White Teeth: A Novel
by Zadie Smith
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Book Reviews of White Teeth: A Novel
Book Review: Some people will love this book
Summary: 2 Stars
White Teeth is of a style I like to think of as the Anglo response to Magical Realism in Spanish lit, popularized by Marquez and Allende (arguably originated by Rulfo). The anglo version adds a bit more concrete, more familiar vernacular, a little less fairytale, a little more sass.
Most Smith fans will also enjoy Salman Rushdie. Tom Robbins people might find trying this out worthwhile. There is also a pacing, and a drawing together of plot-lines that should give lovers of ironic mysteries smoother entree into this, more emotive, more pensive style.
Why 2 stars? It ain't my thing. The characters eventually felt like tools she was moving around to generate whatever weirdly cool dramatic moments she could imagine. The power of those moments was lost because the personality of the characters became so transparent. You might say, "of course she has to react that way to him so she can end up with the other guy and the first guy can be with the new girl who is the other guy's cousin...Boom! Irony."
Create a chart of each character's movements around one another in the course of the book and you'll have a very pretty, and self contained design. One that in book form reads like a long pun.
Why not one star? Because she was able, while a little aggressive on the this-is-a-book-about-mixing-cultures tip, she was able to nail some very specific and genuine cultural perspectives and artifacts that kept the book in my hand all the way to its deflating last chapter, which I just finished, and am still perplexed by the choices.
Book Review: Unpolished
Summary: 3 Stars
Zadie Smith's book "White Teeth" reminded me of Hanif Kureishi and his works, "My Beautiful Launderette" and "Buddha in Suburbia." Smith, like Kureishi, finds the humor and evokes the pathos from the modern-day immigrant's experience in England. Her characters, like Kureishi's, are an eclectic mix of East and West, and play out the mingling of cultures in their character arcs.Smith's imagination runs amok in a pleasant way; in the book she features a sham Islamic fundamentalist group, an absurd genetic engineering project, an overeager suburban middle-class family, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The characters surf their way through these groups and their fantastic conflicts as a response to their inner, emotional lives rather out of any political or ideological conviction, which provides the comedy: ridiculously exaggerated situations stocked with serious and emotionally afflicted characters. Smith's prose is crisp and utterly descriptive. At times, it can be moving or tense.
However, despite Smith's characters, the comedy, and her descriptive skills, the book is disappointing. The characters sacrifice consistency for dynamism. The plot skittles about like a flock of chickens on a frozen lake. The quality of the book varies; the first part feels like the work of a novice; the middle, the work of an experienced professional novelist; the last feels rushed, as if prodded by a deadline and left unrevised.
Not bad for a first book. Considering the popularity of "White Teeth," we'll likely soon see more work by Zadie Smith, no doubt more polished.
Book Review: Sink in your white teeth!
Summary: 5 Stars
To be honest, in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings in London, my mind flew back to this novel, the brilliant literary debut from then 23 year old Zadie Smith. Why? Some common elements between the two.
It's a witty, funny, and touching look at the lives of some immigrant families in the UK. In particular, the intertwining of the families of white Archie Jones (a `loser' married to a black West Indian woman Clara) and his friend Samad Iqbal, a muslim originally from Bangladesh (who tries to bring up his twin sons (Millat and Magid) to be good muslims, and at the same time decent British citizens).
Archie has a beautiful but confused daughter Irie, and her relationship with her parents, as well as with her maternal grandmother is a mix of comical and sad.
Samad, on the other hand, is worried that his sons are derailing from the religious path he has tried so hard to steer them along and in despair sends one (Magid) off to Bangladesh to acquire traditional and religious rooting. However, Magid comes back drastically changed, and there lies the parallel with July 7. No, he does not become a suicide bomber but you do get some insight into the thinking of these people.
The characters in this book are not super heroes, or anything that glamorous; just simple, warm, funny, confused individuals, something like you and me? A very vivid look at the multi ethnic hot pot of London.
Very well written and captivating, it was made into a TV series in the UK in 2001. A brilliant debut!
Book Review: Yikes!
Summary: 1 Stars
Bad grammar within quotations is of course fine because garbage-can characters usually speak with bad grammar. Yet, Smith's misplaced modifiers, mixed metaphors, and incorrect omissions of words such as the word "that" are elementary mistakes that detract from the book's legitimacy. The writing is equivalent to that of a novice English speaker. Instead of showing, Zadie Smith tells. In order to respect the reader's intelligence, a writer must show, not tell. When the reader has a chance to utilize his ability to think, the plot hijacks all of his attention. Such a book engages the reader. Yet, when the writer gives the reader all of the answers by telling everywhere, she insults the reader's intelligence and the reader falls asleep. Why should I read a book if I am told all the answers? Why should I read a writer's work when the writer has already done all of the thinking for me? For example, the nuances of a characters actions should reveal to the reader the character's feelings, the character's personality, and the reasons for the character's ways. Zadie Smith washes away any trace of a reason that I had for wanting to pay attention to the book because she answered all of those questions in the text. The book does not demand that the reader stay present or keep his eyes open. Thus, the book is an eye-closer. 450 pages of the same lackluster pattern is even repulsive. Five-star raters of this book are low-level thinkers because they like being told the answers, and I would hesitate to heed their insights.Book Review: Stunning!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's really nothing less than remarkable that the author was twenty-four years old when this book was published. It reads as if it was written by someone considerably older, world-weary, and hugely experienced. This tale of two families has an immense cast of characters, each wonderfully well depicted. It covers such arcane territory as school smoking and its "rules," Samad Iqbal's obsession with his famous ancestor and his neverending battles--both physical and mental--with his wife over their twin sons (who are the Cain and Abel of the tale); Clara (and her Jehovah's Witness grandmother, Hortense) and Archie Jones--English everyman and Samad's war-buddy-best friend. It deals with sexual politics, political politics, philosophical politics; the creating of acronymed groups of zealots (anti cruelty to animals; Muslim fundamentalism, the Witnesses); sexual peccadilloes; friendship; racism--everything, in fact, to do with the human condition. And the author deals even-handedly with all of it, with great humor and affection for her flawed, terribly human characters. This is a delicious book, chock-full of keen and tenchant observations made by a young woman who, evidently, never stops looking and listening to what goes on around her. London in all its wonderful, frantic madness comes to life in a modern-day Dickensian fashion that is nothing less than brilliant. Entertaining, funny, touching and beautifully told, this is an astounding debut. One has to wonder what Zadie Smith will do next.Most highly recommended!