The March Hare

Yesterday, when I could have been involved in completing a host of projects, I read 'On Beauty'. The entire day, the parts of it not spent on a bicycle or waiting tables or eating messy burritos, I read 'On Beauty'. I could not stop reading 'On Beauty' because it was so beautiful.

I think this novel is a return to form for Smith, whose first novel 'White Teeth', blew everyone out of the water, and whose second 'The Autograph Man', was a little less so. Well, a lot less so. You get the feeling that it was written in a panic, that she didn't want to be Zadie Smith, Author of 'White Teeth' anymore and that she was just going to see this thing through to the end, goddammit, even if it killed her.

Not so with 'On Beauty'. The story just folds out like a beautiful box with many sides enclosed in its shape. Plus, there's an awesome Forster twist in there that is at once funny and sad.

Sooo... You should read it.