Ending of On Beauty 4/24

Claire is the one who instigated the affair, and yet she calls herself a victim. She is a completely selfish woman, as demonstrated by the fact that she wanted to wreck one of the most successful marriages she had ever seen.

Anything that is seen as beautiful is immediately suspect. The end of the novel de-reifies beauty...Zadie Smith hates the objectifying of women, but she wants to be able to talk about beauty. Howard, for example, claims to be above the idea of turning art into beautiful objects, but as soon as some good-looking women "seduce" him, he immediately sleeps with them. This presents itself as a HUGE contradiction.

Meanwhile...Zora has been working to keep Carl in her poetry class, because Monty has been trying to get the non-paying, "unqaulified" students kicked out of the program. Monty, however, has been sleeping with one of those students, and wants her kicked out so that he can cover up for what he is doing. At the party, Zora, Jerome, Victoria, and Carl are all confronting one another. Carl alludes to the fact that Howard slept with Victoria, and tells them outright that Monty has been sleeping with Chantelle. Jerome understands what Carl doesn't say, but Zora is too concerned with the Carl/Victoria situation to make sense of the allusion. Carl, surrounded by all these liars, sees the academic life as full of smoke and mirrors. He is tired of being a "plaything" for radical intellectuals: "You got your college degrees, but you don't even live right. You people are all the same" (418-419). Consequently, after this party, Carl never comes back to Wellington...he has seen the intelletual world for what it is, and wants nothing to do with it.

Racial issues also come into play towards the end of the novel, during the confrontation between Levi and Kiki. Levi has stolen Mrs. Kipps's painting and Kiki finds it hidden under his bed. She and Levi thus get into an argument about who the painting has been stolen from--Levi insists that the money from the painting should be redistributed, and Kiki repeatedly tells her son that he should never steal, bottom line. Levi also blames him mother for "selling-out" by marrying a white man, and paying her Haitian maid only four dollars an hour.

By the last two pages of the novel, Howard is in a downward spiral...Kiki knows about Victoria and she has moved out. The children don't tell Howard where Kiki is living, and he lives with the kids in the Welligton house. They despise him, and yet they still talk to him--miraculous. In the very last scene, he is giving a speech in Boston, trying to get hired at Harvard. When he looks out in the audience, Kiki is there. He makes eye contact with her, and she smies...

BLOG ABOUT BEAUTY On these last two pages

Literary Theory: An Introduction

Literary theory encompasses the varying ways to read and make meaning of a text. From the 1920s to 1950s, there was the idea of "New Criticism." It was a way of seeking out contradictions in a text and figuring out how those contradictions unified the text and created meaning. These contradictions are there for a reason, and create meaning rather than canceling each other out. In this way of thinking, you look at just the text itself, centered around what the author meant. With the evolution of literary theory, this notion on authorial intent loses its importance. In the 1960s, there are cultural revolutions in America, England, and France. A lot of the ideas carried over into the study of English literature. Some of these ideas included psychoanalysis and studies of the unconscious. Such Freudian views are supposed to direct our thoughts and actions so that we understand the latent contents of dreams (books) in order to understands ourselves(books). This idea developed into the Psychoanalytic theory of literature. A similar thing happened with Feminist theory, in which we read texts to discover hidden (or not hidden) meanings about female desire, empowerment, equality, sexuality, gender politics, and POWER. Queer theory also develops, focusing upon gender issues, power, hetero-normative ways of thinking, etc. Basically, Queer theory asks 'How is queer identity constructed in a text?' Deconstruction is a theory that came about in the 1970s. It maintains that there are a lot of privileged oppositions in the world, and that speech is always privileged over writing. Accordingly, we privilege the faculty of reason over all else. Historically (in the West) reason has been used to judge what makes a human a human. Thus, we are logocentric-- historically, Westerners have judged "others" as lacking the faculty of reason, privileging out culture over others'. Beyond this, the work of deconstruction looks to question these ideas of opposition and privilege. It is a way of questioning how language discloses meaning.

Literary theories thus quickly become charged with political meaning. This is really the beginning of the Academy as a political space; it has come a long way from New Criticism. Such ideas come up against a lot of criticism for those who say that we should not be looking for such political elements within texts. We are now looking for cultural significance rather than the intentions of the author. Within the larger picture, each text has a cultural meaning. Texts are now seen has having larger social significance, and we cannot analyze them without analyzing the culture as well.

The definition of "text" also emerges and expands. Text is now thought of as including poems, novels, plays, films, television, digital images, art, CD's, music, clothing, graffiti, advertising, etc. A text is a thus a cultural artifact and can be interpreted in some way. This also causes trouble because we are dealing with so many different texts that can be brought into the classroom and studied. Thus, the classroom becomes highly politicized. Conservatives do not want all this "stuff" contaminating the "real art/text" of the academy.

Common to all these theories are ideas of power, subjectivity, political significance, cultural significance, and types of representation. With so many different theories, we are able to analyze texts from a variety of perspectives.

On Beauty, 4/17 and 4/20

On Friday, we discussed the nature of the culture wars--how they started and where they are today. Since they began in the 1960s (roughly speaking) the culture wars have moved to being centered among universities and intellectuals. We also discussed the differences between Kiki and Claire--and the importance of these differences in relation to the infidelity of Howard. Claire, unlike Kiki, is an intellectual like Howard. Perhaps he was attracted to this "sameness" he saw in Claire that is absent from Kiki.

On Monday, much of our discussion was focused upon Claire's poem, "On Beauty." The opening lines of the poem brings up the issue of pronoun identification:

"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."

The pronouns of the poem are not specific, so we are unsure as to whether the beautiful or the ugly people are the ones itemizing the list of sins. Perhaps this inability to distinguish between these two groups of people alludes to the idea that we cannot just draw a dividing line between beautiful people and ugly people. The two may be separated in our perceived rendering of society, but in reality the divisions are not so clear.

Ideas of difference between the "beautiful" and the "ugly" also appear in the argument between Howard and Kiki that occurs on pages 206-207. After Kiki tells Howard that she staked her life on him, she goes on to accuse him finding someone (Claire) who is the complete opposite of herself. Claire, as a tiny, white professor, is physically and intellectually different from Kiki. Clearly, this makes a huge impact upon Kiki's self-image, and leads her to reiterate the claim that she staked her life on Howard.

Finally, we discussed the idea of role reversals within the novel. After Kiki talks to Carlene, she realizes that perhaps she has been living for Howard, not with him. This goes against the supposed marital views held by the Belseys, in which the husband and wife are supposed to work together, not for one another. There will probably be more role reversals as the novel continues--Howard doesn't even seem to believe what he is teaching anymore...

As we continue the novel, we are going to see whether or not the characters defy any societal expectations.

On Beauty 4/15

Investigating the Left
In this book, we are given a bleak look of the left. Zadie Smith is, in fact, lionized by the left. In reading her novel, we get the feeling that perhaps she is anti-left. In the scene where Howard is talking to the curators of the museum, he is very snooty and sees them as being quite beneath him.

"To misstate, or merely understate, the relation of the universities to beauty is one kind of error that can be made. A university is among the precious things that can be destroyed." --Elaine Scarry

This quote is at the beginning of the chapter "the anatomy lesson." In this chapter, Zora threatens the Dean into letting her into Claire's creative writing class. In this instance, then, the university is not something that defends beauty. Does the accrediting of grades get in the way of finding and defending grades? YES. The university, then, is not really a defender of beauty. In the conversation between Zora and Carl, the topic of college education comes up. He tells Zora that by going to classes, she is just paying to talk to people about her ideas. Although Carl doesn't have a college education, he produces poetry for the sake of its beauty--not for the grades he could receive for it. Zora is pursuing a spot in Claire's creative writing class because it will look good on her transcript, and will help her get into graduate school. Carl, however, is a bit unusual in his pursuit of knowledge and experience.

Howard is living in a way that makes him feel dead. Perhaps his work life (as well as his romantic life) was dead. He tells his students that "beauty is a mask that power wears." Art, according to Howard, is a Western myth. As we keep reading, we learn that Howard is saying these things for the sixth year in a row. He might not even believe these "memorized" viewpoints anymore...

Defining Beauty

Define "beauty" from Smith's perspective. Do you agree?
According to Smith, beauty is something that is constantly changing. The continual changes in our definitions of beauty depend on varying viewpoints, the current cultural standards, and our emotional ties to the thing we are (or are not) describing as beautiful. Howard, for example, finds Kiki beautiful not only because of her young face, but also because he knows that face, and finds beauty in the familiarity and memories associated with him. He finds beauty in Claire because of her tiny, "yogic" body, and perhaps even in the sheer difference between her body and Kiki's body. Clearly, the perception of beauty is constantly changing. There can never be one, authoritative definition of beauty. But as much as beauty changes with our own personal perceptions, it is impossible to ignore the fact that many of these perceptions are not self-created--rather, society plays a large role in creating them for us.

Notes, On Beauty 4/13

People we love may turn into objects for us, like the albatross in "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." There is thus an extent to which we objectify others, particularly those who are close to us. The notion of beauty has been impoverished in our culture, and we objectify the "beauty" that we see. In reality, (non-objectified) beauty is about lines and juxtapositions and contours.

To what extent is there a battle between non-objectified beauty and the conventional definition of beauty within On Beauty?
Zora thinks of her mother as "having let herself go" once she got married. Howard claims that he married a slim, black woman, and that Kiki is no longer that woman. He even goes so far as to say that physicality played a role in his affair. Carlene also comments on Kiki's weight, but tells her that she "carries her weight well" and that it "looks very well on her." Later, Carlene tells Kiki that she is beautiful. If you look at Kiki without objectifying her, she is a beautiful woman.

Claire's body is also objectified. She is constantly being described as petite, thin, and much much
smaller than Kiki. When Claire takes her students to the Bus Stop, she does what she has done her entire life, and orders a salad for dinner. Clearly, the idea of starving oneself is linked to Claire's tiny figure. At the anniversary party, Howard sees Claire for the first time in a year. She is described as tan, and youthful with a thin, yogic body. When Howard is watching her, he can't stop thinking about her body, how it moves, and what she looks like underneath her clothes. In the scene where Howard and Claire interact, it is clear that he values her intellectual ability--something which Kiki lacks and for which Howard continually makes fun of her. Claire tells Kiki that she should be in a fountain in Rome; this is not really a compliment, because the ideal Roman woman is full-figured and in contrast to contemporary (thin) notions of beauty.

Howard is a parody machine--he makes fun of "high" art, he makes fun of Kiki, and he argues against the notion of genius. When they go to see Mozart, Howard makes snide comments about the composer and the Requiem, saying that he prefers music that doesn't "try to fake him into some metaphysical idea" (72). Carl is listening to this conversation, and wants to tell the family that Mozart died before it was finished, and that someone else completed it. This thus redefines the notion of genius, adding a component of collaboration to it. The idea of the genius is even further defined by its constant gendering.




p. 207 Howard and Kiki argument

On Beauty

Zadie Smith on Art
In an interview Zadie Smith says that writers should not "hit their readers over the head" with their morals. The artist doesn't have to be a moral person, but a good work of art is honest and truthful in the artist's perception of the world. Because of self-deception, this is really difficult to convey in art--just as it is really difficult to comprehend in life. When writers berate you with their ideas, you feel as if you can't trust them. Instead, "good" artists will open a range of possibilities for the reader in order for the reader to see each and every side of the picture.

This is particularly relevant in the On Beauty because it deals with "The Culture Wars." On the right side, it is argued that students should study only the "greats" of the known canon. On the left side, it is argued that students should study multi-cultural works that do not necessarily fall into the category of "the greats" because all work can be seen as great.

Zadie Smith vs. 'Zadie Smith'
There is a difference between the real author and the person who has become an idolized bard. The left has done what the right does in tauting her as a "great" author. The 'me vs. them' has turned into an 'us vs. them.' So what is they right way to think about genius? If this book is "good art" it will offer multiple answers to this question, with multi-faceted characters on all sides of this argument. Delving into these deep characters offers an analogy for moral behavior in real life, and how we should develop real relationships.

In the novel...
Jerome is the bridge between his family (on the left) and the Kipps (on the right). The Belseys are Jerome's family, and they live in Wellington, Massachusetts. The mother(Kiki) and father(Howard) are fairly loose in their rules with children. The Kippses live in England and are a much more conservative family. They are pro-family, pro-busniess, and are practicing Christians. There is a rivalry between Monty Kipps and Howard Belsey. They are both professors of Renaissance art, and are both writing books about Rembrandt. Monty's book will hit the bestseller list, while Howard's book is still strewn about his study. Howard is searching for a way to prove that Rembrandt wasn't a great artist, while we can assume that Monty is working to prove the opposite. Jerome left to work for Monty over the summer. Perhaps he did it to get his father's attention, or perhaps he really wanted to learn a counter-idealogy to the one under which he has been brought up. Maybe he wants to get back at his father for having an affair; or maybe he's just constitionally different from the rest of his family. (People are their own people, after all). Either way, when Jerome comes back from England, he realizes that he has fallen in love with the Kipps family.