ON BEAUTY by ZADIE SMITH
After much interruption--finished the book. Some of the reviews on the book strike me as weird, though. I wouldn't describe this as "A rollicking satire. Fun, chummy and big-hearted." The word "funny" is used a lot. I agree it was good satire, but I wasn't, you know, laughing.
Overall I really liked it. I cared about the characters from the first pages, and that's what engaged me and made it page-turning. I thought the overarching story of the marriage relationship clichéd, but Smith wraps the whole thing up so well that it at least makes sense to the plot.
The most interesting thing, from a writing perspective, was that she was dealing with a variety of accents--Haitian, Trinnie, Jamaican etc.; Nigerian and I think another African country; Bostonian; English; educated; "street" and such. Most of the time I thought she did it really well--my only test being "when I try to hear this in a British/Nigerian/Trinidad accent, is it easy to do?" 90% of the time it was.
THIS IS THE PART WHERE I START BLATHERING TO MYSELFExcept, oddly, when the one "of the streets" type young Black guy was talking, and the character who's middle class but likes to talk like he's from the nabe. They both sounded like London Black kids to me. ...Now mind you... I'm comparing Young Black American Guys From TV vs Young Black British Guys From TV. Which shows how much I know. I couldn't help it, I kept hearing an East London accent like this. But I probably just don't know what a Roxbury accent sounds like (sounds like?).
Anyway, it was very helpful to read in this way (merci MyAmericanFriend.) Smith does the same thing I did in my last book--you write non-phonetically but with the right accent in your head, and then you occasionally pop in what the phonics of the sentence would look like.
There's just one odd exception. She has this one deep-southern character (I forget from which state) and half of his words are written phonetically. I have no idea why him, and not anyone else. Every single time he says "powerpoint" Smith writes it as pah-point. Or "ah" instead of "I."
The other reason to read her was to see how she handled having many characters, which she did very well, but I don't think I learned anything new. Basically you introduce people slowly, but thoroughly. And if you have as many characters as Jilly Cooper or Charles Dickens, you throw your audience a bone and give them a Cast of Characters list. :-)
WODEHOUSE & WOT NEXT?And so. Now to decide whether to read her other well-known book, or switch rails entirely. Meanwhile I'm still re-reading The Inimitable Jeeves, which is absolutely wonderful. It's been long enough since I read the Jeeves books that I'm really enjoying it, and rewatching the series too. Ahhhh. Wodehouse. Writing that soothes the Mabel Soul. (There's actually one Wooster reference in On Beauty. Zadie Smith is English.)
All the best Jeeves & Wooster videos are embedding-disabled!
* The famous giving of prizes by a drunk Finknottle.
* A little summary of the Jeeves & Wooster series... for Mlle Peej... the only other woman I know who has a crush on Bertie Wooster.
* And my favourite music TV theme song of allll time: The Jeeves & Wooster opening.
