Fictional book review: White Teeth (2000) by Zadie Smith.

Hello people, I am here to deliver my first book review of the month. It is of Zadie Smith's chunky, yet multi-layered White Teeth (2000). This novel may be over 500 pages and that may well put people off who are not used to reading that much. But, yes there's a but! But it is well worth the read. For starters, it tackles issues which I think are as relevant today as they were 25 years ago. Where do I start? We have people who stick up for animal rights in a perhaps extreme way, there's clashing religions and questions regarding science. Though for me, this novel is key when it comes to postcolonialism. That is what I am focusing on here.

Throughout the novel we are met with three contrasting families. There is the Jones/Bowden family with Archibald 'Archie' Jones who is British and his black Jamaican wife, Clara Bowden. On the other hand, we are introduced to Samad Miah Iqbal who is a devout Muslim Bangladeshi with his wife Alsana Begum. The novel follows both these wartime friends Samad and Archie in their later lives, both of whom are juxtapositions of one another. This is evident in O'Connell's Pool Bar that the two men frequent on a regular basis.

At one point Archie is disagreeing with Samad and siding with Samad's own son, Magid. For Magid and Archie, it is something menial but for Samad it is far more than that. It is a sin on his religion, which he has spent so long worrying about where his children are concerned. The novel I find is unafraid in it's storytelling along with it's characters and how it handles their problems they face. This also includes characters such as the Chalfen family who play a key role in the novel and Clara's mother, Hortense.

Now I like a lot of the characters in this novel though for me I find this novel is jumpy between the different characters. Nevertheless this mangled novel manages to be digestible because of its humour and razor-sharp wit. The novel got to where it needed to after several many diversions but I still loved it. You cannot take away the diversity, funniness or seriousness of it. As far as debuts go, this is impressive. I'm going to give it a 9/10.

Do tell me if you have read this novel, or if you plan to. Also let me know in the comments what you thought.




Until next time,


Thomas.

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