Saturday, July 25, 2009
Suplexed by Eloquence
So On Beauty...very different read from our previous reads - not that that's a bad thing, I'm just getting adjusted to the intense, eloquent language and pace Zadie has prepared for us. It's interesting because her characters are ostensibly depicted in a glittered, happy life with an obvious display of despondence and discord. Lot's of "D's" I did that on purpose - because, as of now, the story is getting a "D." The writing, on the other hand, is phenomenal. Every sentence, every word, meticulously pinpricked to make sure the blood drips out ever so gentle. Every character has their own particular preponderance over whomever they speak about, or even to. These are charaters that seem plausible in a MA. setting, but I don't buy it. I guess in the Literati world, we can finagle our injustices within our family by simply avoiding them and conversing with our other intellectuals, therefore disparaging the family circle. Damn, now you have an image of "Family Circle" in your head, I should've not used that. Anyway, what I really enjoyed was the dialogue, it made it real, but how they handled the issues were faulty. Maybe things will change, I'm on page 200. Just wanted to put a "On Beauty" post on here before Subtext usurps the entire page.
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5 comments:
Feeling intimidated? LOL. I disagree with your disparaging of the narrative. I think we can finagle our injustices within our family by simply avoiding them and conversing with others. I think the Family Circle is often more of a family shackle that needs to be broken (there put Johnny Cash in your head instead of bad sunday comic strips). Tolstoy wrote some fairly good novels about the inability of the Family Circle to work out its problems. I am about at the same point in the novel as you are, so far I find the characters to be unlikable except for Kiki, but then I think a sign of good writing is that you can have strong feelings of like and dislike for characters. In Ubik I had no feelings at all for any of the characters. They for the most part were one dimensional. Smith is a much more complex writer, as would be expected in an "academic" genre writer. I'll post more later: issues of identity, perspective, and ideology rip through this novel. And yes: what is reality?
very true - but I made a mistake - The strip was called Family Circus. Should've double-checked my sources before I posted. My bad. It's been so long since I read the Sunday comics, especially that one.
Anyway, I agree with the complexity of the narrative, but I think what she's aiming for is, like you said, everyone's issues of identity. They are all struggling with this, and I agree at how each of them are handling it. I like Zora's character as of now, very forthcoming, I am anticipating her chracter development to see where she ends up.
I have now finished. Identity, yes. Politics, yes. Religion, yes. Moral Character, yes. Family, yes. Will post soon
Race relations, yes. Academia, yes.
All these yes's make it sound like the end of a Beckett novel. Oh, so literary.
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