White Teeth

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

White Teeth by Zadie Smith is an energetic and sprawling epic about class- and color-stratified Greater London. It's difficult to summarize - one reviewer (Maya Jaggi in the Guardian) explained, "Its characters embrace Jehovah's Witnesses, halal butchers, eugenicists, animal-rights activists and a group of Muslim militants who labour under the unfortunate acronym KEVIN." It centrally follows two families with roots in Jamaica and Bangladesh, the fathers of which met in the war. A scientist's genetic programming of laboratory mice sets up a clash of science, compassion and religion that affects them all.

It's astonishing that the author, half-Jamaican herself, was 24 years old when she wrote this. Its rich story and bravado would seem to show more have come from someone much more experienced. Is it post-racial? It struck me as more "frankly racial" than "post". It also provides glimpses into a London not often portrayed. I can see why it's received all the accolades it has. Four stars. show less

At the time of reading I might have given it five stars: with a little time out I recognise it was perhaps excellent but not profound. It`s a snapshot into UK life that I'd not have experienced otherwise, and I think - having read it in a period of high BLM intensity - it's an important puzzle piece or stepping stone in an understanding of racial identity in the UK.

I read something interesting about it being accused of being 'post-modern', but perhaps more accurately than that, an example of 'hysterical realism'. Certainly the protagonists are.. Caricatures? Simplifications? to an extent, built as functional pieces to express concepts and bounce upon one another, whilst at the same time they are imbued with so much history and context show more that they feel fully rounded and real. That complexity, combined with great writing and an often cutting, witty turn of phrase really works. show less

There need to be more books like this in the world. Little bit cocky, little bit sharp, written within my lifetime by someone with little to no representation in the halls of esteemed literature by means of race and gender and what have you and does not give a flying fuck about it. The setting may be the well worn island of merry old 20th century England for the most part, but the reality is that of the 21st. Smorgasbord where white men get as proper a representation in the wider plain of reality as demonstrated by their worldy demographic percentages, rather than the plague of pretense sludging its way out of the past and into modern day entertainment maintaining against all odds that women are objects and people of color haven't been show more invented yet? Yes please.

I've noticed a common tone of grimaces and smirks at the college days of dorm room philosophizing, BYOB's galore in the booze and bong and Bourdieu, and I have to say, why? Shell out thousands for tuition, break your back and brain on everything so that you may make a living and never live it for the rest of your days, so that we may scoff at and scorn the few moments youthful selves stretched out their mind out of their own true volition? For if that's your habitus, you're not going to like this book at all.

There's no college here, mind you, nor the slightest hint of academic satire beyond the teachers and the parents and the volcanic smoldering that is the thousands of fags smoked in every courtyard of a colonial workhouse turned school. Rather, there's that periodic expounding on the smaller things in view of the bigger and vice versa, the sociopolitical/cultural/religious -isms galore in tidbits between plot and character and the standard rest, enough that I've just gone back to shove that four star up to a dazzling five because fuck it, I'd have to read ten of the classics to get the amount of true and glorious angry pointing out the lies and filth and prejudice of our world, our times. You say Middlemarch, I say been there, loved that, but these days of mine are played to the tune of "It's a Small Cosmopolitan World After All", and ivory towers just aren't going to cut it any more, no matter how well intentioned or lucky in hotfooting it out of hell. Heard of the Bechdel Test? Try the variant for people of color, or perhaps the Mako Mori Test. True, the book didn't pass the Russo Test, but there's a reason why I'm on the lookout for more Zadie titles to grace my shelves.

Now, since one side of my family has been in area of the later named United States since the 1600's, while the other is claimed to have been wandering around since the 1500's by an especially fervent Great Aunt, my sense of being an immigrant is nigh nonexistent. Thus, I'm not going to do anything inane like compare this work to the likes of Lahiri and Kogawa and other variations in the theme and said that the way the subject was handled felt more or less real to me. However, if you couldn't tell by my rant above, Zadie seized on the true and utter consequences of the people perceived as other migrating to and living in the country of the "self" perceivers and got angry about it. The result is an admittedly hilarious and corkscrew escapade across a multivarious cast of at least four generations, but the righteous fury is there, enough that I'm amazed I haven't come across one of those reviews decrying it for being "too political" or whatever the term is for authors mixing their Entertainment with Truth.

Regarding said reviews, I have seen ones dismissing the characters as unsympathetic caricatures, bemoaning the conclusion, wielding hedge clippers at the plot, what have you. To that I say...ehh. It's been a while since my baseline lay along those particular lines, and seeing how this reading turned out niggling doubts and annoyance free, I'd say I'm the better for it. show less

Zadie Smith’s White Teeth is a wild, raucous, rollicking, joyful, sad, funny tale about life in immigrant families in North London in the years leading up to the start of the 21st century. That it is as important and timely today as when it was published twelve years ago only solidifies her reputation as a gifted and talented writer.

The book opens in 1975 as Archie Jones is sitting in his car, trying to asphyxiate himself with a vacuum cleaner hose that’s attached to the car’s exhaust system. His wife has divorced him and life doesn’t seem worth living. He’s saved because he parked his car (inconveniently) next to the Halal butcher who was waiting for a load of bovine and this just will not do. Archie is thankful to be saved show more and goes on to marry Clara Bowden, whose black roots go back to Jamaica and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Archie, friends with Samad Iqbal sine the war, whose roots, along with those of his wife Alsana go back to Bangladesh. For the most part, the book is about these two families and the problems faced by immigrants across the world and through the generations. Later in the story, another purely British family, liberal intellectuals, is introduced and, paradoxically, the pot really begins to boil. Their interference in the lives of the Jones and Iqbal children, at the expense of their own children, provides another interesting look at the diversity of modern society.

”This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white. This has been the century of the great immigrant experience. It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the fish pond, Danny Rahman in the football cage, Quang O’Rourke bouncing a basketball and Irie Jones humming a tune. Children with first and last names on a direct collision course. Names that secrete within them mass exodus, cramped boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checkups. It is only this late in the day, and only in Willesden, that you can find best friends Sita and Sharon, constantly mistaken for each other because Sita is white (her mother liked the name) and Sharon is Pakistani (her mother thought it best---less trouble). Yet despite all the mixing up, despite the fact that we have finally slipped into each other’s lives with reasonable comfort (like a man returning to his lover’s bed after a midnight walk), despite all this, it is still hard to admit that there is no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English. There are still young white men who are angry about that; who will roll out at closing time into the poorly lit streets with a kitchen knife wrapped in a tight fist.” (Page 272)

Smith’s forte is characterization and, I must say, she is wizard-like as she develops these characters and, through them, explores the issues of race, sex and class facing, not only the UK, but countries all over the world. Delving into multiculturalism through multiple points of view allows the reader a unique perspective. The white teeth of the title expound on this theme.

I found White Teeth to be wildly funny and yet terribly thought provoking and prescient (this was, after all published before 9/11). Highly recommended. 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.

One of the cover blurbs on my copy described Zadie Smith as philosophical and sassy at the same time and that's exactly right. Her combination of beautiful, literary writing and down-to-earth wit was completely unique. It was also perfect for exposing the profound moments found in everyday life. I could easily see this becoming a modern classic because the story focuses on human nature in a way that I think will make the book timeless. However, the author also highlights many of the big issues of our time, including immigration and religious conflict. The ending was the only part of this book I didn't think was perfect. The big reveal wasn't especially surprising or profound, so I was sorry it was the focus of such a wonderfully written show more book.

This review first published at Doing Dewey. show less