It isn’t often that I come across a “literary” novel peopled
with characters who are almost universally likable
and believable.
Such is the
case with Zadie Smith's novel,
White Teeth.
It isn’t so much that I find each person
admirable, nor are their choices and resulting actions always on the up and up.
It’s more that these characters, well-written
and compelling, become, by the fullness of the story’s climax,
like semi-close relatives;
you don’t necessarily respect their decisions,
but you
get them, you understand
their behavior, even if you wouldn’t particularly want to have them over for
dinner more than twice a year.
The novel opens upon the scene of one Archie Jones’s suicide
attempt, on a side street of London, circa 1975. Archie had just gone through a particularly
disheartening divorce (all the more so because, rather than in spite of the fact, the marriage was never a happy one). Before taking his
final polluted breath courtesy of a misappropriated Hoover hose, Archie is
saved by a reluctant rescuer, Mo Hussein-Ishmael, a Halal butcher whose
delivery dock was blocked in a timely (for Archie that is) fashion by Archie’s unlikely death machine. Grateful for his reprieve, reminiscent and
hopeful, Archie recalls his time spent in the service during World War II
where we are introduced to Samad Iqbal, Archie’s battle buddy and life-long
friend.
Upon being introduced to these two men, one pompous, one
self-effacing, we are then well-met by their wives, both decades younger than their
husbands. The first to make the reader’s
acquaintance is Clara, Archie’s Jamaican teenage bride. Desperate to flee an
oppressive Jehovah's Witness mother, and an increasingly fractious boyfriend, she
gravitates towards a middle-aged Archie and the improbable dream of escape.
Next is Samad’s wife, Alsana, the product of a traditional Bengali arrangement
in which Samad waited many years for the birth
of his betrothed, a fiery pessimist, both acclimating and rebelling within a strange
marriage, in a strange land.
The novel follows these incongruous friends and their
equally odd domestic pairings, as they make and raise families in a time of
unsettling changes in morality, media, and technical advancement. Their tale measures up well in equal parts for
both humor, and a deep vein of thought-provoking societal observations. I
recommend this to fans of character-driven novels, and for those with a taste
for something different, yet familiar all the same.
Jennifer Wilson
It isn’t often that I come across a “literary” novel peopled
with characters who are almost universally likable and believable. Such is the
case with Zadie Smith's novel, White Teeth. It isn’t so much that I find each person
admirable, nor are their choices and resulting actions always on the up and up. It’s more that these characters, well-written
and compelling, become, by the fullness of the story’s climax, like semi-close relatives; you don’t necessarily respect their decisions,
but you get them, you understand
their behavior, even if you wouldn’t particularly want to have them over for
dinner more than twice a year.
Life has never been easy for the three Campbell sisters, Jess, Courtney, and Dani who live on a remote ranch in western Canada. Their father has a bad temper and they have learned to stay out of his way when he has been drinking. When their mother was alive she seemed to be able to control him, but since she passed away their father seems to be out of control. One night, a fight gets out of hand, and the sisters are forced to go on the run, only to get caught in an even worse nightmare when their truck breaks down in a small town. 
