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Kipps and Belsey: Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Beauty
Politics in Academia
Race and Identity
The Value of Family
Summary
Analysis
Carl is at the door, and Howard doesn’t recognize him at first. Carl explains he’s a friend of Levi’s. Howard says it’s a private party and Levi isn’t around. Carl says he never should’ve bothered coming and leaves.
While Howard likes to think of himself as an open-minded person, he often doesn’t put this idealistic thinking into practice, and this short encounter where he rejects Carl (who doesn’t come from an academic world like Howard’s) shows how Howard still maintains some prejudices.
Themes
Howard closes the door feeling a little bewildered, but he soon feels festive again. Around 9:30 p.m., he decides to give a speech in the garden that he feels goes well. He is pleased with the turnout, though disappointed that only a handful of people from the English department came, mostly Claire and her colleagues and students.
Given Howard’s previous interactions, in which he’s struggled to articulate what he really means, it seems likely that he is drunk in this passage and overestimating his own abilities to speak. The fact that so few people came from Wellington suggests that Howard isn’t particularly popular and struggles to connect with others even in an academic setting.
Themes
Howard decides to find Erskine to ask how Erskine liked his speech. He gets sidetracked talking to a group of people he doesn’t know well and starts speaking about how Rembrandt made a lot of mistakes but his wife, Saskia, always forgave him. He is happy to see that none of them seems to know that he himself cheated on Kiki and that she had to forgive him for it.
Although previous passages hinted at Howard making a mistake in his marriage, this is the first passage to confirm that he had an affair. Howard has a guilty conscience, and since he doesn’t know how to be honest with Kiki, he instead conveys his guilt indirectly, through stories about Rembrandt. This further demonstrates how Howard is more comfortable dealing with abstract ideas than real life. While Howard believes that Kiki has forgiven him, this reveal about Howard’s affair helps explain why Kiki has been acting so wary around Howard recently.
Themes
When Howard was having his affair, Erskine, who was often guilty of cheating in his marriage, gave Howard the advice to deny everything. But then Howard got caught with a condom in his coat pocket. At the time, he lied about it being a one-night stand with a stranger. In the present at the party, Howard finally finds Erskine, who is sitting by the pool talking to Kiki and Levi. Howard asks them about Zora, but they don’t know where she is.
The fact that Howard not only had an affair but then lied about the details even after getting caught demonstrates how bad he is at communicating with Kiki. The fact that Erskine has done the same and even gives Howard advice suggests that Howard’s actions aren’t isolated and many people fail to live up to their ideals and their promises to their families.
Themes
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Zora is in the kitchen gossiping with some philosophy students. When she hears the doorbell ring, she goes to answer it and finds the Kipps family: Monty, Michael, and Victoria—but not Carlene. Zora doesn’t know where Howard is. She and the Kipps family make small talk about Jerome, and Michael happens to mention that he’s only visiting and will return to work in London in a few days. Victoria, however, is going to study at Wellington.
The first part of the book starts with one of the Belseys (Jerome) abroad in London, and so it’s fitting that the end of the first book brings things full circle, with the Kippses now abroad in the United States. After holding a feud with Monty from afar, Howard will now have to face the reality of feuding with Monty in person.
Themes
Eventually, Kiki comes over to greet the Kippses. She asks about Carlene’s absence, and Monty explains that Carlene rarely attends events. Howard is having a discussion with a colleague about Rembrandt when he sees Monty. Claire comes up to Howard and asks to be introduced to the Kippses, since Warren is interested in them and Claire also finds Monty charismatic.
Carlene’s behavior throughout the novel so far has been mysterious—she seems warm and social, and yet she also acts unpredictably, seemingly avoiding social situations. At this point in the story, Monty has barely even appeared as a character himself, and so it’s still unclear to what extent Howard’s inflated ideas about Monty are true or exaggerated. Certainly, Claire seems interested in Monty and his career, suggesting that his success is genuine—and that Howard’s animosity toward Monty is personal and biased.
Themes
Howard thinks Claire is being too bold, particularly since she was the one he really had his affair with. Claire keeps insisting on meeting Monty. Suddenly, Kiki surprises the two of them while Claire has her hand on Howard, and Howard knows at once that Kiki has figured out that Claire was the woman he had the affair with. Claire doesn’t realize anything is wrong and tells Kiki about how she wants Howard to introduce her to Monty.
All it takes is one moment for Kiki to see through all of Howard’s lies about his affair. While Howard may struggle in many ways to communicate with his wife, he still knows when he’s been caught making a mistake. Claire’s obliviousness to the situation suggests how, as much as Claire likes to act like she’s able to talk intelligently about every topic, there are often important things that she misses.
Themes
Howard talks about how Monty is deeply conservative and against affirmative action. Claire and Howard actually first met when Claire served as his deputy on an Affirmative Action Committee. As Howard acts increasingly dismissive toward Monty, Kiki explains what happened between Jerome and Victoria.
Affirmative action was an educational policy intended to reduce racial bias in the college admissions process. As a conservative, Monty denies that any significant amount of racism still exists against Black Americans, and so he opposes affirmative action because he believes it rewards people who haven’t “earned” it.
Themes
Kiki mentions to Howard that the music art the party, which is now hip-hop for some reason, seems to be upsetting some of the guests, so she asks him to put on something else. But before Howard can do that, Claire walks away, and Kiki suddenly takes Howard aside. She whispers that he can stay in the house, but if he tries to come near her, she’ll kill him. Kiki then leaves to go over and continue to have a normal conversation with Claire.
Once again, many of the academics in Howard’s orbit claim to have an interest in Black culture in the abstract but dislike actually encountering hip-hip in real life. Meanwhile, Kiki’s ability to transition effortlessly from making threats to having polite conversation further indicates how she’s learned over the course of her marriage to repress her feelings.
Themes
Stunned, Howard doesn’t know what to do at first. He goes to change the music and finds that Victoria is the one who put on hip-hop, although she just randomly put on a CD that Levi made. She didn’t like the band Kraftwerk that Howard was playing earlier and makes fun of the rest of Howard’s CD collection. She seems drunk, which amuses Howard so he just lets the hip-hop keep playing.
The Kraftwerk song “Trans-Europe Express” is sampled on Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” one of the first rap songs, so although Howard and Victoria think they like very different music, in fact, their taste is not so different. This passage gets at how people’s preexisting biases can cause them to see others are more different than they actually are.
Themes
