White Teeth

Zadie Smith

Take two veterans from the British army's campaign in the Balkans in 1945, Samad Iqbal and Archie Jones. Toss in their wives, the Bangladeshi Alsana and the second generation Jamaican Clara. Add in an absurd middle class couple, a bunch of Jehovah's witnesses, the cast of Indians and Bangladeshis from Samad's Indian restaurant workplace and Alsana's lesbian niece. Bring to simmering point through the 1970s and 1980s, throwing into the mix Samad's and Archie's offspring, twin boys and a girl, and allow the whole thing to develop into a family saga. And there you have it, Zadie Smith's richly enjoyable comic stew. I enjoyed it very much.

And yet, and yet, the naysayers have a point. The plot does sag gently towards the end, like an overambitious bit of baking. And the author does seem sometimes to be attempting too much. At one point it seemed to me she was tossing in almost every technique and style in the creative writing manual. Some foreshadowing, some flashback. Her "teeth" grand theme disappears for hundreds of pages, then reappears almost as if she's had to remind herself to slip in the odd dental reference. And the ending didn't work for me.

Nevertheless, still a very decent novel from a talented young author.