Samad Iqbal and Archie Jones have been friends since WWII. This amazing novel looks at three generations of their families and through them explores immigrant experiences of British culture and its effects on their families. I really loved Zadie Smith's ability to write in different voices, so flexible, so credible. My favourite were the varying registers of Jamaican accent - Hortense, first generation, then daughter Clara who marries Archie, and then finally their daughter Irie. There’s also the rhythms of the street, the gangs, the school yard, the cafe and the home of the white middle class Chalfens.

Samad has twin boys Millat and Magid, one of whom is sent back to Bangladesh to remain a good Muslim boy, but with unexpected results. Through Millat we see young British Muslim men being attracted into a fundamentalist ideological group with political motives. I can't imagine how Zadie Smith must have felt after the 2005 London bombings. Nothing in her book foresees this scale of this tragic result, but it did document the disaffection of some young Muslim youth.

What my ramblings don't tell you is how funny, how apt, how interesting the book is. Through Samad, we find out a bit about Bangladesh, about Islam practiced by an intelligent humane man who struggles to know how to be a good man of faith in Britain, where his tradition and culture are swamped.

White Teeth shares in common with Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children the fateful synchronicity of its story and its rich variety of characters. Archie Jones comes into his own at the end as the wise fool who proves the worth of his lifelong friendship with Samad. ( )

I loved this book. ( )

A book sadly in need of an editor and an ending. A lot of hoopla for the author back when this came out; maybe that had something to do with multiculturalism. I made it to the end, but basically she couldn't come up with a compelling denouement. My wife warned me and I didn't listen. Since we only have a finite amount of time on this planet to read, I will now be very, very careful when listening to the Booker and other British tastemakers. ( )

Rarely is a book so entertaining and hilarious, and yet dense and sprawling enough that you could write your dissertation on it. This book is simply brilliant. ( )

So bad I actually did not bother reading the last quarter of the book (which I never do). I found the storyline weak and unexciting. Perhaps I am missing the point of the story but I can not understand why it got such good reviews. ( )

I had no idea how good this book would be. And I have no idea how Zadie Smith wrote it. ( )

I had no idea how good this book would be. And I have no idea how Zadie Smith wrote it. ( )

I had no idea how good this book would be. And I have no idea how Zadie Smith wrote it. ( )

A good book. A good reflection of life.

I don't know why I cannot get into this novel. I love Smith's short stories and articles. I love this book, even. So why can I never get past the first 150 pages or so? Maybe next time I try it I'll just start on page 151.

Nice writing ( )

I loved the book. I loved the writing and I was hooked up until the last few chapters, when everything went insane. The ending just didn't feel satisfying, though the journey there was quite memorable. ( )

White Teeth is a novel about immigration, racism, and family history. Set in a schizophrenic London – largely xenophobic, yet a multicultural melting pot – in the 80s, the story explores self-identity and each generation’s hope for the next. Smith conveys these themes through the intimate characterisation of two families, the Iqbals and the Jonses, and with an inherent humour that keeps the reader engaged.

I loved this book, as much for Smith’s underlying premise that as humans we are all monumentally fucked up in some way, as for the depths of character without which the book simply would not work and which she manages so adroitly. ( )

an incredible good book, very thought-provoking! a use of humour to address some serious topics, which makes it very funny but very serious at the same time. one of these books which has so many layers, it is fun to reread it with different focuses.
and the use of language. " a past tense, future perfect kind of night" (p.98)... what can i say ( )

Tedious ( )

See my review at Fiction Readings: ( )

Begins by wonderfully peeling off rings of flesh from fresh, vivacious, New London, with a particular ear for verbal ticks and pangs. However, explodes sometime midway, mushrooming into a top-heavy, clumsily earnest paean. Waddles into a shallow stream of magical realism and drowns like a fat baby. But worth it for that beginning half. ( )

White Teeth starts out as a fairly typical sort of immigrant story. It is much more ambitious than most because it covers two families, the Iqbals and the Joneses, instead of just the one. Both families are interesting, and Zadie Smith tells their stories with affection and wry humor. As the children in both families grow up, their parents make different decisions about how English/Bangladeshi/Jamaican/Muslim/Jehovah’s Witness-y they want their children to be. But the children have minds of their own. It’s a good story that I thoroughly enjoyed, even if it wasn’t the most original story in the world.

And at about the midpoint, things take a turn. We meet the Chalfens, a family of liberal intellectuals with children who, like the Iqbal and Jones children, are making their own decisions about who they are going to be, regardless of what their parents say. Marcus Chalfin is a geneticist, and his presence in the book brings to the fore questions of heredity and identity, of nature and nurture. The scope of the tale broadens so that it’s no longer just an exploration of cultural identity (a rich enough theme on its own). It takes in how we all become who we are. Are we just products of our genes? Can we ever separate ourselves from our biological heritage? Do we really choose our own course?

Smith uses this new thread to enrich and deepen the story, but she never allows it to take over. The tone of the book stays consistent, and the central characters never fade too far into the background. By the end, seemingly inconsequential threads from the opening chapters start to show up again, and everything dovetails into a stunningly inconclusive conclusion. I loved it.

See my complete review (with a comparison to the less masterfully told immigrant tale, Middlesex) at my blog. ( )

How can this monumentous book be summed up in a few short sentences? Let's just say that Smith's writing is brilliant, cuttingly witty and totally hilarious. The ending left me a might dissatisfied, but overall I'm really happy I got to read this book. ( )

Stopped just past half. To tedious. Would be a great film, though. ( )

Lady Wombat says:

It was strange to read a book by an insider to a non-white culture that laughs at those of her culture, and of others from subordinated cultures. Smith laughs at everyone (whites included), and makes her reader laugh at them, too. This took me some time to get used to! But the laughter, while often pointed, is always humane; Smith wants us to care for her characters, even while we laugh at their personal idiosyncrasies and their struggles to adapt to English culture while holding on to their own.

Amazing writer of dialogue!

My favorite book of 2001. ( )

White Teeth has definite weaknesses—there are places where the tone wavers into over-zealousness, the characterisation isn't always believable, and I found the ending rather disappointing. For all that, this is a remarkable first novel, written with a lively energy and spark which I hope is a promise of great things from Smith in the future. (The disappointing The Autograph Man notwithstanding.) She melds a great variety of themes and topics—war and interracial relations, love and religion, science and history, colonialism and heritage—into one frenetic, but usually harmonious, whole. ( )

(First reviewed at Blogcritics at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/...)

"White Teeth" was British writer Zadie Smith's first novel. It was critically acclaimed, it won awards and it was turned into a mini-series on British television which was broadcast in America on PBS Masterpiece Theater.

There are several Zadie Smith links. Avoid the unofficial one called zadiesmith.com which has popups. It's a literary lure site.

There's a good fan/critic page by Kevin Patrick Mahoney. There are reviews, pages devoted to Smith or "White Teeth," biographical material and interviews at Culture Wars, PBS and BBC.

Some of the sites indicate that she sold the book and got a good advance on the strength of the outline and first 80 pages.

Smith writes very well. Her characters are well drawn, distinctive, complex people with interesting impulses, feelings and ideas. The characters carry the novel and tell the story. The social and political themes are presented through the stories of the characters.

The narrative voice is third person omniscient, and the point of view shifts. Generally, the point of view is minority - Asian or Caribean immigrants, women, and young people - but without any large sense of oppression. Her characters are not necessarily powerful in society, but they are powerful within one another's emotional lives.

Smith is at her best with several complex and confused young people. There are Clara and Alsana, the young women who marry Archie and Samid, who are men in their 50's, veterans of World War II. There are also Irie, the daughter of Clara and Archie, Magid and Millat, the twin sons of Alsana and Samid, Joshua Chalfens, and a handful of other young people. The young people are pulled in different directions. They are drawn to assimilate into British culture, and the British intelligentsia. They want to be normal. They imagine themselves within the framework of movies and pop culture. They embrace and reject parental and family influences. They face the direct prejudices of outright racists, and the oblivious racism of the average Englishman. They also encounter the subtle and condescending racism of political correctness and liberalism. Some are drawn to isolationist religious and racist movements or radical activism.

She puts her characters into a very interesting story that goes from the older men capturing a Nazi scientist at the end of World War II to several sets of characters involved, at the end of the 20th century with promoting or protesting a scientist who has created a genetically modified mouse. Her treatment of science and culture is progressive and post-modern.

Several of the characters are involved in religion and politics at the extremes. There are Jehovah's Witnesses, Islamic Fundamentalists, Animal Rights activists. Smith deals with these characters in a mature way. She writes these characters as sometimes ridiculously obsessed, sometimes confused, mixing ideas and emotions, rationalizing their choices and beliefs, or simply proclaiming them without logic or reason.

There is an interesting authorial rant late in the book which starts with Irie's love for Millat. Irie is the daughter of Archie - middle aged white English working class - and Clara - second generation Jamaican. Millat is one of the twin sons of Samad Iqbal, Bengali. Millat is part cocksman, part gangster, and an Islamic militant by the end of the book. Irie is convinced that Millat can't love her because he is damaged by his past, to which Smith says: "What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way?" This is an interesting commentary on the sense of entitlement we absorb from pop psychology and pop culture, which leads us to blame others for not living up to our hopes and dreams.

There are some weaknesses in the book. Smith leaves some plot threads dangling. For instance part way through the book she suggests that Millat gets HIV during unprotected sex, but leaves that idea unresolved. Some of her characters are just caricatures. Joyce Chalfens, wife of the scientist Marcus Chalfens, writer, gardener, earth mother, liberal, hippie, is weak. There is a ridiculous liberal school headmaster. Smith's voice and tone waver. In places she writes in a literary style, and in other places she aims for irony, and in places she sounds more like a chicklit goddess.

The climax - the collision between Marcus Chalfens's genetically altered mouse and all the protesters has a moment of great tension, which almost overcomes the disappointment of an otherwise flat climax. The resolution of the stories of the lead characters is also disappointingly sweet and benign. There is a feeling that the ending was chopped off, and written in a positive and feel-good way, to help guarantee the saleability of a hyped product.

On the whole though, a very good book by a writer of great talent and promise. ( )

I really enjoyed the characters, and a definitive plus is that many are described in detail, also side characters. At times I found it a bit dull/ too long, and then again I got carried away by the story. What makes this earn a 4-star rating is how it ends, I thoght it was an excellent ending, surprising and yet very true to the rest of the book. ( )