I read this book for the book club I'm trying to become more involved with in the town where I now live. They meet once a month on Tuesday nights, which is when I usually work (at least during the long semesters), so this was the first time I was able to attend. I wasn't real impressed, but then only three other people showed up (less than usual, I'm told), which may be partly due to the fact that no one seemed to like this book.
In many respects this book is your typical middle-age life-crisis story. Smith says she based it on E. M. Forster's Howards End, and, according to an Amazon.com editorial review, took that "tale of class difference, and upped the ante by adding race, politics, and gender." The title comes from Elaine Scarry’s essay, “On Beauty and Being Just,” as well as the poem "On Beauty" by Nick Laird, Zadie Smith’s husband (and the poem also appears in the book, disguised as a work by one of the characters).
This book is full of numerous other literary and art references (the lead character is a Rembrandt scholar). Looking at the art works that were discussed in the book really helped make sense of some passages.
We might have had a more meaningful discussion if the whole group had seen such a guide (or any reading guide) in advance. It probably would have been better if everyone had read the whole book (only two of us had; another had started it but did not finish, and the last one read the wrong book). But that's been typical in my ongoing book club; there's always some that don't read the book (although often they don't show for that discussion either) and some that have not finished it. I'll give this new group a few more chances; next month's book definitely looks better.
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