Book review: White Teeth

Zadie Smith
Hamish Hamilton, 2000; £12.99
ISBN 0 241 13997 X
Rating: 4/4

"Where are you from originally?" I don't know how many times I have been asked that question, usually by the elderly and confused, unable to comprehend that my little brown face could possibly emanate from these shores. Now, when asked, I lie and explain that I was born in the jungle, brought up by wolves and came over here to sit my GCSEs. To these people being "English" is equated with being white. Times have changed and we now, like it or not, live in a country (and a world) where the free movement of people has resulted in a "cross pollination" of cultures. This is the modern England in which Zadie Smith's remarkable debut novel is set.

The book reveals the lives of three "English" families that become unavoidably intertwined. Archibald Jones is a consistent, some would say boring, guy who ponders on life's great mysteries-such as the information contained on bus tickets. He fought in the war alongside the Bangladeshi, Allah-fearing Samad Iqbal, who came to England in the great wave of immigrants in the 1970s. We follow these friends through their marriages. Archibald marries the beautiful, black, toothless Cara, and Samad marries the feisty Alsana. Problems arise as they bring up their children; then the Chalfens come on the scene with their own ideas about raising the Jones and Iqbal children.

Essentially, this book is about origins and conflict. Whatever our background, conflicts can ensue when we are trying to find our origins-conflicts between religion and science, between East and West, and between sons and fathers. I can relate to the conflicts of the second generation, a generation living their lives in flux between two cultures-that of an immigrant and that of an English person. It also manages to explore the fears of immigrants; fears of bringing up their children in an alien culture and that one day their culture will simply be engulfed by the new and simply disappear.

This is a tremendous book. Not only is it acutely observant and intelligent, but it is funny and entertaining. So if in future I am asked where I am from "originally" I should just lob this book at whoever asked the question.

Debashis Singh, fourth year medical student, University of Leicester
Email: debsingh@hotmail.com


studentBMJ 2000;08:303-346 September ISSN 0966-6494