The last bits On Beauty

Claire views the affair in a different light that Howard, believing and claiming she is the victim of a female malady of self-imposed destruction. However, she is a completely self-obsessed woman. In order to make herself feel better about her own life, she purposefully and successfully destroyed the happiest marriage she knew.

Claire also gives us a commentary about the politics of the university. She says that anything beautiful is suspect of objectification. At the end of the novel, Zadie Smith de-objectifies what is beauty and what is not. Zadie recognizes that there is a conflict between being able to talk about beauty and having to objectify and define it. This is best represented with Howard, who is the first to say there is no definition of beauty, and is completely above it, yet is the first person to pull down his pants when a beautiful woman comes on to him - one of whom is a student. What is ironic about this is that Monty is also sleeping continuously with another student, Chantelle.

These are the moments that question what or who an intellectual is. Monty, who is defending intellectual purity is only doing so to defend his own reputation after sleeping with a student. At the party when Zora finds out that Carl and Vee are in love, Carl tries to tell Zora that Vee slept with Howard and while Victoria freaks out about it, Jerome figures out what Howard has done. Carl, who sees all the lies and deception recognizes that the intellectual atmosphere they are trying to create is nothing but smoke and mirrors. They think they are intellectual and are intelligent but have no idea what is going on in their own lives. Consequently after this, Carl does not return to Wellington, having seen everything and the falsity of the intellectual world. He says, "You have your college degrees, but you don't even live right. You people are all the same."

There is also a lot of racial tensions and conflict at the end, especially between Levi and Kiki. When Levi steals the painting, he accuses his mother of being a black woman sell out who does not pay their housekeeper even minimum wage. Zadie Smith points out that there is no morality in any of these characters, despite their claim to it. Levi steals, Kiki underpays immigrants, Zora sells out her father for her academic achievement, Howard cheats, Monty cheats, Carlene keeps secrets from her family, Monty sleeps with students, etc. At the end, there is the down spiraling of beauty as well. At the end, Kiki moves out, Howard, who can no longer work at the university, lives with the children, who are furious with him but still talk to him.

What happens to beauty on the last two pages??