Review: White Teeth

White Teeth

By Zadie Smith

Penguin Books 2001

542 pages

From my shelves

People seem to be divided right down the middle about Zadie Smith. They either feel that she is way over-rated or they believe her to be the next great voice in literature. So I picked up this book, my first by Smith, with equal measures of excitement and hesitation. 

At its most obvious level, this is a novel about how people of different backgrounds can come together. Archie is a white man who marries Clara, a Jamaican woman who was raised as  a Jehovah's Witness. Samad and his wife Alsana are a Bengali couple brought together through arranged marriage. In the most unlikely of circumstances, Samad and Archie are best friends after serving together during WWII. Smith looks at cultural, religious, and social differences through many different pairs of eyes and she does it with insight and compassion.

I think what makes this novel even more universal is when the story becomes about generations. Archie, Clara, Samad, and Alsana have grand hopes for their children but none of the children go in the direction that their parents expected. All of the parents attempt to pass on their culture and heritage in the face of a society that threatens to create great distance between parents and children. They are the bridge generation, the ones who remember their home countries and cultures, but live in modern British society.

I really enjoyed reading this book and although it is pretty massive, I found myself speeding through it. The art of writing a family saga is difficult - Smith writes about three families and moves both backward and forward in time. In spite of the danger, I think she pulls it off. Her wry observations of the everyday absurdities of life give her characters and this novel a humor that stands in perfect balance to the very serious issues that Archie, Samad, and their families encounter.


White Teeth was a really engaging read for me and I look forward to reading Smith's other books. Have you read this novel? How does it compare to NW and On Beauty?