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i think at the beginning the novel follows on beauty pretty closely. i was annoyed by the first sentence. "god, it's the same and she thinks it's witty cuz it's over email now! argh!" but i gotta give her credit, she really departs from it in the middle and i kept thinking, "is he this one? is she that one?" she intentionally gives the families different genders and numbers (i feel like i'm doing grammar, oops) than the ones in howard's end so the parallels can't be too obvious. it's clear who the schlegels and wilcoxes are, the belseys and kipps respectively, and perhaps the title of the first part, "kipps and belsey" is a reference to forster's novel being about the relationship between families (though there is more obvious feuding going on in on beauty.) in the schlegel household there are 3 children, and there are also 3 in the belsey home, but the belsey home has 2 parents while the schlegel home has none, the belsey kids are much younger, there are 2 boys and a girl instead of 2 girls and a boy, and then there are boys on the wilcox side, charles and paul, but a boy and a girl, michael and "vee" on the kipps side. so already we have complications. later, there is a pretty clear leonard bast figure, but sometimes based on the forster i would expect certain characters to act certain ways or have specific traits and they would be given to another character. but then the novel "touches base" if you will and follows forster's plot rather exactly. the ending is not exact at all, though, but i will say no more. over the whole 443 pages, smith isn't really "stealing" much from forster, she has created a new piece, but i think it's kinda sad that she needs both em forster and elaine scarry to do it. besides, i'm reading the scarry right now and it really isn't good. it's as unintellectual as smith's writing (i'm referring more to the fail better essay) so maybe that's why smith likes it.