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Still, the book's home base is a scrubby North London borough, where we encounter Smith's unlikely heroes: prevaricating Archie Jones and intemperate Samad Iqbal, who served together in the so-called Buggered Battalion during World War II. In the ensuing decades, both have gone forth and multiplied: Archie marries beautiful, bucktoothed Clara--who's on the run from her Jehovah's Witness mother--and fathers a daughter. Samad marries stroppy Alsana, who gives birth to twin sons. Here is multiculturalism in its most elemental form: "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 checks."
Big questions demand boldly drawn characters. Zadie Smith's aren't heroic, just real: warm, funny, misguided, and entirely familiar. Reading their conversations is like eavesdropping. Even a simple exchange between Alsana and Clara about their pregnancies has a comical ring of truth: "A woman has to have the private things--a husband needn't be involved in body business, in a lady's... parts." And the men, of course, have their own involvement in bodily functions:
The deal was this: on January 1, 1980, like a New Year dieter who gives up cheese on the condition that he can have chocolate, Samad gave up masturbation so that he might drink. It was a deal, a business proposition, that he had made with God: Samad being the party of the first part, God being the sleeping partner. And since that day Samad had enjoyed relative spiritual peace and many a frothy Guinness with Archibald Jones; he had even developed the habit of taking his last gulp looking up at the sky like a Christian, thinking: I'm basically a good man.Not all of White Teeth is so amusingly carnal. The mixed blessings of assimilation, for example, are an ongoing torture for Samad as he watches his sons grow up. "They have both lost their way," he grumbles. "Strayed so far from what I had intended for them. No doubt they will both marry white women called Sheila and put me in an early grave." These classic immigrant fears--of dilution and disappearance--are no laughing matter. But in the end, they're exactly what gives White Teeth its lasting power and undeniable bite. --Eithne Farry --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bright white,
By Bammo Sambuco (S.A.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Teeth (Paperback)
A book about race and immigrant life in London, WHITE TEETH is one of the most fascinating reads I've come across in a long time. I'm attracted to novels set in different locales and those that venture into territory I'm not familiar with, so this novel was perfect for me. The author does a bang up job of incorporating just about everything into this novel: culture, technology, religion--all of it relevant to the story. The only other novel that did this for me was "Bark of the Dogwood" which also incorporated these things and actually compelled me to read it twice. I highly recommend WHITE TEETH for anyone interested in an incredible examinnation of the human spirit.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
A boring tale with too much going on,
By Lisa Sloane (Gaithersburg, Md) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Teeth: A Novel (Paperback)
Yes, I understand that seems like a contradiction, but it was the exact feeling I had when reading this book. Tehre were so many stories and subplots and new plots getting introduced near the completion of the book. Suffice it to say I was greatly dissapointed with this read.To give a summary, I am not even sure where to start. It actually did start out pretty strong. With tales of an old friends and their distinctions, I thought it would at least be a well thought out book about friendship. About a quarter of the way through, things take a turn for the worse and never really get back to the zealous and picturesque story telling that occured in the beginning. By time I was about 2/3 of the way away from completion, I couldn't wait to put it down. Because I always finish books, I stuck it out, but believe me it was a chore. There were a few moments of clarity where I thought things from the end would somehow tie into things for the beginning, but really that never happened. I mean in the end we find the entire basis of the book, the only redeeming quality of life long friendship, was a fallacy in the first place, and instead of expanding on this- even a little bit, the author just ends the book. I mean really, what was the point?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Achievement,
By robyn _222 (Hannover Germany) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Teeth (Audio Cassette)
Serious themes, seriously meant and you just can't stop laughing. That is, when you have a teeny weeny bit of insight into how it is for the first and second generation immigrants. If you have no idea what it's like, or take things too seriously then I can't say for sure if you're going to get all of the perspectives right in this one, which undoubtedly leads to missing all of the best jokes. It's like being the fly on the wall as the wonderfully developed characters shuffle through the confusion of who they really are.
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