On Beauty

On Beauty

by

Zadie Smith

Howard Character Analysis

Howard Belsey is a white British professor at the (fictional) American university Wellington College. His name is a reference to Howard’s End, the novel that inspired On Beauty. Howard is married to Kiki, and their children together are Jerome, Zora, and Levi. Howard is deeply involved in academia, working on a book about Rembrandt that he has struggled to finish for years, and this makes him very different from his father, Harold, who is a butcher who lives in a working-class area of London and watches a lot of television. Howard’s mother Joan died when he was still young. Howard’s biggest rival is Monty Kipps, who has already written a Rembrandt book and whose deeply conservative beliefs have led him to clash with Howard, who is liberal, nonreligious, and on his university’s committee for affirmative action. But despite Howard’s high ideals, he often acts like a hypocrite, cheating on his wife with an old friend and colleague (Claire), lying about the affair, then later having a different affair with one of his students—and Howard’s daughter—Victoria. Howard’s flaws help to illustrate the limits of academic knowledge and how it doesn’t necessarily help a person communicate with others or act more morally. Still, Howard’s persistence to reform despite his mistakes and setbacks also helps to illustrate how people are resilient.

Howard Quotes in On Beauty

The On Beauty quotes below are all either spoken by Howard or refer to Howard. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Nature of Beauty Theme Icon
).
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 1 Quotes

Hey, Dad – basically I’m just going to keep on keeping on with these mails – I’m no longer expecting you to reply, but I’m still hoping you will, if that makes sense.

Related Characters: Jerome (speaker), Howard, Monty, Victoria
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 2 Quotes

Kiki slapped the table. ‘Oh, God, this isn’t 1910 – Jerome can marry who the hell he wants to marry – or are we going to start making up visiting cards and asking him to meet only the daughters of academics that you happen to –’

‘Might the address be in the green moleskin?’

Related Characters: Howard (speaker), Kiki (speaker), Monty, Jerome, Carlene, Victoria
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 4 Quotes

‘It’s about trying,’ said Michael keenly – the topic seemed to animate him. ‘It’s like, if you put the effort in. And I spose my mum’s always been at home, which makes a lot of difference, I think. Having the mother figure and all that. Nurturing. It’s like a Caribbean ideal – a lot of people lose sight of it.’

Related Characters: Michael (speaker), Howard, Monty, Carlene, Victoria
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 5 Quotes

And this is another thing they do. They flirt with you violently because there is no possibility of it being taken seriously.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Claire, Warren
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 7 Quotes

The young man stepped forward cautiously, with one hand up as if to show he meant no harm. He turned the Discman over in her hand and showed her the sticky patch. He lifted his hoodie and the T-shirt beneath it to reveal a well-defined pelvic bone and drew a second Discman from his waistband. ‘This one’s yours.’

‘They’re exactly the same.’

Related Characters: Zora (speaker), Carl (speaker), Howard
Related Symbols: Hip-hop
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 11 Quotes

It is an unnatural law of such parties that the person whose position on the guest list was originally the least secure is always the first to arrive. Christian von Klepper’s invitation had been added by Howard, removed by Kiki, reinstated by Howard, removed by Kiki and then, at some later point, apparently extended once more in secret by Howard, for here was Christian, leaning into an alcove in the living room, nodding devotedly at his host.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Christian, Meredith
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 12 Quotes

Too quickly, Claire removed her hand from Howard’s body. But Kiki wasn’t looking at Claire; she was looking at Howard. You’re married to someone for thirty years: you know their face like you know your own name.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Claire
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Tell them to calm themselves. It’s only hip-hop. It won’t kill them.’

Related Characters: Victoria (speaker), Howard, Kiki, Monty, Claire, Michael
Related Symbols: Hip-hop
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 2 Quotes

Howard smiled gratefully but shook his head. He was beyond the point of learning new tricks. He got on his knees and plugged the projector’s cord into the wall; a snag of blue light leaped from the socket. He pressed the button on the back of the projector. He twiddled the connected cable. He pressed hard on the light box, hoping to engage some loose connection.

Related Characters: Howard, Smith
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:

She paused. She sat very straight in her chair.

‘I think it’s inappropriate,’ she said.

They had been skirting around this for ten minutes. Now the word had been used.

Related Characters: Zora (speaker), Howard, Claire, Dean French
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 5 Quotes

‘She’s fabulous,’ replied Kiki, only now taking the time to look at her properly. In the centre of the frame there was a tall, naked black woman wearing only a red bandanna and standing in a fantastical white space, surrounded all about by tropical branches and kaleidoscopic fruit and flowers. Four pink birds, one green parrot. Three humming birds. Many brown butterflies. It was painted in a primitive, childlike style, everything flat on the canvas. No perspective, no depth.

Related Characters: Kiki (speaker), Howard, Monty, Carlene
Related Symbols: The Hyppolite Painting
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:

‘I don’t think that’s how things go down now,’ Levi said at last, gently, not wanting to disappoint his father, but needing to catch the bus. It was a nice enough story, but it was making him late for work.

Related Characters: Levi (speaker), Howard, Bailey
Related Symbols: Hip-hop
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 6 Quotes

‘It’s true that men – they respond to beauty . . . it doesn’t end for them, this . . . this concern with beauty as a physical actuality in the world – and that’s clearly imprisoning and it infantilizes . . . but it’s true and . . . I don’t know how else to explain what –’

Related Characters: Howard (speaker), Kiki, Claire
Related Symbols: The Hyppolite Painting
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 3 Quotes

‘She found a black fella, I spose. It was always going to happen, though. It’s in their nature.’

Related Characters: Harold (speaker), Howard, Kiki
Page Number: 301
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 4 Quotes

‘But your class – your class is a cult classic. I love your class. Your class is all about never ever saying I like the tomato. That’s why so few people take it – I mean, no offence, it’s a compliment.’

Related Characters: Victoria (speaker), Howard, Carlene
Page Number: 312
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 5 Quotes

Monty put his hands on each side of his own belly. ‘Really, Dr Belsey, this is too stupid to answer. Surely a man can write a piece of prose without “intending” any particular reaction, or at least he can and will write without presuming every end or consequence of that piece of prose.’

Related Characters: Monty (speaker), Howard, Kiki, Victoria, Claire, Dean French
Page Number: 327
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 7 Quotes

For the first time it occurred to Howard that this gorgeous, single nineteen-year-old giving her attention to a 57-year-old married man (albeit with a full head of hair) might have other motives besides pure animal passion. Was he – as Levi would put it – being played?

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Monty, Levi, Victoria
Page Number: 343
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 10 Quotes

Kiki looked up. ‘Howard, I love you. But I’m just not interested in watching this second adolescence. I had my adolescence. I can’t go through yours again.’

Related Characters: Kiki (speaker), Howard, Victoria
Page Number: 398
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 12 Quotes

‘Well, my God. What a tricky bastard. Moral majority my arse. Well, you’ve got him. My God! You should go in there and spit-roast him. Destroy him!’

Zora forced her fake nails, left over from the party, into the underside of the table top. ‘That’s your advice?”

Related Characters: Howard (speaker), Zora (speaker), Monty, Jerome, Carl, Victoria, Chantelle
Page Number: 432
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 13 Quotes

Howard looked back at the woman on the wall, Rembrandt’s love, Hendrickje. Though her hands were imprecise blurs, paint heaped on paint and roiled with the brush, the rest of her skin had been expertly rendered in all its variety – chalky whites and lively pinks, the underlying blue of her veins and the ever present human hint of yellow, intimation of what is to come.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki
Page Number: 443
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire On Beauty LitChart as a printable PDF.
On Beauty PDF

Howard Quotes in On Beauty

The On Beauty quotes below are all either spoken by Howard or refer to Howard. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Nature of Beauty Theme Icon
).
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 1 Quotes

Hey, Dad – basically I’m just going to keep on keeping on with these mails – I’m no longer expecting you to reply, but I’m still hoping you will, if that makes sense.

Related Characters: Jerome (speaker), Howard, Monty, Victoria
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 2 Quotes

Kiki slapped the table. ‘Oh, God, this isn’t 1910 – Jerome can marry who the hell he wants to marry – or are we going to start making up visiting cards and asking him to meet only the daughters of academics that you happen to –’

‘Might the address be in the green moleskin?’

Related Characters: Howard (speaker), Kiki (speaker), Monty, Jerome, Carlene, Victoria
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 4 Quotes

‘It’s about trying,’ said Michael keenly – the topic seemed to animate him. ‘It’s like, if you put the effort in. And I spose my mum’s always been at home, which makes a lot of difference, I think. Having the mother figure and all that. Nurturing. It’s like a Caribbean ideal – a lot of people lose sight of it.’

Related Characters: Michael (speaker), Howard, Monty, Carlene, Victoria
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 5 Quotes

And this is another thing they do. They flirt with you violently because there is no possibility of it being taken seriously.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Claire, Warren
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 7 Quotes

The young man stepped forward cautiously, with one hand up as if to show he meant no harm. He turned the Discman over in her hand and showed her the sticky patch. He lifted his hoodie and the T-shirt beneath it to reveal a well-defined pelvic bone and drew a second Discman from his waistband. ‘This one’s yours.’

‘They’re exactly the same.’

Related Characters: Zora (speaker), Carl (speaker), Howard
Related Symbols: Hip-hop
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 11 Quotes

It is an unnatural law of such parties that the person whose position on the guest list was originally the least secure is always the first to arrive. Christian von Klepper’s invitation had been added by Howard, removed by Kiki, reinstated by Howard, removed by Kiki and then, at some later point, apparently extended once more in secret by Howard, for here was Christian, leaning into an alcove in the living room, nodding devotedly at his host.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Christian, Meredith
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 12 Quotes

Too quickly, Claire removed her hand from Howard’s body. But Kiki wasn’t looking at Claire; she was looking at Howard. You’re married to someone for thirty years: you know their face like you know your own name.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Claire
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Tell them to calm themselves. It’s only hip-hop. It won’t kill them.’

Related Characters: Victoria (speaker), Howard, Kiki, Monty, Claire, Michael
Related Symbols: Hip-hop
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 2 Quotes

Howard smiled gratefully but shook his head. He was beyond the point of learning new tricks. He got on his knees and plugged the projector’s cord into the wall; a snag of blue light leaped from the socket. He pressed the button on the back of the projector. He twiddled the connected cable. He pressed hard on the light box, hoping to engage some loose connection.

Related Characters: Howard, Smith
Page Number: 142
Explanation and Analysis:

She paused. She sat very straight in her chair.

‘I think it’s inappropriate,’ she said.

They had been skirting around this for ten minutes. Now the word had been used.

Related Characters: Zora (speaker), Howard, Claire, Dean French
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 5 Quotes

‘She’s fabulous,’ replied Kiki, only now taking the time to look at her properly. In the centre of the frame there was a tall, naked black woman wearing only a red bandanna and standing in a fantastical white space, surrounded all about by tropical branches and kaleidoscopic fruit and flowers. Four pink birds, one green parrot. Three humming birds. Many brown butterflies. It was painted in a primitive, childlike style, everything flat on the canvas. No perspective, no depth.

Related Characters: Kiki (speaker), Howard, Monty, Carlene
Related Symbols: The Hyppolite Painting
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:

‘I don’t think that’s how things go down now,’ Levi said at last, gently, not wanting to disappoint his father, but needing to catch the bus. It was a nice enough story, but it was making him late for work.

Related Characters: Levi (speaker), Howard, Bailey
Related Symbols: Hip-hop
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 6 Quotes

‘It’s true that men – they respond to beauty . . . it doesn’t end for them, this . . . this concern with beauty as a physical actuality in the world – and that’s clearly imprisoning and it infantilizes . . . but it’s true and . . . I don’t know how else to explain what –’

Related Characters: Howard (speaker), Kiki, Claire
Related Symbols: The Hyppolite Painting
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 3 Quotes

‘She found a black fella, I spose. It was always going to happen, though. It’s in their nature.’

Related Characters: Harold (speaker), Howard, Kiki
Page Number: 301
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 4 Quotes

‘But your class – your class is a cult classic. I love your class. Your class is all about never ever saying I like the tomato. That’s why so few people take it – I mean, no offence, it’s a compliment.’

Related Characters: Victoria (speaker), Howard, Carlene
Page Number: 312
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 5 Quotes

Monty put his hands on each side of his own belly. ‘Really, Dr Belsey, this is too stupid to answer. Surely a man can write a piece of prose without “intending” any particular reaction, or at least he can and will write without presuming every end or consequence of that piece of prose.’

Related Characters: Monty (speaker), Howard, Kiki, Victoria, Claire, Dean French
Page Number: 327
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 7 Quotes

For the first time it occurred to Howard that this gorgeous, single nineteen-year-old giving her attention to a 57-year-old married man (albeit with a full head of hair) might have other motives besides pure animal passion. Was he – as Levi would put it – being played?

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki, Monty, Levi, Victoria
Page Number: 343
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 10 Quotes

Kiki looked up. ‘Howard, I love you. But I’m just not interested in watching this second adolescence. I had my adolescence. I can’t go through yours again.’

Related Characters: Kiki (speaker), Howard, Victoria
Page Number: 398
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 12 Quotes

‘Well, my God. What a tricky bastard. Moral majority my arse. Well, you’ve got him. My God! You should go in there and spit-roast him. Destroy him!’

Zora forced her fake nails, left over from the party, into the underside of the table top. ‘That’s your advice?”

Related Characters: Howard (speaker), Zora (speaker), Monty, Jerome, Carl, Victoria, Chantelle
Page Number: 432
Explanation and Analysis:
On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 13 Quotes

Howard looked back at the woman on the wall, Rembrandt’s love, Hendrickje. Though her hands were imprecise blurs, paint heaped on paint and roiled with the brush, the rest of her skin had been expertly rendered in all its variety – chalky whites and lively pinks, the underlying blue of her veins and the ever present human hint of yellow, intimation of what is to come.

Related Characters: Howard, Kiki
Page Number: 443
Explanation and Analysis: