These are old secrets. They will come out like wisdom teeth when the time is right.

White Teeth  by Zadie Smith
First published in 2000

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
White Teeth is an intergenerational exploration of family, roots, morality, and friendship. We've got two main characters at the beginning, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. They're older gents, Brits (one Bengali by birth), and they're best friends. We flash around in time (much of the meat of the book is in the 70s and 80s) and eventually find out they fought in WWII together (though fought is perhaps too strong a word for their involvement). When things kick off, Archie is in a bad way (read: mid-suicide attempt) after a nasty divorce, but he randomly bumps into a woman several decades junior to him, Clara, who is a Brit with Jamaican roots, and they end up dating and then quickly married. Clara was escaping the Jehovah's Witness-ness of her family life, and they end up having a daughter, Irie (yes, as in, 'everyting going be irie'). 

Samad marries a woman named Alsana, and they have twin sons, Magid and Millat. Through a strange course of events, Samad ends up deciding that he must send at least one of his sons back to Bangladesh. This in and of itself is not perhaps that strange - he doesn't like the effect of Britain on his children - but what is strange is he decides to send only one (to be fair, he can only afford one) and that he sends him alone. I thought he was going to go with one of his sons, but he stays in Britain with their mother, who proceeds to continue living with him but from that point on basically never forgives him (like you would if your husband sent one of your twin sons away in the night without asking you first). 

Irie, Magid, and Millat are friends, or at least, they are until Magid gets sent to Bangladesh. Another family, the Chalfens, end up sort of pseudo-adopting Millat and Irie for a time, and there's a whole business with the father of that family who is trying to genetically modify a mouse. Things get complicated, Millat turns into both a bad boy and a fundamentalist Muslim, Magid ends up coming back to Britain because he and Mr. Chalfen get on like gangbusters, and then Irie eventually sleeps with both Magid and Millat (again, for complicated reasons) and gets pregnant. Since the acts happened extremely close together, she realizes she will never be able to tell which of the twins is the father, and she is just kind of beginning to unpack this when the book reaches its climax. 

Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Okay, well if you've read White Teeth, then presumably you know that I left a fair bit out of the plot summary. But then again, if you've read White Teeth, then you probably also know that it's not really a plot-driven novel. At least, I wouldn't call it one. I wouldn't say it's the least plot-driven novel I've read, but it's definitely closer to the non-plot-driven end of the spectrum. If you know me, then you know that I'm generally a plot-loving kind of gal. I mean, I love me a beautiful sentence as much as the next reader, but I'm gonna need you to give me just a teeensy bit of plot to work with. And while many things happened (many of which you just read about), they weren't driving the book, so I feel pretty certain that if I wasn't reading this for my blob, I probably would have set it down and walked away. 

This is the first Zadie Smith work I've read, and while there were things I did like about it a lot (love the depth of characters, the nuanced representation of a diverse group, the impeccably written dialogue) I cannot say on the whole that I came out loving it. I don't think I would ever want to read it again, and I am, honestly, a little surprised that it was a bestseller. But these are just my two cents, and I would very much like to read more Zadie Smith to see what the rest of her work is like. Here are the rest of my thoughts (and some of the bits I did like), in no real order:

On headstands, compulsory or otherwise
There are some fantastic scenes about Samad's clashing with the Western educational system, particularly before the splitting of the twins. This was one of my favorites, from a school meeting about investing in a playground remodel.

13.2 Mr. Iqbal wishes to know why the Western education system privileges activity of the body over activity of the mind and soul.
13.3 The Chairwoman wonders if this is quite relevant.
13.4 Mr. Iqbal demands the vote be delayed until he can present a paper detailing the main arguments and emphasizes that his sons, Magid and Millat, get all the exercise they need via headstands that strengthen the muscles and send blood to stimulate the somatosensory cortex in the brain.
13.5 Mrs. Wolfe asks whether Mr. Iqbal expects her Susan to undertake compulsory headstands.
13.6 Mr. Iqbal infers that, considering Susan's academic performance and weight problems, a headstand regime might be desirable. lololol. Not that I'm here for body-shaming, but I love the idea of a headstand regime. 

On Ms. versus Mrs. versus Miss
Here's another exchange between Samad and one of the school moms, who has recently gotten divorced and wants to be addressed as a 'Ms.': 

"Mzzz?"
"Ms."
"And this is some kind of linguistic conflation between the words Mrs. and Miss?" asked Samad, genuinely curious and oblivious to the nether wobblings of Katie Miniver's bottom lip. "Something to describe the woman who has either lost her husband or has no prospect of finding another?" Again, I can so sympathize with the wobbly-lipped Katie, but I also just love the bluntness of his line of questioning. 

On certainty
After Samad steals Magid in the night and puts him on a one-way trip to Bangladesh, his wife Alsana stops allowing him any certainty in her responses. This is beautifully articulated in the book, and has to do with her revenge for taking away her certainty in knowing where one of her children was and how he was doing and if he was safe at any given time in the day. Here are some of their exchanges:

Samad: "What time is it?"
Alsana: "It could be three, Samad Miah, but Allah knows it could also be four."
Samad: "Alsana, where have you put the remote control?"
Alsana: "It is as likely to be in the drawer, Samad Miah, as it is behind the sofa." lololloololz. I'm totally going to try this on someone. Meredith, is it time for lunch? It could be, and it could also not be. Meredith, where is that scarf I lent you last week? It is as likely to be in my closet as it is to be in my car. 

On admitting illness
Hortense is Clara's mom, and so also Irie's grandmother, and Irie ends up running from Clara and Archie to live with Hortense. Hortense is, as I mentioned in the plot summary, a devout Jehovah's Witness, and is constantly awaiting the end of the world (more on that in a moment). Here are some Hortense-isms that I loved. 

It was important, in Hortense's presence, never to admit to illness. The cure, as in most Jamaican households was always more painful than the symptoms. At one point she throws rum at Irie's face (I think it's to stave off a fever?) and Irie's like, Ack! What are you Doing!? It reminded me of two things - (1) That my grandmother did not tolerate illness - she'd hear you sneeze and go, "Oh! Do you have a COLD?!" Which mostly just cracked me up, but also made me secretive about my sneezes around her, and (2) That time when I was studying abroad in France and my host family went away and my host grandparents came to stay and they found out I wasn't feeling well and they gave me a Large fizzy pill from a pile of unmarked pills in a drawer and said (in French) "drink this and you'll feel better!" and I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland but I did and then I felt better the next day but they had left so I couldn't ask them what was in the magic fizzy pill or where to buy more of them. The French are very into effervescent medicine. Or at least, they were when I was there. 

When Irie says she's hungry so she'll just eat an orange: Dat's not a real orange, dear. All de fruit is plasticated. De flowers are plasticated also. I don't believe de Lord meant me to spend de little housekeeping money I possess on perishable goods. Have some dates. ahghagahghaghahgaghg. I love this so much. 

On the end of the world
Okay, so as I mentioned, Hortense is anxiously awaiting the Judgment Day, or what some might call the end of the world. Here's how Irie describes moving in with Hortense:

[Irie] was intrigued by the Bowden household. It was a place of endgames and aftertimes, fullstops and finales; where to count on the arrival of tomorrow was an indulgence, and every service in the house, from the milkman to the electricity, was paid for on a strictly daily basis so as not to spend money on utilities or goods that would be wasted should God turn up in all his holy vengeance the very next day.

I loved this description and I also loved that it reminded me of one of my new favorite reads, The Sundial, by Shirley Jackson. It's also kind of about the end of the world, and it's trippy and witty and sarcastic and delightful. I highly recommend it. 

On England, a borrowed homeland
One of the other things Zadie Smith does beautifully (okay, so I realize I'm praising a lot here but I said I didn't love the book; I guess I loved a lot of parts of it but didn't end up loving the whole? Does that make sense?) is articulate the immigrant experience (or several examples of the immigrant experience, which speak to themes among immigrant experiences). Here's how Samad describes relocating to Britain:

Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally housebroken. 

Since America is where I was born to begin with, I can't imagine what it would be like to call another country, or another continent, home. I'm sure it comes with such complexities of emotion and belonging and longing, and I thought Zadie Smith did a stunning job writing those complexities.

Referents and Reverberations
Alsana reads Rabindranath Tagore at one point, and I enjoyed it because I had actually also read Rabindranath Tagore. If you missed that blob post, he's a Nobel laureate and a Bengali poet. 

And of course, I have to call out the shout-out to my boy Marcel, since you know how much I love him:

Irie, in her late teen years - Despite opting for a life of dentistry, she had not yet lost all of the poetry in her soul, that is, she could still have the odd Proustian moment, note layers upon layers, though she often experienced them in periodontal terms. 

This line continues into an exquisite series of metaphors, all tooth-related. I must admit that while I'm sure there's a clear logic to it, I couldn't quite lay my fingers on all the teeth analogies and connections in this book. I felt like my brain just couldn't quite make its way all the way there, which left me feeling a little unsatisfied. Which is probably more my fault than Zadie Smith's - I'm sure her metaphors make sense to her!

Lines I Liked:

• No one told Archie that lurking in the Diagilo family tree were two hysteric aunts, an uncle who talked to eggplants, and a cousin who wore his clothes back to front. 

• You have picked up the wrong life in the cloakroom and you must return it. God, I love this line.

• "Millat, where are Magid and Irie?" "Coming." "Coming with the speed of a train or coming with the speed of a snail?" Again, totally stealing this. 

• On re-ringing the doorbell: And then the slow process of disappearance began to rewind as Mr. J.P. Hamilton reconstituted himself via the atoms of a staircase and a dresser until he was large as life once more, curled around the door. Probably my favorite image in the book.

• Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

• Maybe nothing that happens on stolen ground can expect a happy ending.

Words that were new to me:



ouroboros - a circular symbol depicting a snake, or less commonly a dragon, swallowing its tail, as an emblem of wholeness or infinity

trilby - a soft felt hat with a narrow brim and indented crown

Well, blobbists, I think that's a wrap! I'm off to tackle The Soothsayer, or something of that ilk. Keep each other safe, keep faith, and good night.