LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
BOOKED Solid |
A Review by Rebecca James |
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith, 2000 "I'm as liberal as the next person,...but why do they always have to be laughing and making a song-and-dance about everything? I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not." Zadie Smith was only 25 when she published White Teeth, her first novel. In it, the young author uses her absolutely brilliant sense of humor to attack every stereotype and expectation we hold for ourselves and others. This is a book that should be required reading to make some sense out of life. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed such a smart, funny story. You name itclass, culture, ethnicity, age, gender, politics, marriage, homosexuality, religionnothing is left untouched by Smith's dry wit. Her humor is irreverently tongue-in-cheek, and her keen sense of the odd dynamics of the British society in which she was raised provides amble opportunity for sarcasm. White Teeth is a book about the history of the possibilities that emerge from the interaction of all the elements of our lives. And, as the book jacket puts it, the "tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you in the ankle." When you examine her cast of characters, it's not hard to see fate tripping down the story path to deliver a swift kick. Archie and Samad Archibald Jones, a working-class professional paper folder, and Samad Iqbal, a Bengali Muslim immigrant waiter, met during a brief (although actually a bit extended, since the British military forgot to tell the two stranded soldiers the war was over) and largely uneventful stint during WWII. Although separated for the thirty years since the war, chance and circumstance help them renew their friendship. You see, by the time the 1970s roll around, life is not what Archie bargained for. Smith opens White Teeth with Archie's attempted suicide, a desperate measure unceremoniously thwarted by pigeon shitin a roundabout way. Once life claims Archie, a man whose only strong opinion seems to be on the role of fate as a determining factor for action (heads or tails, Samad?), for the land of the living, Archie resolves to try his hand at life again. After all, he and Samad can always recall the wisdom and experience they gained from their one misfit-teamed, botched mission at the end of the war for their new families, who of course promptly thrust them out the door and down the street to O'Connell's Poolroom. The Irish poolroom, run by a Middle Eastern family as a caf, is a hideout for life's outsiders. It takes decades to become a regular, but Archie and Samad are dedicated. Clara and Alsana When the two men marry young brides, they find themselves way out of their league. Clara, a nineteen-year-old toothless Jamaican girl hiding from her devout Jehovah's Witness mother who recently recruited her Irish boyfriend, meets Archie at the remains of a New Year's party and sees her chance to escape. She underestimates Archie ordinariness, however, and finds herself sucked into an alternative, but just as boring, average British society. Clara slowly finds solidarity in Alsana, Samad's youngand equally deceived bridewho is herself an odd mix of beliefs. Not exactly a religious person, Alsana divides humanity into two camps, those who can "take life lightly" and those who cannot. She is infatuated with British society because of its superficial calm, unlike the daily doom that clouds the lives of her homeland's people. Her particular brand of faith is tested time and again by Samad, who, despite his very British behavior, holds a nostalgic sense of guilty respect for his Muslim background. Irie, Magid, and Millat: The next generation Irie, daughter of Clara and Archie, and the twin boys of Alsana and Samad, are the same age. Each child has his or her own unique outlook on life. Irie, with her mixed coloring, hair, and large form, finds herself an outcast in school. Her only connection to popularity is her childhood friend, Millat, a pot-smoking wannabe gangster-turned-religious zealot (it's the uniform that gets him). Magid, on the other hand, is sent away by Samad to live with Samad's family in Begal (That is good for several chapters worth of laughs in itself). The three struggle with their identities in a culture brimming with contradictions. They find a home, however temporary, in the Chalfen household. The Chalfens, Futuremouse, and Feminism Through a chance encounter with a classmate, Irie and Millat are thrown into the very bizarre world of Chalfenism. More than a family name, Chalfen is a verb, adjective, and philosophy of life that represents all of objective British liberal upper-middle class society. Joyce, the family matriarch, immediately embraces the two ''lost souls' on her doorstep and takes it upon herself to provide a better life for them. Spouting her own brand of feminism, Joyce is the perfect satire of a pseudo-intellectual liberal housewife. Her world rarely extends past her own Chalfenist doorstep. Her husband, Marcus, is just as odd. A strange mix of politics and practices, the Jewish scientist spends much of his time developing Futuremouse, an amazing genetically-programmed creature. When the Chalfens, Iqbals, and Joneses finally cross paths, the finish is nothing short of spectacular. Of course, my favorite character is Neena, Alsana's niece. She's not overly prominent in the story, but she provides a running twist to all heterosexual mishaps. Her full name, of course, is (unofficially) Niece-of-Shame. "Neena was used to this...It used to come in longer sentences, e.g., you have brought nothing but shame...or My niece, the shameful...But now because Alsana no longer had the time or energy to summon up the necessary shock each time, it had become abridged to Niece-of-Shame, an all-purpose tag that summed up the general feeling." This does not prevent Neena and her girlfriend from becoming active and frequent visitors in the Jones-Iqbal families' homes, however, and it is reassuring to note that they are probably the least screwed up characters in the book. White Teeth is a epic of sorts, where, like reality, the past is never quite far enough behind. Enjoy! Rebecca James lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she is completing (May 10, 2003!) her certification to teach secondary English. She is beginning her Master's in Education this summer. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 13, No. 4, May 2, 2003 |