically a handbook on writing morally grey characters. its unbearable and its incredible.
zadie is brilliant, i adore
——
“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”
“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”
(on siblings) “He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”
“I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.”
“In a whisper he began begging for—and as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.”
zadie smith’s talent for character is genuinely astonishing. the voice, the psychology, mannerisms, reactions, they are all so well shaped across the numerous people we get to know throughout this book.
what makes people beautiful? what makes them ugly? why is it so often the same thing? passion, identity, love, knowledge, religion, belief. nothing is so simply binary for humanity. we’re complex and messy and glorious. hate us, love us.
it’s practically a handbook on writing morally grey characters. its unbearable and its incredible.
zadie is brilliant, i adore
——
“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”
“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”
(on siblings) “He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”
“I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.”
“In a whisper he began begging for—and as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.”