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Някой беше сравнил Зейди Смит с Чимаманда Нгози Адичи...
“Бели зъби” се оказа разочарованието ми за 2020.
Разбира се това е абсолютно субективно, виждам, че много хора са я харесали.

A truly impressive debut novel, as lively and fun to read as it is astute. Smith changes voices with ease, and manages to paint convincing portraits of a whole range of genuinely diverse, genuinely sympathetic characters. I understand the complaints lodged against this book--that it's too long, that the narrating voice is too smug and self-indulgent, that it presents (and pokes fun at) so many different worldviews that it doesn't seem to have a worldview of its own--and there were points in my reading when I felt a bit of the frustration of other reviewers. Ultimately, though, the qualities some readers find so irritating are the same ones that registered with me most. I love that Smith, in the hubris of her early 20s, was willing to take on such a sprawling story, and that she seems to have had so much fun doing it. I love the variety of experiences she presents, and I think the fact that she doesn't "take sides" only shows her maturity: the world is an endlessly complicated place, after all, and it would be simplistic, even dishonest, to depict it in black-and-white terms.

Altogether an excellent read, and one I've continued to think about and draw meaning from in the days since finishing it. If Zadie Smith's other output is as good as this, consider me a fan.

The Short: The only thing this book hates more than its characters is you, the reader.

The long form presentation: Lets boil down the premise and get it out of the way. This book is about nature vs nurture. Don't worry about that theme too much, because this book hates its theme. It can't be bothered to come to a logical or even an irrational conclusion about that theme. It hates its theme nearly as much as it hates you, the reader. Didn't I just say that? Am I being redundant?

Right, there is too much, let me sum up.

Basic Storytelling annoyances: It would have been nice if the author could have picked less than 10 main characters to focus on. Or, would have stopped introducing characters long before the second to last chapter. (Tangential annoyance: This late group of card-board cut out characters is created to mock pretentious college student types (oh, the inadvertent irony), but is a complete regurgitation of Monty Python's "what have the Romans ever done for us?" scene from Life of Brian. Just a general Boo out to that.)
Or, if the characters were anything but stereotypical one dimensional shadow puppets with two modes: Shouty and Really Shouty.
The Narrator attempts to convince the reader (the hated reader) that racial stereotypes shouting at each other is funny. The Narrator will put a "Funny Here Marker" in her dialogue to underline what is supposed to be funny. The FHM is easy to spot; it is a F-bomb if its really funny or an "assing" or "bastard" if it is (supposedly) mildly amusing. Truth be told, in the 70000 or so pages, I may have accidentally chuckled at some bits, but it is really too painful to remember now.

Intermediate storytelling annoyances: Don't continue a scene when the Point of View Character has left that scene. Abrupt use of flashback and flash-forward highlights the thin, uncertain texture of your narrative. Never be afraid to use one word, whereas three will annoy your readers (the hated readers). Plot, generally nice to have. Drama is not shouty, mean people being mean and shouty to each other. Exposition. Dear Cthulhu! the Narrator is an exposition machine. Please stop the expositioning. Being told the the backstory of every random character who pops in to be belittled and mocked is both unwanted and unwise.

Advanced Annoyances: Stop being redundant. Redundancy, stop. The redundant things, they are being, they must stop. Everything is said at least three times in the book. Three times. Some things are said six or more times. Thrip x20. Very. If the Narrator says Very something, it will be said at least twice. It is infuriating. And it is not just words. Whole scenes are redundant and are put in just to drive the reader (the hated reader - ok you get it, I'll stop) insane.

Extreme Annoyances: A third of the way into this book, just when the barrage of unfunny sitcom scenarios has numbed the reader into submission, the Narrator starts throwing in little clues, hints, that the Narrator knows exactly what it is doing. And She is not just mocking the poor characters, but you, the reader. Little bits about "Corkscrew dialogue" and "redundant writing" shows up. What is Corkscrew dialogue? Google doesn't know. The only thing I can think of is this - this book is corkscrew dialogue. It goes around and around, seemingly going deep beneath the surface, but not really moving at all. And the cork - that sucker broke off. No wine for you.

Shaking that paranoia off, I continue. At the end of the day, this 'story' is just a bunch of shallow characters shouting religious catchphrases at each other. There is some non-sense about Nazis (Cthulhu help you if you fall for the "OMG FATE!" moment) thrown in at the end to make this 'story' weighty, but it is just more out of nowhere, hand waving junk that doesn't work, because the smug, beyond omniscient Narrator hasn't earned it. Can't say fairer than that.

I loved this book, at times i was laughing out loud. There are just so many layers to her writing...she writes plainly, but intelligently, and it is full of humor and spunk. Her cultural isights are amazing...i swore she was talking about me at one point...and it was nice the way she included smidgens of dialect and superstition from 3 different cultures, with such depth! I completely recommend this book. Josh you were so right!

Gave up a little past 60%, and even getting there was a struggle. I couldn't connect to the characters and found the forced wittiness/humor of the writing a little tiresome. I hope to give Zadie Smith another chance someday, but not this book.

How Zadie Smith could write a book like this at the age of 22 it terrifies me.
Wonderful

This book started bad for me and just got worse. I found the characters to be boring and two-dimensional. Actually, even worse, the author tried to build up the characters in most cases (though doing a poor job, I'd say), but then later reduced their roles to caricatures. So even those I was inclined to like wound up irritating me every time they opened their mouths.

Further, Smith's style is all over the place. At times I found it indulgent and pretentious, others fawningly resembling other authors, and the style would sometimes change abruptly from one paragraph to the next.

I find what what often at least partially redeems books like this is an interesting plot. Not so in White Teeth! There's no real story arc to hold the book together. The plot kind of twisted along for a while and I couldn't really tell where it was going. Then it ends in this bizarre attempt to draw all of the characters and threads together which totally fails as a climax. I would have been more irritated about this particular point but I was so happy I was done with the book, I was inclined to forgive it more than was deserved.

I truly don't understand what all the hype was over this book. There is lots I can forgive especially in a first novel, but there wasn't nearly enough here to convince me that Smith is a great writer who just needs some time to come into her own. There were a few interesting ideas and notions, but they were isolated and swamped by a thousand other boring ones, not to mention cliches, unclever witticisms, and tired plot devices.

I could go on, but I rather forget I ever read this! Gah!

Wood pooh-poohed this novel, inaptly, as it turns out, as hysterical realism. I'm not sure if Wood was interested in the bad gender politics of that particular generic designation, but the gross amalgamation of this text with Pynchon, Rushdie, Delillo, DFW does not make much sense. (It’s most similar to Delillo, I think, of the usual suspects listed therein.)

The primary figure is the odontic, which is most plainly significant to the extent that a character might be “from somewhere. She has roots” (23). Most of the major characters are subject to ‘root canals’ during the story, wherein their own genetic/ontic (as opposed to dental/odontic) roots are traced out. The ‘roots’ are typically nationality (Jamaica, Bangladesh, and England are the most important) and religion (Jehovah’s Witness, Islam, and Judaism).

As it happens, teeth gnash. They are destroyed through nocturnal bruxism. Root canals are necessary because the teeth are messed up. Following the figure, the British empire messed everything up—though the point of the text is equally that the Empire caused the gnashing, which is also a commingling, a bringing together. This in itself can’t be all bad—after all, the couples here are multinational: English prat marries Jamaican beauty, for instance. It's difficult to argue against miscegenated children, in my not all humble opinion. The novel’s great friendship is English prat and traditional Moslem (“very religious, lacking nothing except the faith” (53)), brought together in fighting fascism (a great story there (71-102)).

There’re other gnashings: generational discord, religious tactics (fundamentalist vel non), gender politics. On that last, we have a bizarre little bit:

But to be serious for a moment: as you know, I am a man whose profession it is to look deep inside of “Woman,” and, like a psychiatrist, mark her with a full bill of health or otherwise. And I feel sure, my friend (to extend a metaphor), that you have explored your lady-wife-to-be in such a manner, both spiritually and mentally, and found her not lacking in any particular. (43-44)

The speaker here is not a dentist, as one might otherwise expect from the thematic, but is rather a gynecologist. Does the thematic still work? Is drilling down into the tooth during a root canal similar to psychiatry? Is it like looking deep inside a woman’s cavernous birthing canal? Can one go spelunking in the vagina for spiritual/mental inventories? Does one fuck up marriage by not exploring?

Traditional Moslem wife has a rejoinder to all that, however:

I was married to Samad Iqbal the same evening of the very day I met him. Yes, I didn’t know him from Adam. But I liked him well enough. We met in the breakfast room on a steaming Delhi day and he fanned me with The Times. I thought he had a good face, a sweet voice, and his backside was high and well formed for man of his age. Very good. Now, every time I learn something more about him, I like him less. (66)

Husband’s traditionalism is well understood as resisting all that is solid melting into air: “I don’t wish to be a modern man! I wish to live as I was always meant to! I wish to return to the East!” (121). (Rejoinder: who “can pull the West out of ‘em once it’s in?” (id.)) The issue here is that “the sins of the Eastern father shall be visited upon the Western sons” (135), which is a primary component of the narrative here; “immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition” (id.), first as tragedy, second as farce, I suppose. The reiteration initiates not with original sin, but with “original trauma” (136)—“they can’t help but reenact the dash they once made from one land to another, from one faith to another, from one brown mother country into the pale, freckled arms of an imperial sovereign” (id.). Our traditionalist objects that “people call it assimilation when it is nothing but corruption” (159). (“it is still hard to admit,” however, “that there is no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English” (272).)

The obligatory Hegelian commentary: “We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with my legs crossed, letting things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight the holy war” (150). The obligatory Baudrillardian commentary: “A few found themselves seventeen years later at the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, dressed up as Jamaicans in the Jamaica exhibit, acting out a horrible simulacrum of their previous existence—tine drums, coral necklaces—for they were English now, more English than the English by virtue of their disappointments” (255).

The traditionalist would seek to control the offspring, who may not want to be traditionalists, loyal to mother country—but rather might want to become, say, fundamentalists, or secular progressives, or socialists, or loyal imperialists, or whatever. Dude laments that his kids “strayed so far from the life I had intended for them” (336). No dead hand control, yo. It is an important text for multinational households. There is a balance to be drawn between assimilation and ‘roots.’ I for one am annoyed by pure tradition, but am a proponent of history. Perhaps the former tells me what I should be, whereas the latter tells me what I am; the former, an idealism, recommends fascism, but not so much the latter, which is a bit more historical materialist. That said, our traditionalist contends that “tradition was culture, and culture led to roots, and these were good, these were untainted principles” (161). Dude doesn't like that assimilation to the empire leads to “your children are unrecognizable, you belong nowhere” (336), but that strikes me as basic to the postmodern condition at the imperial center and therefore par for the course, a progressive development overall. (What kind of weird sense of proto-fascist entitlement must one possess if one can demand belonging somewhere? Is it not an odd, dangerous demand? Traditionalists want to “live on solid ground, underneath safe skies” (176), which invokes basic fascist ideology: cf. Griffin’s  Modernism and Fascism.)

Anyway, plenty of other interesting things; it is a pregnant writing. Some Marxist content in characters of liberated niece of traditional Moslems as well as in scientist-socialist Jewish couple. (Also, omniscient narrator’s voice: “If religion is the opiate of the people, tradition is an even more sinister analgesic, simply because it rarely appears more sinister” (161).) Tradition infects the kids, who are led to believe that they “stood schizophrenic, one foot in Bengal and one in Willsden” (183). The kids are “two of Zeno’s headfuck arrows” (384), wherein Zeno’s objective is to “establish multiplicity, the Many, as an illusion” and then “prove reality a seamless, flowing whole” (id.), basically parmenidean aletheia and Anaximander’s apeiron.

The narrative in the second half turns toward scientist-socialists who work on genetic projects: “’You eliminate the random, you rule the world,’ said Marcus simply. ‘Why stick to octogenes? One could program every step in the development of an organism: reproduction, food habits, life expectancy’” (283). This program generates quite a bit of resistance by the conclusion, wrapped up with “the patenting of living organisms” (395), which I initially misread as the “parenting of living organisms”—and of course the genetic engineering of a perfectly controlled organism by scientist is exactly what all of the fuss has been with traditionalist’s failure in canalizing his sons into traditionalism. The commentary is plain, but not tendentious. The parallelism between the parenting and patenting plots is overall very well done.

That said, the genetically engineered creature is also a nifty little thing from Anglo-American philosophy, Quine’s ‘gavagai’—which might be a rabbit, as ostensibly identified by the illiterate tribespersons, but also, conceivably, might be a collection of undetached rabbit parts, or one of many rabbit temporal phases, depending on how tribesperson conceives the signified internally to go with the signifier that we translate facilely as mere ‘rabbit.’ Here, the parallel is substantial:

Because, if it can be argued that the animal under experimentation is owned by any group of people, i.e., it is not a cat but effectively an invention with catlike qualities, then that very cleverly and very dangerously short-circuits the work of animal rights groups and leads to a pretty fucking scary vision of the future. (395)

Thereafter, “surely the mouse in this case is a symbol” (401). I fell in love with author, however, when she described how this (somewhat ‘extremist’) animal rights group began as student radicals, idealist, passionate, “but political infighting, back-stabbing, and endless factionalizing soon disillusioned them as far as the fate of Homo erectus was concerned” (396), and the charismatic qualities of the leaders attracted “political drifters” (id.). This is of course alleging that this type of misanthropic animal rights activism is the progressive wing of lumpenized antisocial nihilism.

The author has good comedic timing (e.g., fundamentalist book-burner who advises “you don’t have to read shit to know that it’s blasphemous” (194), or the great bit that reveals how the fundamentalist is always already structured by its antithesis, channeling Goodfellas: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Muslim” (369)). She also possesses a committed perspective, an enviable cosmopolitanism, and is about as charming as can be.

Recommended for readers who are independent, even of gravity, persons whose bodies are keeping dark secrets from them, and those who, simply put, fuck their sisters.

So it's not perfect. I understand that.
But I can't remember the last time a book this long has thoroughly captivated me, entertained me and struck a subtle chord in me all at the same time.
A lot of other reviews have valid points: all the characters do diminish into caricatures at certain points (but don't we as well?), the last hundred pages or so were a bit tiring, and the ending felt a bit anticlimactic and rushed.
My favorite aspect of this novel was Smith's keen eye for turning entirely serious and sometimes overwhelmingly heavy situations into somewhat humorous snippets of life--all without relying on too much levity or a sense of defeat. It's a refreshing change of pace from my usual sullen and deeply cynical reading repertoire.

And besides, when the hell do you ever get to read about characters who are people of color with actual internal, middle-class dilemmas that aren't wrought in cheesy sentimentality and a guilty liberal consciousness of "getting in touch with your roots to find your true self" (I'm looking at you, Jhumpa Lahiri)? Assimilation (either in part or in full) IS a part of adjusting within a different country, after all.

p.s.: I do not understand some reviewers' point about her seeming "smugness." Race-relations are pretty much shit everywhere. What did you expect, an open-armed happy convert who gets shat on but learns to take it and becomes grateful for all the injustice? If you were a racial minority in a country where nearly 90% of the country is white and had the privilege to be well-educated to write from a critical viewpoint of something that, indeed, deserves some criticism, wouldn't you? And isn't it natural to have some manifestation of resentment mixed in there somewhere? I don't think it's as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be.

Phew, I was exhausted after finishing this book.
Faith, race, gender, history, and culture in three North London families are turned upside down, questioned, dissected and turned into a tragic comedy by Zadie Smith.

Samad Iqbal and his wife Alsana, the original Benghali immigrants, who often sort their differences out in some feisty backyard wrestling matches while their two twin sons, Magid and Millat, the second generation immigrants, run haywire in their confusion about being British as their mom wish them to be, and being Muslim as their father demands them to be. Millat ends up smoking pot, turning punk, test-driving all women he comes in contact with, admiring the Bruce Willis kind of action heroes and joining a militant Muslim group called KEVIN. Magid becomes an eccentric well-mannered nerdy scientist who wants to be a lawyer, after his dad abducted him and send him back to the old country to become accustomed with the old traditions and religion. But Magid ends up coming back an atheist and more British than the Brits themselves. Both sons become something Samad never wanted them to be.

Archie Jones, the only 'real Brit' in the situation, is the beginning and ending of the narrative - the last man standing in any situation. He married the toothless Clara, an immigré from Jamaica. Her grandmother, Hortense, is a staunch Jahova's Witness who stuck to her believes through thick and thin. Clara is much younger than Archie. Their union produces Irie - an agnostic seeker of love and peace. An intelligent young lady who never loses her sense of balance.

Archie and Samat come a very long way and became the best of friends since the second World War. Their two different versions of Samat's great great Grandfather, Mangal Pande's history, keep them in debate ever since they became friends.

Samat says to Archie in one of their many discussions of the matter in O'Connolls:

"Of course I see your point of view, Achie, I do. But my point is, and has always been, from the very first time we discussed the subject; my point is that this is not the full story.

And yes, I realize that we have several times thoroughly investigated the matter, but the fact remains: full stories are as rare as honesty, precious as diamonds. If you are lucky enough to uncover one, a full story will sit in your brain like lead. They are difficult. They are long-winded. They are epic. They are like the stories God tells: full of impossibly particular information. You don't find them in the dictionary."

This is what the book is all about. The full, long-winded, difficult, epic around the particular information(history) of three families, their cultures, religions and all the issues of modern life in the western world of London.

The third family, with the agnostic Jewish scientist prof. Marcus Chalfen with his wife, Joyce and their brilliant sons living out their Chalfenism, get the time bomb ticking for the final scene when he releases his research on genetic manipulation on a mouse which he plans to patent, copyright and bar code!

The FutureMouse© would ultimately portray and repeat the legend of Samat's great-great grandfather, Mangal Pande which began

" in the spring of 1857 in a factory in Dum-Dum a new kind of bullet went into production. Designed to be used in English guns by Indian soldiers, like most bullets at the time, they had casing that must be bitten in order to fit the barrel. There seemed nothing exceptional about them, until it was discovered by some canny factory worker that they were covered in a grease - a grease made from the fat of pigs, monstrous to Muslims, and the fat of cows, sacred to Hindus. It was an innocent mistake - as far as anything is innocent on stolen land - an infamous British blunder.....

....Under the specious pretext of new weaponry, the English were intending to destroy their caste, their honour, their standing in the eyes of God and men - everything, in short, that made life worth living....."

The launch of FutureMouse© guarantees a surprising ending to a tragicomedy, very well told and very well presented by Zadie Smith. There are no lose ends left behind.

It is, in fact, a book I would love to read again! There are so many layers of humanity and cultures exposed in the book, and relentlessly made fun of in many aspects, that it can really be enjoyed a second time. It will be worth it !

I really LIKED IT!

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.

Dnf at 100 pages