Tis All Ye Need To Know

It's confession time here in Booksville, LAIST. Zadie Smith, author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man and her most recent, On Beauty, will be appearing not once, but twice, this Sunday in Los Angeles: at Dutton's Beverly Hills at 2 pm, and at 826 LA at 6. We have known this for almost a month (we posted about her Booker Prize nomination here) and tried to write a post about it for that length of time. And we have, thus far, failed. The book is too good, and the multiplicity of themes too overwhelming.

We are hoping that seeing Smith in person will help us overcome our confusion, and post a review of On Beauty next week. Until then, the best writing to be had on On Beauty is Christopher Frizzelle's "Thirteen Ways Of Looking At On Beauty", via The Stranger in Seattle. It addresses the idea of Smith's multitudes of meaning, which so stymies us, through the very structure of its writing. Joan Acocella also has an extended review in the New Yorker.