So my computer has been out of commission for the past few weeks and that partly explains my absence from goodreads (insert excuse about being busy, being outdoors in the summer, etc). I recently joined up with all the cool kids and dropped a hundred dollars for an iPhone and I've been trying to make do with the limitations imposed by the less than satisfactory goodreads app which I guess is better than trying to navigate the site through safari on the phone but alas, I digress. Because the reason I'm willing to sit through the inconvenience of text-typing out this small something of a review is because this book is the shiz and I would think that anyone anywhere would find something to enjoy within the pages of this wondrous book. Of course there are a number of negative reviews on this site and I wonder if this book suffered from the over-hype-backlash syndrome that has claimed the lives of so many modern classics. And you're probably saying "woah woah, what is this modern classic clap trap? Aren't you just hyping up this book already?" Probably. But please, allow me to try to win over your cold cynical hearts:

--do you enjoy the prose stylizings and authorial wit of David Foster Wallace? Then there might be something similar in style and tone in this book for you.

--are you frustrated by the lack of female and/or minority representation in popular literature? Yup yup, read read.

--are you the type of person who tends to take on the "fly-on-the-wall" persona when confronted with difficult political and/or religious issues? Okay yeah definitely, this book here.

--do you enjoy Franzian-type family dramas and narratives that stretch across multiple generations to impress upon the reader a grand feeling of complete character omniscience having learned about all of his/her familial/genetic predispositions? Go! Go! Go!

--have you ever thought to yourself "I wonder what it would be like if a scientist, a psychotic animal rights activist, a fundamentalist Muslim, and a genetically modified mouse were in thr same room together"? Let your oddly specific fantasies come true now!

--is your goodreads' username s.penkevich? I wanna see your review of this so bad, like woah.

--and finally, and most importantly: do you enjoy reading a novel that is tinged with just the right amount of autobiographical flourish so as to give the "she-had-to-have-been-there" type of authenticity to every plot point, and each character is written with such empathy and compassion (no matter their socio-economic background) that every one of them seems to have a stake in the story and the overall outcome in the end? You're looking at the key to your deepest literature needs!

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions then I can certainly recommend this wonderful, impressive debut.

Critically acclaimed and multiple award winning and quite rightly so. 'White Teeth' was the brilliant debut novel from the accomplished pen of Zadie Smith - not to be missed.

A flexuous saga of ethics, ideals, passions, and relationships between three very different but close knit families in London. Filled with humor, and all the varying chaos that comes with clashing beliefs, desires, and motivations, this novel widely explores the experiences of those just trying to get by. The prose has a unique flare that gives the impression of living alongside each character as the years go by, the emotions building up until they finally implode.

There was some interesting quirkiness, but only some. There were a few stimulating sentences, but only a few. There was a bit of humor, but only a bit. I can see that Smith is dealing with important social/cultural/racial issues, but how much depth is there really, especially when the Rushdie affair gets squeezed into a small scene? Alas, there are many other books calling my name and after reading half of this I'm going to have to dub the experience a disappointment. I was expecting more from someone who calls DFW their literary hero. I wish I could have enjoyed this as much as others here on Goodreads....

i am so sorry to say this...but this was borderline unreadable for me.

the description of this book — a family saga told with humor and a wry sociopolitical eye, with the intent of capturing what it was to be a person during a certain era — got me.

but this wasn't funny, to me, or clever; it was self-indulgent and self-serious, pretentious and mocking to its characters. i never managed to like any of them (despite my lifelong tendency to like the unlikable) because the book itself, and its narrator, clearly do not.

and that, as it turns out, is a dealbreaker.

perhaps more importantly, it is rife with the type of selfish, conservative-in-leftist-clothing liberal politics that made its author write a completely stupid essay in the new yorker for exactly no one.

bottom line: this review — not funny but kind of trying to be, extremely self-important, and pointless reading — mirrors its subject!

They say life moves fast? No.
It moves mad slow.
Every mountaintop is just a new plateau,
Another mountain on top of that, yo.
Now you're like Sisyphus climbing forever, screaming:
"God's an asshole!"
- Wax, "Continue"

I'm a sucker for the story of a botched suicide...

White Teeth speaks to deep and resonant themes about the universal experiences of life, the questions we all have and the answers we all hope to find. It has left me so steeped in beautiful/quirky prose that I feel inadequate trying to write creatively about it. So let me just bullet-point out my main takeaways here and hope they convey even half of my enthusiasm for Zadie Smith's undeniable talent:

- The characters are so rich, each has a believable and well-rounded life that comes through on the page.
- The problems they face are relatable: they were born, they grew older, the world changed around them.
- Don't get me started on her beautifully fluid writing style!

This is a long-ish book and yet there is never a lull in the energy. The flowing currents shift and transmute based on the scene's needs but it is always buoyant, a merry dance that settles comfortably somewhere between the gorgeous prose of Realism and the whimsical wonkiness of Postmodernism. She is playful with language, but shows enough restraint that her way of writing serves as a tool to display character rather than stealing the show for its own sake.

The world can get lonely. The world can get strange. But it's populated with real people who seldom conform to expectations, and there is comfort in that.

5 stars. Stunning. If not a must-read, at least a you-really-ought-to-consider-it-read.

i picked this up when i was living in manhattan, trying to keep up a trendy appearance on the subway. though it is one of a multitude of those cultural-fish-out-of-water stories that have grown so popular since about 2001, this one is supposed to have extra sass, because it is written by a british woman who is attractive (from what i've heard about her other book on beauty; i have never seen her).

anyway, this book became particularly annoying when she started talking about tank combat in ww2; i can't think of anything she is less equipped to describe. my feelings on zadie smith are similar to those expressed by tom berenger towards charlie sheen during the "underworld" scene in platoon.

this part is no joke: around the time i began to dread continuing with this book, my cat propitiously somehow got piss all over it, sealing my decision to never touch it again.

n  A past tense, future perfect kind of night.n

The first half of this novel was everything I wanted in a book this month. These compelling love stories of couples from different racial and socio-economic backgrounds was beguiling. Plus, the age factor. What reader wouldn't take the chance to peek into the soul of a couple with many years between them, right?

Clara, her energy and humor laced with patois, lured me. And Archie, what is it about the man that makes a reader so curious? I was willing to follow as the layers of his life were peeled apart.

Yet, as the structure took twists and turns, it became a bit much for my distracted thoughts to follow. These are stories within stories, subplots within plots. Layers of time that move backwards, forwards, sideways.

As usual, Zadie Smith's writing, the atmospheric mood of her books, don't disappoint; but the structure here is much different than, say, On Beauty, which I really liked. I'm now moving on to my next read of hers, Swing Time.

Wow, what a lot to take in! I won't even attempt to summarise this sprawling, densely-plotted novel - suffice to say that it traces the history of two multicultural London families at the tail end of the 20th century. Along the way themes such as race relations, religious extremism, immigration, and even the ethics of genetic engineering are explored, all with an intoxicating energy and a sparkling sense of humour.

The aspect of the book I admired most was its focus on family. Both the Iqbal and Jones clans are dysfunctional in their own way - obstacles such as marital infidelity and fundamentalism serve to threaten the family unit. Continents may divide them, conflicting ideologies might drive them apart but there is a familial bond that will never break and an unconditional love for one another that will always exist (even though they may be slow to admit this at times).

The story is dizzying in scope and though are numerous plot threads to tie up, it all comes together in an immensely satisfying finale. It blows my mind that Zadie Smith had written White Teeth by the age of 24. Little wonder that she took the literary world by storm.

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 house-trained.

Despite everything subsequent in Zadie's mad output, I still regard this a jewel. Following the dictum of Elvis Costello, Zadie distilled a lifetime into this first novel and had six months to write her second. I've said for over a decade that I am confident that people will read White Teeth one hundred years from now. I mean, narf, it has gen-mod lab mice, activists and AIDS, fry-ups and Jehovah's Witnesses, all the while speaking in accent about 'tangs and irie. Here's to aborted suicides, scooters and the marvels of our lives, whether we're bleseed with a twin, false teeth or neither.

“Che ti succede amico isterico?”

L’incipit del romanzo è un tentativo di suicidio. La narrazione è sorprendente, trasversale, cinematografica, siamo a Londra e saremo ancora a Londra quando…
Perché si abbandona un libro? Io comincio con il maturare insofferenza, mi succede quando le descrizioni sono troppo particolareggiate, i personaggi in soprannumero, gli stati d’animo scandagliati con eccessiva puntigliosità o con scoraggiante frammentarietà. Mi succede quando gli usi e i costumi di cui si racconta appartengono a culture completamente diverse dalla mia e lo scrittore non si accontenta di carpire la mia curiosità ma mi esaspera facendomi prima rallegrare di esser membro di una cultura differente (non necessariamente migliore di quella che sta descrivendo) poi interrogare sull’opportunità di continuare a leggere una storia dettagliatamente noiosa per la quale non provo interesse alcuno.

È più o meno quello che mi è successo con Denti Bianchi, un romanzo così trasversale che il protagonista (aspirante suicida) dopo cinquanta pagine cede il ruolo all’amico commilitone ai tempi della seconda guerra mondiale. Zadie Smith fa un lavoro faticoso perché oltre a scrivere dal punto di vista parzialmente maschile, ambienta dall’anno della sua nascita (1975) in avanti, quindi almeno nelle prime duecento pagine non si avvale di ricordi diretti. Duecento pagine segnavano il limite che mi ero dato per decidere se continuare la lettura o meno, ne ho aggiunte un’altra quarantina cominciando a saltare i periodi, indispettendomi per ogni nuovo personaggio introdotto.

Nella pagina Wikipedia di Zadie Smith leggo: Per questo genere di romanzi il critico letterario inglese James Wood, facendo specificamente riferimento a Denti bianchi, coniò il termine realismo isterico.
Grazie ai provvidenziali hyperlink apro la pagina del realismo isterico e mi sento sollevato, qualcosa di coerente mi si palesa sotto forma di nomi e cognomi, le duecentoquaranta pagine che ho letto sono più di quanto ero attrezzato per sopportare. Se avessi letto questa lista prima del libro, sicuramente non avrei letto il libro.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism...
Confido nel fatto che il link incoraggi un certo tipo di lettori dei quali sicuramente io non faccio parte.

ABBANDONATO

Expansive, dense and long. There is so much conversation and information about the multitude of characters that you are not only exhausted keeping up but you are also forced to care. I felt like alot of this was a “slog” to get through. I love Zadie Smith’s humorous writing style, that’s the reason I got to the end. But I can’t deny that I was happy when I finally reached that last chapter.