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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A little bit problematic - came across as an author who's angry at every type of person.
Clever and readable but not intimate. With this book, Zadie Smith positioned herself as a bold and inventive writer in the literary landscape. Her “voice” is what connects the different narrative strands: her play with form (showy, yes, but certainly entertaining) and the historical references and sarcasm splattered throughout the narrative all contribute to a highly engaging novel.
But her narrative “voice” seeps over to the characters, speaking through them with a one-upping ingenuity that is out of line for their different personalities. Especially throughout the second half of the novel, I kept wishing for the characters to speak to each other, to have a meaningful conversation, to interact with themselves and not the plot.
Nonetheless, the novel is charming and incredibly readable. It feels like coming back home on a rainy day and eating delicious delivery food crosslegged on the carpet.
But her narrative “voice” seeps over to the characters, speaking through them with a one-upping ingenuity that is out of line for their different personalities. Especially throughout the second half of the novel, I kept wishing for the characters to speak to each other, to have a meaningful conversation, to interact with themselves and not the plot.
Nonetheless, the novel is charming and incredibly readable. It feels like coming back home on a rainy day and eating delicious delivery food crosslegged on the carpet.
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I feel like the theme of my 2017 reading year thus far is constantly not being sure if I should rate a book three or four stars. I think for White Teeth, I'd go with three stars if I was just going off the fact I liked the book but didn't love it, but four stars if I'm going off how impressed I am. Like, how did Zadie Smith write this as a 22 year old? It honestly feels like it was written by someone middle-aged, because how does someone my age know this much about life already? You get the sense of infinite wisdom and insight from the positioning of the omniscient narrator, who knows everything about the characters' inner workings, the main characters being (1) middle-aged white British Archie Jones and (2) Bangladeshi-British Samad Iqbal, who became lifelong friends--fates and future families entangled-- during WWII. It's kind of amazing how Smith took that on and decided to go deep into their inner lives and seems to have successfully done so without having much in common with these characters other than a shared neighborhood.
I went and watched/read a few interviews with Smith to try to get a feel for an author who had such a strong sense of what she was trying to accomplish and confidence to portray characters very different from herself when she was still finishing university. In one, she said it came down to "imagination" above all else--why shouldn't she be able to imagine how someone thinks or feels regardless of differences in age, gender, religion, or culture? That's an interesting view on imagination in novels for me, as I've always applied "imaginative" to stories with lush, unique settings or clever plots, when in fact, as Smith implies, imaginative should be equally applicable to novels with a vast array of characters. Still, for me, I keenly feel the difference between myself and "real adults," of my own cultural upbringing versus others', so I know I'd not have the confidence to make that leap of imagination. Smith did and I think it's because she's just got a great gift for observation and understanding how the human psyche works that she mastered and felt assuredness about. She brings an all-knowing narration to topics as wide-ranging as fundamentalist Islam, science research, animal rights, WWII, and colonialism.
In many ways this book doesn't feel like a first novel since it's so sure of itself, so mature, and so sprawling. For me it was actually a bit too sprawling, and I wish more time had been spent with Clara's voice, because to be honest, I didn't find Archie Jones to be all the compelling. But I think that's the risk of any novel that covers so many characters and jumps through different timelines; as a reader, you are drawn to one or more characters more than the others and wish you could spend more time with them. Also, the Chalfenist storyline was introduced a bit too late in the novel for me; this book is really about three, not two families: the Jones, the Iqbals, and the Chalfens, but it shows no sign of that until halfway through, so the end result is a bit lopsided, structurally.
I think maybe if I read Smith's other, later works I'd be able to judge them without the haze of constantly marveling at what she accomplished at her age, which is something I couldn't stop pondering while reading White Teeth. So I'll try to get around to a later work of hers at some point.
I went and watched/read a few interviews with Smith to try to get a feel for an author who had such a strong sense of what she was trying to accomplish and confidence to portray characters very different from herself when she was still finishing university. In one, she said it came down to "imagination" above all else--why shouldn't she be able to imagine how someone thinks or feels regardless of differences in age, gender, religion, or culture? That's an interesting view on imagination in novels for me, as I've always applied "imaginative" to stories with lush, unique settings or clever plots, when in fact, as Smith implies, imaginative should be equally applicable to novels with a vast array of characters. Still, for me, I keenly feel the difference between myself and "real adults," of my own cultural upbringing versus others', so I know I'd not have the confidence to make that leap of imagination. Smith did and I think it's because she's just got a great gift for observation and understanding how the human psyche works that she mastered and felt assuredness about. She brings an all-knowing narration to topics as wide-ranging as fundamentalist Islam, science research, animal rights, WWII, and colonialism.
In many ways this book doesn't feel like a first novel since it's so sure of itself, so mature, and so sprawling. For me it was actually a bit too sprawling, and I wish more time had been spent with Clara's voice, because to be honest, I didn't find Archie Jones to be all the compelling. But I think that's the risk of any novel that covers so many characters and jumps through different timelines; as a reader, you are drawn to one or more characters more than the others and wish you could spend more time with them. Also, the Chalfenist storyline was introduced a bit too late in the novel for me; this book is really about three, not two families: the Jones, the Iqbals, and the Chalfens, but it shows no sign of that until halfway through, so the end result is a bit lopsided, structurally.
I think maybe if I read Smith's other, later works I'd be able to judge them without the haze of constantly marveling at what she accomplished at her age, which is something I couldn't stop pondering while reading White Teeth. So I'll try to get around to a later work of hers at some point.