White Teeth

Following two families over two or three generations, White Teeth explores the immigrant experience in the UK through the Iqbals and the Jones'. Samad Iqbal and Archie Jones were old army buddies in World War 2. Jones eventually marries a woman whose family hails from Jamaica, and their daughter Irie and Samad's twins, Mallat and Magid, grow up together.

This is a twisting tale that takes you back and forth in time anywhere from 1907 to 1992, and I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what the plot itself was actually about other than the random acts that appear not to matter but actually have long-term ramifications. Nothing seemingly important happens and I didn't particularly like anybody, but it was compelling all the same and I did want to show more know what happened even if it left me totally bemused. The narrator seems tongue in cheek a lot of the time, and I wonder if I missed some nuances in there by either being American or just an obtuse reader. I think I'm glad i read it. show less

I only recently got around to listening to White Teeth, and I found it both brilliant and challenging in equal measure. Smith’s mastery is unquestionable - the characters are rich and vividly drawn, with tongue-in-cheek humour providing levity amid serious explorations of race, class, and the immigrant experience. The diverse cast has no clear heroes or villains, and the ending elegantly ties together the many seemingly random threads of the story.

Where it proved more difficult for me was in following all those threads to the conclusion. The narrative often drifts into deep, rich tangents before returning to the two central families and their evolving lives. While these tangents are fascinating, they sometimes slowed my momentum. show more Unlike other audiobooks I can breeze through in a few days, this one stretched across two months. That said, I strongly suspect many readers would be far more gripped, and the prose is gorgeous and clever throughout.

Overall, White Teeth is a masterful, thought-provoking novel. While the narrative drift made it a slower listen for me personally, the depth, humour, and characterisation make it a book well worth experiencing. show less

Despite that this was the sort of sprawling family saga that I usually dislike, it was breezy and lighthearted, which made it much more enjoyable for me, even as it broached some serious themes, including “the immigrant experience,” self-identity, privilege and poverty, science vs religion. Mostly, though, I felt that it was a rather light-hearted romp, full of characters who were presented in a way that made me feel affectionate towards them even though, objectively, some of them should have been quite dislikable. It struck me as sprawling and messy, but that’s how life is.

A sprawling 10,000 page epic condensed down to 500. All the plot's left in, but the 'Proustian' characters are pared down to 6-word short fiction. Just about any scene would be enough for a novel (think To The Lighthouse) if Smith spent the time and care, but she doesn't linger very long. Certainly not on the characters themselves, which are Dickensian (in the pejorative sense) that you could hold one in your hand (compare with the relative depth of the author's stand-in, one of the select few who doesn't receive a heaping of authorial contempt). In one sense the prose is quite tight. Like most 'young writers', Smith doesn't write a descriptor that isn't metaphor or 'social commentary'. Each character in the novel is plainly meant to show more 'exemplify a perspective' in the sense that this author seems to understand the world. Each 'person' "has a story to tell" in the edifying, illuminating sense that real people never do. Zadie Smith has an eye for people, but it's the eye of a (clever) 20-24 year-old, and one who is, insufferably, "writing a novel" (picture the type). In another sense, the prose abounds with the figurative all-caps: "THIS IS A JOKE!" One senses she doesn't trust the reader to "GET IT?" without the little parenthetical insertions which call attention to 'humor' throughout the text. Was it Nabokov who remarked that the virtue of Proust is that he never allows the reader the mistake of thinking himself cleverer than the author. The opposite is happening here. show less

"They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow."

Many readers will regard White Teeth simply as a teeming family saga but that would undersell it as it is much more than that. It is also a satire on religion and culture in modern day Britain and covers many of the major talking points in today's diverse society. It is often humorous and life-affirming where, when the doorbell rings, a suitable greeting is “Encyclopaedias or God?”

The novel opens with Archie Jones attempting suicide because his wife Ophelia, “a violet-eyed Italian with a faint moustache,” has divorced him. He survives and a few weeks later marries
Jamaican Clara Bowden who is several decades his junior. Archie is a bit of a show more failure not only in marriage (he got a Hoover as a divorce settlement) but in life as well. He finished tied thirteenth in the 1948 Olympics and works devising ways of folding advertising materials. He is indecisive preferring the toss a coin to make his decisions. His best friend is Samad Iqbal, a Bangladeshi immigrant whom Archie served with during his military days at the very end of WWII.

Like Archie, Samad is the husband of a much younger wife, Alsana, but unlike Archie and Clara their union was an arranged one. Samad works as a waiter in London's West End. Both couples have children of a similar age—Magid and Millat, the twin sons of Samad and Alsana, and Irie the daughter of Archie and Clara.

As might be expected there are generational tensions and ethnic frictions between the two families but the author is not content with this. Into this bubbling maelstrom she throws in the Chalfens, a Catholic-Jewish family. Marcus Chalfens is a scientist working on a genetically-engineered mouse, allowing the author to introduce a radical animal rights group (FATE), a Muslim brotherhood known as the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (KEVIN) and Clara’s Jehovah’s Witness mother and her Church members who will all propel the story to its dramatic conclusion.

Thankfully the author avoids trying to tie up all the loose ends and reconciling the various different factions in the final chapter as this just wouldn't ultimately ring true as in reality reconciliation between such diverse groups is highly unlikely.

This is a novel jam packed full of talking points, covering such diverse issues as gender, faith, race, culture, sexuality, adolescence, prejudice and history to name but a few. All are deftly handled and she has managed to avoid the pitfalls of stereotyping which is all quite remarkable given that this is the author's first novel. Smith has tried to give the dialogue, in particular the Caribbean side of it, an authentic feel which I initially found a little disconcerting but in the end I generally managed to work out what was being said.

The blurb on the back of my copy describes this novel as "An impressive début, not only for its vitality and verve, but mainly for the sheer audacity of its scope and vision" and overall I would have to totally agree with that assessment. Despite being over 500 pages long at no time did I feel that a word was wasted. A very enjoyable read. show less

Hang onto your hats! White Teeth is a roller coaster ride, sure to rid you of your spare change with all of its twists and turns. Within the pages of White Teeth Zadie Smith takes you deep inside the concept of cultural identity through her characters and their dialogue. As an aside, I want to know how Smith conjured up these characters with such perfection. Where did they come from? People like Magid Mahfooz Murshed Mubtasim practically jump off the page, they are so real. I can't give it away, but that final scene with the gun!
White Teeth is like a four-room banquet with endless amounts of food choices. At times I felt overstuffed dealing with all the characters and their various dramas, but I don't discredit Smith's storytelling. show more She was culturally spot on with little details like the tag for Levi's jeans. What exactly does "shrink to fit" mean anyway? I could see how someone would be confused, especially if English isn't their first language.
All in all, White Teeth was a fun ride, worthy of all the accolades. show less

This family saga looks at the friendship and families of Archie Jones (Brit) and Samad Iqbal (Muslim Bangladeshi immigrant to London)--the two men met near the end of WW2 when they were assigned to the same tank.

A fascinating look at London life in immigrant/immigrant-adjacent communities in 1970s-1990s London. Bangladeshi immigrants like Samad and Alsana and their London-born twins. Archie and his wife Clara and daughter Irie, and Clara's mother Hortense, born during a Jamaican earthquake and devout Jehovah's Witness. They struggle with fitting in and being accepted as British and not "other"--at the same time, Hortense wants to take Irie to Jamaica for a visit (when she isn't hoping for the end of the world). Samad sneakily sends show more Magid to be raised in Bangladesh, he is so concerned about his children becoming truly English--and to make up for his own guilt for drinking beer with Archie every week. The Chalfen family stands in as England--the parents who think they are special and better and want to save Millat and Irie (and then Magid).

I love a long family saga, with some family history and decades of experiences and interactions. This was good and fun and sad and often funny. The paths Irie, Millat, Magid, and Joshua Chalfen take all show how parenting doesn't always work out as planned--and location and intention to not guarantee anything.

Published in 2000 with no hint of 9/11 on the horizon to affect Smith's ideas while writing this book, I think she accidentally captured a time/place/community (1975-90s) that cannot/will not exist in the same way again. show less