If you're gonna do it/ Do it right.

THE AUTOGRAPH MAN
ZADIE SMITH

Sure-footed, and elegantly angsted-out. Intense, but also supremely controlled. Centred around one man's quest for identity, it draws a staggeringly beautiful, and carefully structured framework that questions fame, and forgetting. Faith, and ritual. The notion of permanence, and death, death, death. Friendship, and fidelity.

Alex-Li Tandem is the confused, drugged-out/ drunk on most occasions, title character, in search of the Holy Grail of Autograph Men -- a Kitty Alexander. He's conflicted in every possible way. Of course, the external quest for the rarest of autographs parallels his internal quest, for resolution of his grief at his father's death when he was a child.

It's intelligent and intense, and somehow more accessible than her other two books. Not less literary/ deep, don't get me wrong -- at least, not much. But it just feels younger, somehow. Less 70 mm and multi-generational and allusive. But stunning still.

Aside: I promise to write longer sentences. This staccato stuff sounds like me, but makes for very bumpy reading. My apologies.

I won't ask for much this Christmas/ I won't even wish for snow.

THE AUTOGRAPH MAN
ZADIE SMITH

It's a book I'd saved up for when I need the distraction of a stunningly absorbing read. Given life and upwardly mobile stress levels, started it a few nights before. Nearly halfway through.

Smith wrote this one between White Teeth and On Beauty, and it's quite delicious. Till I'm in a position to review it, here's Salon's point of view. (A lot like mine, but their gushing's slightly more posh.)

I walked across/ An empty land/ I knew the pathway/ Like the back of my hand.

HOWARDS END
EM FORSTER

Always loved Forster's short stories, even though I'm not very attached to that form of writing. Strangely enough, I didn't ever get around to any of his full-length stuff. Till now.

After reading (and falling in love with) On Beauty, I simply had to read the book it was inspired by. If only to learn how much of Zadie Smith's writing/ plotting was completely original.

Howards End is a spectacular novel, at the heart of which lies an unexpected friendship. It is the depth of that friendship that leads to Ruth Wilcox's bequeathing of Howards End to Margaret Schlegel. And they are but two of the many characters that make this fairly sprawling story come to life.

Smith's retelling of the story is even more beautiful, since she's shifted the landscape to a present-day American university. Introduced elements like race, nationality, and art/culture. And amplified the chief conflicts: emotionalism vs. practicality, culture vs. materialism, etc.

Her story is as much of a comment on our times as Forster's was of his -- on morality; on families, homes, and family homes; on society; on art/ culture; and on identity.

It's a flawless retelling of an already quite perfect story.

Loved both books. Was blown away at the spirit with which one takes on the other. Lingered over, and enjoyed immensely, the threads that ran through both narratives.

It's a bit like falling for the same person after many, many years. Much has changed; much is new. Yet, there are so many things that provoke the exact same reaction they did all that while ago.

Maybe I should read more Forster.

Hold on, little girl.

ON BEAUTY
ZADIE SMITH

Scrumptiously good. Much, much, much easier to read than White Teeth, which I really liked quite a bit.

But in all honesty, I can't review it without reading Howards End, the book it's written in tribute to.

So hang on a bit. I'll be back.