Something to Sink Your Teeth Into: Zadie Smith's White Teeth

As I’ve mentioned in another post or two, I often get asked about whatever novel I am currently reading, and when the book is not particularly famous, the number one question is, not surprisingly, “What’s it about?”  Sometimes I’m able to answer that question pretty early on in my reading, either because the trajectory and focus of the novel is clear from the outset or because a sufficient summary is provided on the back cover of the book.  But at other times—and I would venture to say that it was quite often—I wouldn’t be able to answer that question until I was just about done with the story.  So much of what a novel is about is determined by where it goes and what it focuses on in the end.  This latter situation was certainly the case with White Teeth.  At first it seemed to be a novel about Archie Jones, then about Archie and Samad’s relationship, then about the Jones and Iqbal families, then about what it means to be an immigrant in England when your family comes from places once controlled by the British Empire, then about what it meant to be a second generation non-white kid growing up in England in the 80s and 90s, and finally about three generations of three families in England at the end of the millennium.  The novel unfolds itself as you read, introducing new characters, new situations, and new connections, and as she introduces each new element, Zadie Smith, the author, lets you appreciate the individual element before letting you see how it fits in with what you already know.  Add to this technique of revelation and discovery interesting characters, fantastic dialogue, developing plots, great humor, irreverent jabs, and writing of great clarity and insight, and you have a dynamite novel.

White Teeth tackles so many different issues that I had a hard time collecting my thoughts about it.  The novel is about what it means to be English, what it means to be an immigrant, what it means to be the child of immigrants, what it means to be non-white in England, what it means to have roots in a colonized country what it means to be Muslim in England, what role religious and philosophical fundamentalism plays in our lives and in our culture, and what it means to accept or deny the notions of fate and free will.  Intellectually, I wondered if this broad focus weakened the strength of the novel, but I only wondered that for the first half of the novel, when it was unclear to me where we were going.  We were leaning about the characters and their families’ pasts, but their future was not forecasted at all.  Then, at just about the half way point, Smith brings these entertaining and colorful characters into a collision course with white middle-class England with the introduction of the Chalfens.  That’s the point at which White Teeth takes off.  The Chalfens act as a point of contrast (and similarity) for the Joneses and the Iqbals, but they also start entangling themselves inextricably in their family affairs and in the lives of their children.  And that’s when Smith’s wide focus made sense to me as a reader.

All those different focuses I mentioned earlier (generations, Britishness, colonialism, immigration, family roots, religious and philosophic fundamentalism) are at play in the experience of a multicultural England, and they all need to be in play for a novel to attempt to capture anything close to the experiences of the families and people it seeks to discuss.  Smith handles all these concerns with grace and seeming ease by anchoring everything in the relationships at the center—and flung out at the edges—of her story.  Smith is a master at relationships, at the desire to come together and the need to push apart, at the mixture of admiration and disgust that we feel for each other.  What’s more, she creates this beautiful delineated web of relationships while artfully crafting a compelling plot that seems to wander away and then comes snapping back together in beautiful and unexpected ways. 

The characters are wonderful.  The relationships are brilliantly presented.  The writing is delightful mixture of crude and lyrical language.  The observations are insightful.  The plot is tight and driving in quiet and unexpected ways. 

White Teeth is a beautiful novel that I highly recommend.