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White Teeth (Hardcover)

by Zadie Smith (Author) "Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway ..." (more)
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (204 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 480 pages
  • Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Ltd (27 Jan 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 024113997X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0241139974
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (204 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 472,393 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #21 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Smith, Zadie

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Epic in scale and intimate in approach, White Teeth is an ambitious novel. Genetics, eugenics, gender, race, class and history are the book's themes but Zadie Smith is gifted with the wit and inventiveness to make these weighty ideas seem effortlessly light.

The story travels through Jamaica, Turkey, Bangladesh and India but ends up in a scrubby North London borough, home of the book's two unlikely heroes: prevaricating Archie Jones and intemperate Samad Iqbal. They met in the Second World War, as part of a "Buggered Battalion" and have been best friends ever since. Archie marries beautiful, buck-toothed Clara, who's on the run from her Jehovah's Witness mother, and they have a daughter, Irie. Samad marries stroppy Alsana and they have twin sons: "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. A simple scene, Alsana and Clara chatting about their pregnancies in the park: "A woman has to have the private things--a husband needn't be involved in body business, in a lady's ... parts."

Samad's rant about his sons--"They have both lost their way. 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--acutely displays "the immigrant fears--dissolution, disappearance" but it also gets to the very heart of Samad.

White Teeth is a joy to read. It teems with life and exuberence and has enough cleverness and irreverent seriousness to give it bite. --Eithne Farry



Product Description

In the author's words, this is "an attempt at a comic family epic of Little England into which an explosion of ethnic colour is injected", telling the story of three families, one Indian, one white, one mixed, in North London and Oxford from World War II to now.
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Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway. Read the first page
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204 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.3 out of 5 stars (204 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Grudging Respect, 24 Jan 2005
By A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: White Teeth (Paperback)
This massive first novel is both wildly ambitious and desperately in need of the hand of an assured editor. Smith certainly isn't afraid to stir such minor topics as race, colonialism, class, gender, culture, religion, fate, sexuality, history and science into her melting pot examination of identity, and as such, it's one of those books whose plot cannot be succinctly outlined. In the broadest possible terms, the book revolves around Archie and Samad, an Englishman and Bangladeshi respectively, who are in the same tank unit in World War II. After spending a goodly chunk of time on their wartime experience, the book covers both the next 45 years of their lives (lengthy stops are made in the late '60s, '70s, and '80s), and with the past (flashbacks are made to mid-19th century India and Jamaica). The true protagonists are Archie's daughter Irie, and Samad's twin sons, Millat and Majid. And the central theme of the book is their struggle for identity, which is sometimes unconscious and sometimes very purposeful.

One of the book's main flaws is that in addition to these five major characters, there are the mothers of each, and a veritable wagonload of important supporting characters, including a third family that appears well into the book. There's a lot of coming and going and coming, and on and on as characters assume central importance for ten pages, only to disappear for two-hundred. Smith is trying to weave a very complicated web (many critics call this aspect of the book "Dickensian"), but in doing so, the transitions become awfully jarring, and very often, annoying. A second major issue is that the characters are all types of one sort or another. Smith sets them in motion in order to comment on her grab-bag of issues, but never quite gives them enough individuality or humanity. The good thing is that she does manage to create a unique voice for each . Like Martin Amis, she's has an excellent ear for the rhythms of conversation and the specific vernaculars of both time and group. Similarly, she likes to play with language in a way that is both refreshing and assured.

On the whole, I liked this book-albeit grudgingly. Smith has taken a kind of "throw everything except the kitchen sink at the wall and see what sticks" approach, leaving no major issue unturned in her attempt to leave her mark on the reader. This means that a lot of the threads never lead anywhere, and thus the overall effect is not as strong as she might have intended. A good editor might have been able to pare some elements back a bit, allowing others to blossom more. Similarly, an editor ought to have helped with some of the many inaccuracies that crop up (two random examples: some of the portrayal of the Jehovah's Witnesses is factually incorrect, as are some of the details of Ryan's scooter). Still, as a portrait of multicultural London over the years and how the concept of "being British" has evolved in that time, it works quite well. And its questions about identity and belonging are applicable to immigrants coming to any Western country. The book was made into a 4-hour BBC miniseries, which has still never been released on video in the US.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't put this off as long as I did!, 27 Dec 2006
By liz (Hampshire) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Teeth (Paperback)
I never liked the front cover. And I had a vague suspicion that this was just more over-hyped and under-talented chick lit. So I avoided this book deliberately until I had nothing else on the shelf I hadn't read and was about to go on holiday...

Cut to Day 1 of holiday where husband is becoming more and more irritable about my utter absorption into this book and people keep staring at me when I burst out laughing.

Fortunately for them, White Teeth was so totally meserising that I finished it that same day! My expectations were low but this turned out to be a real gem. The characters were so real I was sad when the end came and I was faced with never hearing more about them.

Without a doubt the best book I read all year.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Put this one at the top of your shopping list., 9 Aug 2005
This review is from: White Teeth (Paperback)
'White Teeth' follows the roots of the lives of three families living in West London; the Iqbals, the Jones' and the Chalfens. With an interesting concoction of cultures, ranging from the Radio-4-listening, herbal-tea-drinking Chalfens, to the Bengali, strict muslim Iqbals, Zadie Smith generates a colourful and exciting picture of West London.

Dipping into the ancestry of characters along the way, 'White Teeth' provides humorous, well-rounded and thoughtful accounts of all of its protagonists. Smith is an insightful and intelligent author, whose quips and descriptions could arouse emotion even in the most cold-hearted of readers. A truly gripping read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars All those good things a book should be.
It was a page turner, I couldn't put it down, it was brilliant to curl up to, and it had well formed characters, a gripping narrative and a clever structure (use of flashbacks and... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ms. V. Grantham

1.0 out of 5 stars White Teeth doesn't bite, Mister Rushdie, it sucks (& you know that)...
Curious epigraph hidden away just before the overly optimistic insertion of a Table of Contents (is anyone going to read this book a second time? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Thomas Aquinas

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I've read all year
A great upbeat book with terrifically developed characters. It takes a hundred pages or so to really grip you, but I can't think of a book I've enjoyed more in the last few years.
Published 4 months ago by J. Dees

5.0 out of 5 stars wicked
A very comical and interesting book, set in the 70,s post 2nd world war up till the 1990's. comparrison of 2 different cultures, muslim and british
Published 8 months ago by Z. A. Akbar

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, real and brilliantly written
I loved this book and reckon it deserves a higher overall Amazon rating. This was the second of Zadie's novels that I read, and I enjoyed it immensely. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Lulushka8

4.0 out of 5 stars Of the zeitgeist and an instant classic
White Teeth is a novel which encompasses all the richness, diversity and absurdity of modern life. Smith's characters fill the streets, shops, cafes, and houses of North London... Read more
Published 12 months ago by N. Barker

3.0 out of 5 stars Serious Comic Writing
"White Teeth" is a prime example of a genre which might be called Serious Comic Writing. This is writing which ostensibly aims to be comic but is epic in scope, incorporates... Read more
Published 13 months ago by S. Keal

3.0 out of 5 stars Hype ruined it for me
I was expecting great things from this book, sadly I was disappointed. Although it is well written I just did not understand why it has been so highly praised. Read more
Published 13 months ago by stacey987

5.0 out of 5 stars Still laughing
I first read this book when it was released and have to say, it's one of my favourites. Smith works away from the typical attitude of authors when it comes to talking about... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Shanara

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the best read
I have read all three of Zadie Smith's books, mainly because I wanted to know what all the hype was about. Read more
Published 17 months ago by J. L. Wells

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