I bought On Beauty in 2007 – recently reading
about Swing Times being nominated for Booker, I had a faint recollection that I
did own a Zadie Smith & I dug out the book out of my home library.
In 2007 I had 2 kids and now I have 2 teenagers
who are stepping into adulthood – As a father I am still getting used the idea.
As it happens with most of us you go through an event or an experience, reflecting
on the experience in a desolate stretch of a cab ride back home – certain lines
/ thoughts flashes in your mind. At times when you start writing words get’s formed
and the idea takes shape in the form of a poetry / blog / scribbles in my
diary.
Reading On Beauty which is essentially about 2
families with teenagers stepping into adulthood was like reliving many such
moments which I have had as a family. The brilliance of Zadie Smith is how she evocatively
writes about a similar experience many of her readers might have gone thru –
many times my expression was Oh! She expressed my idea / feeling / thought in
the best possible way.
Family life shifts between mundane like vegetable
shopping to heated deliberations on choice of restaurant / menu (in Bengali households
this is cause of most altercations) and confusing – read going in circles discussion
with teenagers in deciding a college or making a career choice. And of course,
COVID is whole new chapter.
But family is a deeply personal & sacred
space – beyond work that’s your refuge. In today’s work culture the dividing
line between office and home is thin & slippery. So, during weekends or
when you are back home after spending 2 weeks away on work – you are fully
charged to devote your full attention to family what in marketing jargon is
called quality time. Sometime, we tend to overdo it and keep stepping into each
other’s private spaces & evokes reactions which when u look back may have
no logic and you end up saying – we are like this only. Better to ignore and
hope to change than carrying the guilt on your heart.
In many books family anchors the book &
creates it path which leads to many other paths like the recent book which I read last month - ‘The
Mountains Sing’ where the story is told my grandmother – but it’s all about the
Vietnam and it’s history. On beauty is only about family hence it did not evoke
a positive response in me when I read it 14 years back. To that extent this is for
more matured audience who have been through this phase and can relate to similar
situations.
Other thing which I like about the book is the beautiful
description she gives of a place and people – the book is set around Boston and
England – she beautifully describes the season and uses it as a movement /
passage of time. It’s almost like screenplay and as you read you can visualize the
place in your mind.
On Beauty and being wrong
When I say I hate time, Paul says
how else could we find depth
of character, or grow souls ?
Mark Doty
