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| White Teeth | 
 enlarge | Author: Zadie Smith
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  198 reviews
Sales Rank: 7523
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0140276335
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140276336
ASIN: 0140276335
Publication Date: January 25, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Publisher: PenguinDate of Publication: 2001Binding: Soft CoverDescription: 542pp.
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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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 193 more reviews...
 Hype ruined it for me September 16, 2008
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. I found myslef caring more for the minor characters and wanting to hear more about their viewpoint on the events occuring. The story was ok, but did not grip me in the way I felt it could have had these other characters opinions been explored. Overall I would say it was well written but lacking in some places and does not live up to the hype
 Still laughing June 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 multi-culturism... in other words she's not scared to 'offend'. The book is absolutely hilarious and my favourite from her, compared to her other books. Her characters are there to hate and love all at the same time, and her storylines full of bittersweet humour...
A definite must read... I am gutted till this day to have missed the TV adaptation of this ....
 Not the best read May 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have read all three of Zadie Smith's books, mainly because I wanted to know what all the hype was about. I have just finished reading White Teeth and I have suddenly got it: in White Teeth Zadie Smith tries very hard to be like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Satanic Verses: the language, epic style, the flashbacks to legendary times, the numerous characters; only the magical aspect of Rushdie's first books is left out.
My own childhood was quite rich multiculturally speaking but I can't boast that it was as varied as Zadie Smith's North London. And yet I was very disappointed with how Smith actually describes the mix of cultures and heritages that Irie, Magid and Millat grow up in. She doesn't work on developing the issue and sticks to stereotypes. I don't know whether she wasn't brave enough or didn't give enough of herself.
The characters are all obviously archetypical but she left out a lot of interesting details, dwelling more on monotonous issues (more to the point: they were monotonous in the book) or people: Samad and Archie's experience in the war and Marcus' work on genetics are quite boring and long episodes. The Chalfens on the other hand, representing the ignorant, prejudiced and condescending white Europeans are a ridiculous, unrealistic and uninteresting addenda. Clara and Irie - who are the really interesting people - are nearly not developed at all.
My advice to anyone thinking of buying this book: read Midnight's Children instead. It's much more poignant and genuine. If you want books on family sagas with loads of characters, head for Garcia Marquez. You will save yourself time and gain entertainment and enrichment.
How history works May 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the kind of book that gives multi-culturalism a good name. It isn't preachy or pius, it's just content to be profound and funny and readable. Above all it is Irie's story. Her older relatives share the big immigrant fear, disappearance, the nightmare where birthplace and belonging become meaningless accidents. But to young Irie, this feels like freedom. You can't escape your history, your shadow. But roots can be too too long, tortuous and deep, and in the end will have to be ignored and denied. Thus history progresses. All this comes as a bonus. The humour and humanity alone are worth the read.
Deep issue, shallow execution May 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
One reviewer said that Smith comes across as the sort of person who always has 'something to say', and I certainly can't disagree.
This book is frustrating in its length, for a start, and I think that's my main issue with it. Typical family sagas do tend to be long and twisted, but this is more of a political commentary than a story, reminiscient of those people who came to school to perform a skit on 'a big issue' at the time, like drugs or peer pressure, simultaneously trying to be down with the kids.
Where this succeeds over those painfully remembered efforts is that it does portray multiculturalism and racism as being a many-layered thing, instead of simply begging us all to get along as if it were so neatly black and white (forgive the unintentional pun).
Where it fails is that it can seem a bit hopeless at times, and is occasionally uncomfortable in its use of strict stereotypes (which all the characters are, to be frank).
In all of the three families, there is not a single likeable character, and none that have an iota of depth. I feel that we're supposed to like Millat to a certain degree, but Smith tries too hard to make him sexy, and so he only succeeds at being obnoxious.
The one family that doesn't constantly think about race is the Chalfen family, and even they are completely egocentric and identikit (almost, as one rebels).
There are pages of events that go nowhere and mean nothing at the story's conclusion. What, for example, was the point of Poppy Burt-Jones and her 'affair' with Samad? Was there a reason for the pages detailing his sudden need to masturbate and the emotional conflict it induced (apart from the author trying to shock, of course)? The pages spent on Clara and Ryan Topps could have easily been obleted. The story of Clara's grandmother, Ambrosia, also had no meaningful attachment to the main story.
But I don't lay the main faults of the novel entirely at Smith's door. For a debut novel, it's quite a fine thing. Certainly not deserving of the prizes and outstanding reviews it recieved (cultural issues were in vogue right from the beginning of the 21st century, is the explanation), but it has a strong voice that stands out and at least attempts to do something ambitious, something not usually considered 'safe' for a first novel.
No, the main problem lies with the editor, who should have actually done their job by making ammendments and giving Smith well-needed advice and guidance. From what I've seen of her other books, she has gone on to make the same mistakes over and again.
If you're interested in multicultural London, in cultural politics or have seen the TV adaptation and want to read the real thing, then White Teeth is not a bad read. There are parts you will fly through, and others that can be innocently ignored, and you won't feel worse off for having read it. If an engaging story, characters and theme are your sort of thing, then ignore the hype and pick up something else.
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