White Teeth by Zadie Smith

White Teeth tells the story of Archie Jones, a white lower-middle-class Englishman, and his best friend Samad Iqbal, a devout Muslim immigrant to England from Bangladesh, and of their ancestors and their children. It covers a lot of ground and features a great hodge-podge of nationalities and religions. For example--Archie's wife is a Jamaican-English mix who was reared as a Jehovah's Witness but who has rejected her religious upbringing; Samad's wife is from Bangladesh, but for her the Muslim religion is inconsequential; Archie's daughter Irie is just a mixed-up, mixed-race girl trying to find a direction; Samad has twin sons--Magid, who grows up to be an atheist, and Mallat, who grows up to be an almost-accidental Muslim extremist. The lives of the two families become entangled with the lives of Marcus and Joyce Chalfen, who are upper-middle-class English and lapsed Catholic-Jewish atheists, and their son Joshua, who turns into an animal-rights activist. Suffice it to say, many viewpoints are represented here.

This book had a strange effect on me. When I was reading it, I liked it very much and read far into the night to complete it. When I had finished and thought about it, I didn't like it nearly as much.

The tone is satirical and humorous, but on reflection it seems to me to be almost mocking and superior. Smith comes up with some very, very funny observations about people and culture, but when events turn more serious her tone trivializes the gravity of consequences. She seems to be ridiculing her characters; Irie is the only character not lampooned, and she is, obviously, the intelligent observer--in other words, Smith herself.

Smith introduces several themes--nature versus nurture, fate (what goes around comes around), and the perils and advantages of cultural assimilation. It is unclear, however, what her point is intended to be. She never really follows an idea through to completion.

(SPOILER ALERT) The ending, which brings together all the various ethnic and religious factions, is predictable, on reflection. I had anticipated, long before, that Archie was hiding a secret and what that secret might be. However, it did take considerable ingenuity in plot construction to get all these people involved in one event in order to have the grand finale.

This is a feel-good novel, in that you come to believe, "We can all get along." But I don't believe (regardless of opinions in the opposite direction)that it is a GREAT novel--in spite of the fact that it is listed in the Times Top 100.

So I would say, "Read it!" It will hold your attention; it is often very funny; it has just enough suspense that it will carry you through to the end. Then think about it--was it as good as you originally thought? I will welcome different opinions.