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The questions and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your group's discussion of Zadie Smith's White Teeth, a funny, generous, big-hearted novel dealing--among many other things--with friendship, love, war, three cultures, three families over three generations, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle. It is a life-affirming, riotous, must-read of a book.
From the Baochi Book Collection
Zadie Smith's White Teeth was published in 2000 and received critical acclaim. The novel won numerous awards, including Time Magazine's 2005 list of 100 Best English-Language Novels since 1923. I think White Teeth is a magnificent work of fiction filled with wit, satire, depth, and a cast of unforgettable characters.
The novel takes place in contemporary London and centers around two men -- Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal -- and their families. Englishman Archie and Muslim Bengali Samad form an unlikely friendship as soldiers during World War II and later become neighbors in a working-class suburb. After a failed first marriage, the once-conventional Archie unconventionally marries Clara, a Jamaican woman. The couple has a daughter named Irie. Samad enters into a pre-arranged marriage with Alsana, and they have twin boys named Millat and Magid.
As the members of the two families struggle to define their individual identities in a political and racially-charged society, their bond to one another becomes tenuous. Expectations abound between these two intertwined clans. Samad, a sometimes erring and devout Muslim, finds that his wife's will outmatches his own and that his wayward twin sons have strayed from his religious faith and their Bengali roots. Simple Archie wants everyone to just get along; he is baffled by the tension between his wife and daughter, as well as the teenage angst rippling through all three kids.
White Teeth is a novel about the history of ordinary yet multi-faceted people. It's the story of old and new roots, the immigration experience with its expectations and disappointments. Immigrant parents strive to preserve their native culture yet their children draw towards assimilation with the new world.
Significantly, the novel takes place shortly before the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. and a few years prior to the 2005 London underground bombings. So Smith's London is a melting pot simmering up with ethnic tension, especially among Islam extremists.
When it feels like the world is coming to an end (and even when it doesn't), Samad and Archie retreat to the sanctuary of an Irish pub-turned-immigrant-bar with an exclusively-male clientele. There, over a hodgepodge of greasy food, the men reminisce about their personal histories and commiserate over life's disappointments. They are a picture of opposite extremes, one white and uncomplicated if not clueless and the other dark, intense, and anxious. The combination of Archie and Samad is a comical one; their exchanges are often chuckle-worthy. In fact, humor and satire pervade throughout the novel, perhaps a reminder that while the themes of race, religion, and identity are important they shouldn't be taken so seriously that one can't enjoy a beer and grub with one's friend of another race in a bar where everybody knows your name. It makes you wonder if Archie's simple desire for everybody to get along is in fact profoundly utopian.
White Teeth is an energetic, delightful novel worthy of dissection and analysis in a college literature course. I'm impressed.
Below are a few of my favorite passages from Zadie Smith's White Teeth.
"...don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own, from delivering bad news, watching bombs fall on television., from listening to stifled sobs from the other end of a telephone line. Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt.
What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping Madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll -- then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.
But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to speed the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect."
hheilman_89, May 4, 2010 (view all comments by hheilman_89)
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth is a novel which discusses cultural classes and finding ones roots. The protagonists, Archie and Samad, are WWII friends who now reside in London. Their wives, each many years younger, seem to be very mismatched; their marriages are rocky. However, their children, Irie, Magid and Millat, respectively learn about finding oneself in the midst of cultural conflicts as Archie and Samad learn about understanding despite differences. The complexity of human relationships becomes obvious very quickly, especially as their lives change and intertwine and as other characters are added to the mix.
Zadie Smith speaks for an issue that comes up over and over in society because of the relationships we form ourselves; where there are human beings, there are conflicts simply because of our vast individual differences. The events that link the characters—war, immigration, involvement in fundamentalist groups—are similar to those in our own lives. Other issues include defying one’s heritage in exchange for assimilation in society, tolerance, and consequences of the human condition and cultural differences.
Samad explains, “These days it feels to me like you make a devil’s pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started… but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers—who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally housebroken. Who would want to stay? But you have made a devil’s pact… it drags you in and suddenly you are unsuitable to return, your children are unrecognizable, you belong nowhere” (336).
Smith uses one specific symbol throughout her novel: teeth. This was of interest to me because Smith uses this cleverly and in several different manners. The ideas are complex, but not difficult to understand; Smith clearly displays her metaphor. Teeth unify and equalize characters; they are a general symbol for humanity as all people have them. Because they are so common, Smith separates characters if they lose teeth or have false teeth. (“She gave him a wide grin that revealed possibly her one imperfection. A complete lack of teeth in the top of her mouth” (20).) She uses root canals to bring up past events, or to “root around” in the past, or heritage. Likewise, Smith utilizes molars as Samad’s sons reflect and “digest” their father’s actions and their own destinies.
The issue of understanding each other and human relationships comes up again and again. The characters make legitimate attempts to be aware of differences, yet there is an obvious struggle in assimilating and preserving one’s culture. The characters find that one’s heritage veers into different paths; it is not easily defined. The characters take on this challenge differently; Samad makes every attempt to turn his sons into good, Hindu men. Irie finds that her parents neglect to reveal her heritage, so she must find it her own way. Thus, the past restricts at times, and because of this, the present is complicated. The ways in which characters react to these issues bring up our own struggles in maintaining relationships despite different backgrounds.
Zadie Smith’s novel is a successful artwork. She discusses themes applicable to human kind in many different places and times. The ideas are simple to understand, yet the message stays the same; Smith’s ideas will remain as humans continue to struggle to form relationships.
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woofer, January 20, 2010 (view all comments by woofer)
My wife and I both read this book while traveling through Europe, before we were married. It is a riveting read, and also brings back great memories for me...
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White Teeth (Vintage International)
Used Trade Paper
Zadie Smith
0 stars -
0 reviews
$8.50
In Stock
Product details
464 pages
Vintage Books USA -
English9780375703867
Reviews:
"Review"
by People,
"[A] vibrant, rollicking first novel about race and idenity....[Smith's] prickly wit is affectionate and poignant."
"Review"
by Entertainment Weekly,
"[A] marvel of a debut novel....Reminiscent of both Salman Rushdie and John Irving, White Teeth is a comic, canny, sprawling tale, adeptly held together by Smith's literary sleight of hand."
"Review"
by The Atlanta Journal & Constitution,
"A magnificent and audacious novel, jam-packed with memorable characters and challenging ideas."
"Review"
by The Wall Street Journal,
"Ambitious, earnest and irreverent....Smith has a real talent for comedy and a fond eye for human foibles."
"Review"
by Newsweek,
"Smith has an astonishing intellect. She writes sharp dialogue for every age and race — and she's funny as hell."
"Review"
by The San Diego Union Tribune,
"Gently observant and generous in its judgments. Filled with vibrant life."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
At the center of this invigorating and hilarious novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal, hapless veterans of World War II. Set against London's racial and cultural tapestry, venturing across the former empire's past as it barrels toward the future, "White Teeth" is an international bestseller now available in paperback.
"Synopsis"
by Random,
Zadie Smiths dazzling debut caught critics grasping for comparisons and deciding on everyone from Charles Dickens to Salman Rushdie to John Irving and Martin Amis. But the truth is that Zadie Smiths voice is remarkably, fluently, and altogether wonderfully her own.
At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of Englands irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesnt quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samads late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbals every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith. Set against Londons racial and cultural tapestry, venturing across the former empire and into the past as it barrels toward the future, White Teeth revels in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, confounding expectations, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.
"Synopsis"
by Google,
Zadie Smith was born in northwest London in 1975. The Autograph Man is her second novel. Her first, White Teeth, was the winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and the Commonweatlh Writers First Book Prize. She is currently living in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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