Zadie Smith's debut novel White Teeth, a tale of multicultural and multiethnic London, spanning three generations, has attracted attention galore over the last few years. Recently I came across it in the library and decided that it was time to see what all the fuss was about.

About the Author
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Zadie Smith was born in North London in 1975 to an English father and a Jamaican mother. She read English at Cambridge, graduating in 1997 and she is currently a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University. Zadie was only 21 when she wrote the book, which contributed to all the attention it received.

The book has won an impressive array of awards and prizes. These including the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book). It also won two EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards) for Best Book/Novel and Best Female Media Newcomer, and was short listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Author's Club First Novel Award.


White Teeth has been translated into over twenty languages and was adapted for Channel 4 television for broadcast in autumn 2002.

All of this suggests that the novel must really be something special......

The Characters
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The main characters are two close families the Joneses and the Iqbals an unlikely pairing brought together by the fathers, Samad Iqbal and Archie Jones who met when they fought (or should I say helped out) in the war in part of the 'buggered battalion'.

The Jones' family is headed by Archie who is a working class Londoner born and bred with a Scottish background. Clara, his black , beautiful but buck toothed Jamaican wife is an immigrant and 20 years younger than him. They met during a period in her life when she was trying to escape from her mother's clutches and the holds of the Jehovah's Witnesses in which her mother firmly believes. At the start of the story the couple marry and they have a baby girl who they name Irie. The book also features Hortense Bowden, Clara's mother, an avid Jehovah who spends her days recruiting new members and biding her time until the end of the world.....

The Iqbal family is headed by Samad, who waits in a local restaurant but dreams of something better. Samad is a deeply religious Muslim Bangladeshi, intensely insecure about his position in British society. He fumes when he is mistaken for an Indian and fusses over the religious orientation of his sons and the way to bring them up 'properly'. At the start he marries Alsana, a stroppy Bangladeshi women and at around about the same time that Clare has Irie, Alsana has his twin boys, Millat and Magid.

The main characters are funny and warm. They have their dilemmas, their wants and their fears. Alsana and Clara gossip over cups of tea in the kitchen, Samad and Archie spend endless hours in the local eating egg, chips and beans, Irie struggles to attract the attention of Millat, Samad worries about 'spanking the salami' and the life his sons lead in London, Millat sleeps around and plots mayhem with his mates, Samad bores them all with the tales of his ancestors, Alsana and Samad scream blue murder at each other in the garden......

Much of the book carries on in this way. A simply depiction of daily life for these two families and the troubles that come with it.....

Throughout the book the main characters are joined at points by other family members, lovers, friends and colleagues. The middle class Chalfen family, Marcus, Joyce and their three children are of particular note, it is here that Irie and Millat find refuge away from their families much to the displeasure of their parents.

The Plot
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The book starts off in 1975 from the perspective of Archie Jones, recently divorced and depressed he attempts suicide on New Years Day morning using an old hover tube in his car. But when he is dragged from his car by a passer by he decides that actually maybe it is worth giving life another shot.... he stumbles across a party which is just ending at a hippy commune and there he meets Clara bounding down the stairs in a tight dress.....

Half way in the perspective changes to the point of view of Archie's daughter, Irie, as a teenager. Irie tells of her woes and ways, her problems with boys, her problems with her mother, her problems as a half cast outsider in a culture she does not fit into. This part of a story is typically teenage, full of hormones and hairspary, tears and tantrums.

Finally the latter and by far the smallest section is split into three told from the perspective of the twin boys Millat and Magid who at this stage of the book are mortal enemies and do not speak and also from their father Samad.

The main focus of the book is the exploration of multi-ethnic society and the difficulties this creates due to religion and culture. The book also explores issues that relate to sexuality, gender and crime and Smith tries to encompass as much diversity as she can possibly cram in.

Although primarily set in a North London borough throughout the book we are taken back to Jamaica to the birth of Hortense during an Earthquake, to Turkey to the meeting of Archie and Samad during the war and to Bangladesh to explore the past of the Iqbals and the fate of Magid, the prefered son, sent back to Bangladesh for a better life than the corrupt one he will lead in London.

Although most of the book features events which are common place the book approaches a climax when Irie and Millat are forced to undertake a punishment for being caught smoking marijuana at school with the Chalfens son. They are forced to go to the Chalfen family once a week to do homework. Irie and Millat learn to love the Chalfen way of life and soon begin to spend all of there time there immersing themselves in Chelfenism. Learning the ways of a typical British middle class family, learning about money, learning about class, learning about the genetic modification of mice.....

All of the main characters eventually meet together at the end at an event which heralds the end of the book. I won't tell you any more about this event. I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. However, I have to say that for me the latter third of the book, all of the approach to the ending did spoil the book for me. The ending is unrealistic and over ambitious.....

My Opinion Overall
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Three out of five stars for me. Sure I enjoyed reading this book, but it really isn't that special. I don't personally see what all the hype was about when there are much better books out there. As stated above the ending was a particular let down for me. An anticlimax. Smith attempts to pull off a big showdown which in honesty was nothing but over ambitious and unbelievable. I think the plot would have been better if it were less complicated and involved less characters.

However, despite this I still feel that White Teeth is worth a read, it is an interesting view of life from a multicultural perspective and therefore I do still give it my recommendation.

Bits and Bobs about the Book
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I would say that White Teeth suitable for everyone, although I imagine that primarily it will appeal most to those in my age range, that being around 18-30. It is general easy reading, involving some slang, although it won't demand too much attention although it is very long at around 800 pages.

White Teeth retails for £7.99 in the shops but of course can be purchased for cheaper on Amazon or Ebay. ISBN: 0-375-50185-1

By the Same Author
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Zadie Smith's second novel, The Autograph Man (2002) won the 2003 Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction, and a third novel, On Beauty, have recently been published.