White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
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Book Summary Information
Author: Zadie SmithEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10
ISBN: 0140276335
Number of pages: 541
Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK)
Book Reviews of White Teeth
Book Review: Sometimes wonderful, sometimes self-indulgent: 3+ stars
Summary: 4 Stars
The beginning of Zadie Smith's debut novel White Teeth is marked by an extraordinary voice: confident, affectionate, satiric, witty. Archibald Jones attempts to kill himself in a car outside a Muslim butchery while pigeons fleeing from the murderous butcher leave streaks of purple excrement across his windshield. Archie's life is spared by the irate butcher because ". . .dying's no easy trick. And suicide can't be put on a list of Things to Do in between cleaning the grill pan and leveling the sofa leg with a brick." This irreverent, comic beginning launches the novel into Archie's life and into that of his best friend Samad Iqbal. Archie, given a new chance at life, marries the much younger Clara, the daughter of a Jamaican Jehovah Witness mother and a passive, emotionally absent father, while Samad, who is always striving to be a good Muslim, enters into an arranged marriage with Alsana, a woman who was not even born while he fought alongside Archie during World War II. Their children - Irie Jones and the twins Millat and Magrid Iqbal - struggle to find their niche in their overwhelming white British surroundings. If Smith had left her novel at that, at exploring the cultural rifts that divide the families and their cultures, this book would have succeeded admirably; however, the author departs from this course to explore a world that contains a snobbishly intellectual English family, genetic engineering, radical Islam, and the end of the world as predicted by the Jehovah Witnesses. While these separate plots often serve as metaphors for the struggle to assimilate, they simply don't do enough to engage the reader. The result is a tedious, wholly unfunny second half. Characterizations that were done so well in the beginning become lost in the noise of the rest, making it difficult to care about what happens to Smith's inventions. Plot turns begin to feel forced, and reactions, unnatural. Most disappointingly, the witty voice of the narrator fades into the background, and is never as strong as it is in the first hundred pages.
The novel owes much to the literary tradition of Victorians such as Dickens and Thackeray, who wrote sweeping novels with comic and/or biting wit. Smith's range is impressive for a first-time novelist, but her skills and literary instincts are not yet honed enough to carry off the sprawl of such a complex concept. Despite this, her descriptions and characterizations are first-rate, even if they get lost among the rest, and her turns of prose can be astonishing.
This is one of those rare instances when I find it difficult to rate a book using the five star system. White Teeth is an ambitious, unconventional novel that ultimately tries to be too much. Readers who want to keep up on literary trends and celebrities will want to read this, since there is much to admire in Smith's work. Five stars for the beginning, three stars for the rest.
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