White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Nine months. That’s how long it took me to read this book. In part, it took that long because I am a slow reader and this is simply a long book, and in part, it took that long because I had to keep putting it down to read new YA books gaining some notoriety. But the truth is, this book isn’t ~that~ long (448 pages of teeny-tiny type), it’s just ***dense***. This isn’t so much a novel as it is an epic – an epic that spans two decades (with meanderings back to WWII and the Jamaican earthquake of 1907) and three families. There is Archie, a stereotypical lower-class Englishman, a virtual Babbitt of his unremarkable world. There is Clara, his second wife, a Jamaican. There is Samad, Archie’s best friend, a thoroughly British Bengali with a crippled hand, and his wife Alsana. Then there are the Chalfens, a family that manages to make the worst liberal stereotypes look tame. Archie is a paper-folder, Samad a waiter. Both are pretty much miserable, and their children, starved of any level of emotional support from their parents, end up miserable as well. The book does have humor – in an arch, sarcastic, dark way. If you found “Running With Scissors” to be a laugh riot, you will enjoy the dysfunctional family fun here. And it is extremely well-written – with the kind of literary merit that turns books into classics. A sample: “She wore her sexuality with an older woman’s ease, and not (as with most of the girls Archie had run with in the past) like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it, or when to just put it down.” Nothing is left without history – every room, every passerby, is given a detailed, Dickensonian history. All of this made it very rich, very deep reading. Aside from the extreme “British-isms” and the vernacular speech patterns (written phonetically) for many of the characters, I think many would find this to be an extremely strong debut novel. But did I like it? It wasn’t engrossing in the traditional sense. Some of the paragraphs go on longer than a page (or even two) and the pacing is more of an observatory style than one of a driving plot. Instead of wanting to turn the page and see “what happens next” I found myself slowing down to digest what I had just read. The characters are deeply flawed, at times morally questionable, and have little growth over this twenty year snapshot. Aside from the build-up to a rather inevitable event, there is little difference between the beginning of the book and the end. The author has much to say – I’m just not sure what all of it is. The ending, which I read three times to understand, seemed to indicate that life is essentially cyclical – the past drives us in the same paths over and over. And yet Ms. Smith seems to resent a focus on the past, often having the character of Irie (Archie’s daughter and the seeming author mouthpiece) wax on about the suffocating nature of living inside memory. There are also many cultural issues raised. What it means to be British, what it means to be an ethnic or religious British minority, what it means to be a British citizen whose family comes from a land conquered by the British. Only the questions, not the answers, are provided. (It is easy to see why this book is so popular with book clubs…) Zadie Smith’s characters are at once both archetypes and individuals. They aren’t truly the anti-heroes that seem to populate every aspect of our culture these days, but they aren’t good people, either. Ms. Smith does deserve congratulations on keeping her characters true to their nature, and, for the most part, refusing to make comment on their choices. In the end, I have to say (in the style of the book), that I really don’t know how I felt about this book. I appreciated its value without falling in love. It made me think, but left a lot of questions. If you have some time to devote, you may want to dive in – but it is not the kind of book you can dip your toe into, so be prepared.