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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Best review I know how to give: I wish I could have taught it! Serious, and seriously funny, with something for everyone to dig into. This writer is a force.
Wow, I wanted so much to like this book. But I don't, and I'm giving up half-way through. I find the characters to be more like caricatures, the story as told not in the least bit compelling, and the whole thing a waste of valuable time I could be spending on a million other books. As one reviewer put it, just because a novel gets good reviews doesn't make it readable, or even enjoyable. Or even tolerable: I don't have to like the characters to find the story to be worthwhile, but in this case I don't like them AND the story is a bore. I don't often give up on books without reaching the end, but in this I don't even care enough to find out if it will redeem itself. And let's be clear, it's not about the topic. How people from various background integrate themselves (or not) into a particular culture while retaining (or not) the traditions and beliefs of their culture of origin is actually fascinating to me. This particular version of that story just wasn't for me.
And apparently I'm not the only one. Based on a quick skim of reviews on GoodReads and an informal poll of friends, I'm not actually sure how the rating is so high.
And apparently I'm not the only one. Based on a quick skim of reviews on GoodReads and an informal poll of friends, I'm not actually sure how the rating is so high.
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
“You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence,”
There’s so much to say about this book that I don’t really know what to say. I really enjoyed reading it, and thought it was so cleverly structured, always moving between characters, between past and present, so expertly and in a way which allowed me to follow along easily, rather than confusing me.
In terms of the novel’s themes, I think its exploration of immigrant identity and the ways in which the lived experience of first/second generations can differ was so interesting to read about. Smith’s way of writing these characters is so well done; no detail is left out, we feel as though we know these characters personally. And that is what made me connect to the book the most.
There’s so much to say about this book that I don’t really know what to say. I really enjoyed reading it, and thought it was so cleverly structured, always moving between characters, between past and present, so expertly and in a way which allowed me to follow along easily, rather than confusing me.
In terms of the novel’s themes, I think its exploration of immigrant identity and the ways in which the lived experience of first/second generations can differ was so interesting to read about. Smith’s way of writing these characters is so well done; no detail is left out, we feel as though we know these characters personally. And that is what made me connect to the book the most.
At first, I was so thoroughly impressed with this book. I couldn't believe that for months it was sitting in my book shelf unread. I picked it up on a whim so that i could break the cycle of short vampire stories and fantasy novels. It moved effortlessly. Some parts were hysterical, others quite moving. I even tipped my cap to how Zadie Smith built suspense with the final showdown. Then, the story just sort of ended. Disappointingly.
Are we to believe that Irie just went to Jamaica with her crazy grandmother and became lovers with her even crazier houseboy (who was in love with, and was the same age as, her mother...creepy, much)? Magid and Millat really just got community service for the whole incident? What happened to FATE? I hate that. Such wonderful build up and then at the very apex, she just let's it fall.
***As an aside,I didn't really include a spoiler alert because there wasn't really any drama to the end of the book worthy of being alerted to avoid***
Maybe i'm just dense and didn't get the ending. After he got shot in the thigh by this smooth talking Nazi, did Archie actually finish off the job? All this planning by FATE didn't even matter? Was all of it was just a chance to illustrate another group who disagreed with FutureMouse?
I just felt/feel so thoroughly let down by the lack of resolution to all of the subplots. Because the subplots were so directly connected to the main characters in the main plot, it's almost ask if by only partially resolving some and completely letting others fall away, it seems as if she got bored with the story or had to meet some deadline and post-it'd on some silly generic ending that made no sense.
I would have given this book one star if it wasn't so well written and the content so interesting and funny. That's how disappointed i was with the ending. Race/Ethnic relations in post civil rights England is fascinating. I feel as if, being Americans, we get only the U.S. version. Outside of Apartheid in South Africa, it's interesting to see how other places in the commonwealth dealt with post civil rights era race/ethnic relations. Now if only a story as rich as that could be woven in with an ending to a novel that actually makes sense, that would be wonderful.
Again, I did enjoy the writing and content of the book. I'm definitely willing to read another of Zadie Smith's work. Unfortunately, if she does this again (vastly sub-par ending to an otherwise amazingly crafted novel) I may have to abandon hope in her future work.
Are we to believe that Irie just went to Jamaica with her crazy grandmother and became lovers with her even crazier houseboy (who was in love with, and was the same age as, her mother...creepy, much)? Magid and Millat really just got community service for the whole incident? What happened to FATE? I hate that. Such wonderful build up and then at the very apex, she just let's it fall.
***As an aside,I didn't really include a spoiler alert because there wasn't really any drama to the end of the book worthy of being alerted to avoid***
Maybe i'm just dense and didn't get the ending. After he got shot in the thigh by this smooth talking Nazi, did Archie actually finish off the job? All this planning by FATE didn't even matter? Was all of it was just a chance to illustrate another group who disagreed with FutureMouse?
I just felt/feel so thoroughly let down by the lack of resolution to all of the subplots. Because the subplots were so directly connected to the main characters in the main plot, it's almost ask if by only partially resolving some and completely letting others fall away, it seems as if she got bored with the story or had to meet some deadline and post-it'd on some silly generic ending that made no sense.
I would have given this book one star if it wasn't so well written and the content so interesting and funny. That's how disappointed i was with the ending. Race/Ethnic relations in post civil rights England is fascinating. I feel as if, being Americans, we get only the U.S. version. Outside of Apartheid in South Africa, it's interesting to see how other places in the commonwealth dealt with post civil rights era race/ethnic relations. Now if only a story as rich as that could be woven in with an ending to a novel that actually makes sense, that would be wonderful.
Again, I did enjoy the writing and content of the book. I'm definitely willing to read another of Zadie Smith's work. Unfortunately, if she does this again (vastly sub-par ending to an otherwise amazingly crafted novel) I may have to abandon hope in her future work.
everyone i know hates this book. goodreads and twitter mutuals, university friends, other literary types i've dated (the kind you walk around a bookstore with and together loudly, annoyingly point at a Universally Acclaimed Book to boldly denigrate it in front of the world), boomers who shake their hand at the prospect that this is the present state of "the canon" (though zadie smith would likely be the first to refute the linearity or singularity of such a concept), the avant-garde kids who wag their heads at the significantly shittier DFWisms sprinkled throughout the book's digressive passages, etc. the whirlwind of sheer fucking HATE this book inspires, the variety and colour of it, is rather beautiful in a way - a book as unrelentingly ironic and riotously many-tongued as white teeth could never have gone down any other way.
i like this book. not just because it's a rare instance of daring and ambition that contemporary literature (at least the new york times and guardian-approved kind) seems to lack in spades, but because on the most superficial level, the vision of london in white teeth feels distinctly faithful to the rhizomatic chaos of urban life. the seemingly infinite number of entry points and fractalising (or converging?) root systems everywhere - the sprawl of the tube, the crisscrossing of intersections, the monstrous entanglements of telephone wires. you can enter white teeth from any point, as a story about identity, about recurrence, about predestination and fate, about trauma, and realise that at some point, that there is no such thing as an isolated quality to life, that no story can ever be fully or neatly told without betraying the very subjects it has conjured into existence. (ed. note: finish tristram shandy soon)
white teeth, therefore, exists in a kind of paradox - it is simultaneously about the impossibility of establishing a start and end while being, quite literally, a novel that must start and end. the multicultural dream that smith holds dear is perhaps that as we relinquish the linear histories of place, we can also come to embody the mutability of our own pasts and carve out a start and end for our stories where fact recedes into faith - that we are not so much rootless as we are on some level radically free to first be, whether fundamentalists or horn-rimmedly post-racial, regardless of the extent to which our pasts shape us. all this is very utopic, and smith's realism does not arrive at that epiphany without a lengthy trial. systemic prejudices intertwined with personal trauma abound, and sometimes communities form out of defensive necessity. i appreciated the introduction of the annoying neoliberal middle-class family in the back half of the novel that ends up playing a major role in the novel's conclusion. smith seems to suggest that the fears associated with identity are not exclusive to race or the immigrant narrative but also pervade the loftier grounds of humanist rationality and free will.
i do have some small gripes with the novel (it's VERY close to a 4-star): smith's digressions often hover between insightful/funny and tediously overnarrated; the pervasive irony, while never cruel, can detract from moments where a healthy shot of pathos wouldn't hurt, and i do think some of the dozens of subplots could be excised, even in a novel devoted to excess. (with minimal spoilers, chapter 15 for example launches a major subplot which carries over into chapter 16 and then just... fades away?)
i like this book. not just because it's a rare instance of daring and ambition that contemporary literature (at least the new york times and guardian-approved kind) seems to lack in spades, but because on the most superficial level, the vision of london in white teeth feels distinctly faithful to the rhizomatic chaos of urban life. the seemingly infinite number of entry points and fractalising (or converging?) root systems everywhere - the sprawl of the tube, the crisscrossing of intersections, the monstrous entanglements of telephone wires. you can enter white teeth from any point, as a story about identity, about recurrence, about predestination and fate, about trauma, and realise that at some point, that there is no such thing as an isolated quality to life, that no story can ever be fully or neatly told without betraying the very subjects it has conjured into existence. (ed. note: finish tristram shandy soon)
white teeth, therefore, exists in a kind of paradox - it is simultaneously about the impossibility of establishing a start and end while being, quite literally, a novel that must start and end. the multicultural dream that smith holds dear is perhaps that as we relinquish the linear histories of place, we can also come to embody the mutability of our own pasts and carve out a start and end for our stories where fact recedes into faith - that we are not so much rootless as we are on some level radically free to first be, whether fundamentalists or horn-rimmedly post-racial, regardless of the extent to which our pasts shape us. all this is very utopic, and smith's realism does not arrive at that epiphany without a lengthy trial. systemic prejudices intertwined with personal trauma abound, and sometimes communities form out of defensive necessity. i appreciated the introduction of the annoying neoliberal middle-class family in the back half of the novel that ends up playing a major role in the novel's conclusion. smith seems to suggest that the fears associated with identity are not exclusive to race or the immigrant narrative but also pervade the loftier grounds of humanist rationality and free will.
i do have some small gripes with the novel (it's VERY close to a 4-star): smith's digressions often hover between insightful/funny and tediously overnarrated; the pervasive irony, while never cruel, can detract from moments where a healthy shot of pathos wouldn't hurt, and i do think some of the dozens of subplots could be excised, even in a novel devoted to excess. (with minimal spoilers, chapter 15 for example launches a major subplot which carries over into chapter 16 and then just... fades away?)
I have been told for years that this book is brilliant. I found it to be a quite fine first novel, but not much more than that. I'm afraid I am old-fashioned enough to not quite understand the penchant in some modern novels for an author to have what seems like contempt for the characters she creates. It's not that I disapprove, I just don't see the point. Yes, I know, to require of a book that it contain a Hero or Heroine is simply passe. Why not tell it like it is? There are people who live this way and this is their story. I guess it just feels like a bit of an empty exercise to me.
This book also suffers from a certain datedness. In the context of 9/11 and other recent examples of true Islamic fundamentalism, the radical element in this book seem almost quaint.
Well-written and quite an accomplishment for a young writer. But hard to recommend. Proceed at your own risk.
This book also suffers from a certain datedness. In the context of 9/11 and other recent examples of true Islamic fundamentalism, the radical element in this book seem almost quaint.
Well-written and quite an accomplishment for a young writer. But hard to recommend. Proceed at your own risk.
a Dickensian epic that's both amazing and hair-pullingly aggravating. loved the writing, but sheesh, there was just too much of it. parts are just unreadable. after spending so much time with this, in the end, i can't honestly say i really give a damn. and that makes me sad about opportunities lost and time wasted.
I really enjoyed this one - highly absurd and over the top writing. Everyone makes bad decisions. Supremely funny. Will definitely be reading more Zadie Smith in the future