Glancing over the metaphorical shelves, one is forced to admit a certain trade deficit. Most interesting novels today seem to have been for sale in the U.K. first. Of course, generalizations are dangerous—generalizations based on national stereotypes especially so. What, after all, is true of “the French” or “the Germans”? It’s touchy stuff, and it was with some trepidation that I undertook examining British novels.
Certainly Zadie Smith’s return to form after a flop of a sophomore effort was widely praised. On Beauty has been much discussed, but it makes a useful beginning here. It grants us remarkable insight into the current state of British fiction (if such a thing, etc., etc.) because it lifted some motifs from Howards End. Neatly enough, Forster wrote that book over the period from 1908 to 1910: close to a century ago.
In the closing scene of On Beauty, one of her many anti-heroes, Howard Belsey, an Englishman in America, anti-Rembrandt scholar, and unfaithful husband, is giving a lecture that might, if he’s lucky, rescue his career and cause the New England private college where he works to give him tenure despite the derailment of his anti-Rembrandt book.[1] At the podium, Howard discovers he has forgotten his notes. He clicks through his PowerPoint slides without saying anything, arriving at his last, Hendrickje Bathing. “Howard said nothing. Another silent minute passed. The audience began to mutter perplexedly.” Howard zooms in, clicking the image larger and larger. Hendrickje’s hands
