The End of On Beauty

Howard at the End
By the end, Howard has done pretty much everything to sabotage his career and his life. This final talk is his big chance to redeem himself, and he shows up an hour late and without his speech. He could have at least have tried to wing it, but he chooses not to. His speech was against Rembrandt, and he couldn't do it because he didn't feel that way. He ruined his own life because he hated what he was doing so much. As he stood up there on the podium, it seems as if Howard realizes all his mistakes for the first time. He cannot speak against the genius in the art because he sees in that final painting the beauty that he used to see in Kiki. He attempts to portray this to her through his look, but I fear it is too little too late for him in that regard. The weight and import of what he has done bears down on him. The way in which the story ends truly puts Howard in his place for failing to realize what beauty and genius are, and for idealizing, as he said others should not, some faulty standard of beauty. Howard is immersed in the debate on objectification. He says he is above the bias and the mentality, but he is the first one to fall to it (in the form of his affair). And one was a student, which is beyond unforgivable.

Howard and his relationship to his father? His father does not really give a shit about Howard and his work. He is really lower class and just sits in his house and watches t.v. and does not read. Howard leaves all that behind and "surpasses" him. Is that perhaps troubling to Howard? I would say that it isn't that much of an influence. I do not feel that he is troubled by betraying his own class. There are always many subconscious factors that can contribute to certain decisions, but of all the stresses on Howard I feel this is one of the more minutae.

Guest Speaker: On Beauty

Comparisons
Sins - what not to do (Ideal being blamed by the not ideal)
Snow - purity
They - beautiful
We - ugly people
Wound - beautiful

They are the damned, the beautiful know this.
- Is there a contradiction here too?

Is the poem suggesting there is no way to just draw a line between beautiful and ugly.
Possible reason for why the pronouns are never fully explained.
Non-specificity in fact brings out this theme.

On Friday discussed idea of "living my life for my husband" (pg 206-7 Fight with Howard)
A) Living FOR someone
B) Living WITH someone

Kiki thought she was living with Howard, but after talking to Carlene and learning of Howard's infidelity she realizes she was living for him.

Constant role reversal and contradiction -- characters seem to think or say they stand for something, yet really they stand for something ese entirely, even the opposite of what thy originally said.

Dichotomy of what is ideal!

Forster - Howard's End
-Victorian England
-propriety
-anything abnormal is wrong
+two conflicting families. One has a father who controls rules his family strictly (Kipps family). The other family is just two women and they live alone and challenge the status quo (Howard's family). Plot if very similar in the nature of hte conflicts that arise (But it doesn't bring in urban or racial tensions obviously).
-End is very different. Honestly I have no idea whathe is saying. Lots of conflict but in the end it is resolved to the point that they are living together happily, defying Victorian notions.

As we approach the end of the novel, how do the families end up? Are they happy together? Do they uphold societal norms? What should these families be doing?

Voice - what kind of voice? How does one have subjectivity? Power?
+broader themes of identity and representation.

Carl and the others are powerless against the ideas of the university. How do they form notions of themselves.

Kiki and the Image of Beauty

The idea of beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Yet even that can be distorted by what is seen as socially preferable. I have met a man who was attracted to a woman, but over time because of social pressure he distanced himself from her and convinced himself she was unattractive. If left to his own devices he could have stayed with her, but the pressure from those around him to find a woman who more closely fits the "supermodel" look was too strong. That is kind of what I thought of with Kiki and Howard. Over time, as her beauty changed, Howard had been socialized and was pressured to be with a woman who was stereotypically beautiful. By some Kiki could be seen as having "let herself go." However this few is unfair and unnecessary. Kiki is required by no one to set herself up by a standard of social beauty. The standard of beauty that should matter to her is whether she is happy within her own skin. It is up to Howard to support her support of herself, something he fails at miserably. His affair only confirms the fact that he does not support her sense of beauty in herself, without any words being spoken.

Yet the stereotypes of female beauty are different depending on the society. During the Middle Ages in parts of Europe is was preferable that a woman be thicker and heavier. It was seen as attractive and a woman who had more curves was the epitome of beauty.

Howard is almost too arrogant in his condescending attitude toward Kiki. He treats her with a slight amount of lovable disdain. Howard acts so far above everyone else's ideas and morals. He sneers at the idea of 'genius', more 'bardolatry'. It is that disdain of what true genius and beauty can be that is Howard's downfall. He cannot see how beautiful his wife is just as he cannot see how beautiful the genius of the art he studies is!

Beauty, culture, and intellect in the case of Claire vs. Kiki?

Claire is the more stereotypically beautiful woman. she is fit, tan, white, highly intellectual compared to Kiki who is larger, black, less educated. They definitely represent opposites of each other. Aside from physical beauty, they also are socially intellectually different. Though they may both be smart women, Claire has a higher educational qualification.
Yet they are both objectified by Howard!

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

For a novel to tell you that you need to be a certain way is bad art. But good art is a case or analogy of morals. The author does not have to be a moral person. Not just the straightforward "Here is what I believe, so here is what you should believe." Instead, an author being truthful and honest, despite self-deception, creates good art. It is hard in art the way it is hard in life.

For an author, it is important to take vanity and pride out of the picture and view the world in a more unbiased and honest way. Not deceiving yourself into being too selfish. Art should incorporate multiple points of view of a story and portray them beyond the artist's opinions or morals, for good art at least.

Definition of Culture War: The culture war (or culture wars) in American usage is a metaphor used to claim that political conflict is based on sets of conflicting cultural values. The term frequently implies a conflict between those values considered traditional or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal. The "culture war" is sometimes traced to the 1960s and has taken various forms since then.

Zadie Smith vs. 'Zadie Smith'
-Difference between two people using an author as a figure to represent their morals/ideas. Zadie Smith (conservative one) is the opposite of Zadie Smith (liberal one) but they are both her!

Very often when attacking someone else you are attacking something that closely resembles yourself. The hatred is self-deceiving and you put the things about yourself onto others. So how do you define genius/art/morals? A way to show both sides is to create a character who encompasses the opposite of what you think your morals are and to truly delve into that character and what it represents. You should create a character, not caricature.

This book will take us through the culture wars on both sides and the conflicts that arise from that. Zadie Smith has been a victim of 'bardolatry' by the Left, who supposedly does not do that kind of thing. Focus on genius while we read this novel. (Radical Left is the multi-culturalist, no great authors or great art) (Conservative Right says there is the 'canon' and certain great authors and that is all)

On Beauty (1-78)

-The Belsey family is an American family living outside Boston. Howard, an Englishman/professor, and Kiki, his African-American wife, and their three children. A very liberal, atheistic family. Yet Jerome(son) is a born-again Christian.
-The Kipps family is an ultra-conservative Christian family from Britain, whos patriarch Monty(Trinidadian) is Howard's nemesis. They compete in academic fields, each touting opposite ideas.
-Howard attacks Monty publicly in an article to a scholarly journal about a painting, and Monty replies by saying Howard has the wrong painting. Howard is humiliated by his mistake.
-Jerome goes and works for Monty over the summer, possibly as a reaction to the liberalism of his family and a need for a conservative shelter. Or simply to get his father's attention. It is comparable to childhood rebellion against father and his ideas, whether for attention or true belief it is unsure. Is he more inclined to rebel at this point because of Howard's affair?
-There is an inextricable link between children and parents, so the effect of the affair on Jerome could be far-reaching, or he could just have a different personality to his father. Preferring celibacy to an active sex life etc. He falls in love with the Kipps family and what they seem to represent. He fell in love with not just a single person, but a family and the ideals that he feels that family represents (even if they in all reality do not).

Picasso Assignment!

My first reaction is one of confusion. I have never read a work structured quite like this and on a first read it really threw me off. Yet where the plot was twisted, I feel like certain themes and ideas came through bright and clear. Picasso's loneliness and sense of being outcast is clearly demonstrated. She feels distanced from her family, and I think from the language her brother used to abuse her. There is a feeling of pain within her that painting helps to rectify. Art is her form of healing and dealing with the world around her.
Whereas everyone else in her life may use the public staircase and live as everyone says they should, she lives by her private staircase. It is her perception of the world around her that struck me the most. The way the story goes is confusing, but I think it more closely reflects her thoughts and mind. It is a rare case when the mind thinks in linear, storylike fashion. Instead it shows how she perceives things, how she takes the drab black-and-white world around her and paints it in color. She takes an unbearable, painful life and uses are to make it livable and to allow herself to flourish. I feel like the scene where she is incredible pained from the family gathering and she "paints" all of them while they sleep is really powerful. It gives a sense of her taking control of things she previously could not.