PositiveLondon Review of BooksWhat makes this novel a bit unusual is that it is conceived as an act of homage to E.M. Forster ... Two families of very different temperaments are forced to confront one another when in On Beauty, as in Howards End, a sudden engagement is announced and almost at once cancelled ... Her characters are down to earth: they are coarse, fat, bald, myopic, have uneven teeth, they talk their own talk, and are, in short, human, living all they can since that’s all they have; but she is nevertheless with Forster because she cares about religion, prophecy, philosophy ... On Beauty is a much less tumultuous novel than White Teeth, and a more sober book than The Autograph Man ... There is a complicated story making up by richness of implication what it lacks in exuberance. The culture of the Boston campus is set among the other cultures such a city harbours.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
