White Teeth

White Teeth. Zadie Smith. New York: Random House, 2000. 448 pp. 

I read White Teeth as the final book in my British Literature class this semester. Written only about a decade ago by Zadie Smith who was in her early twenties when it was published, this book presents a different picture of London than the way many people might imagine it. Rather than simply being about stereotypical, proper British people drinking tea (the kind whom I tend to idolize), this novel's main characters include Muslim Bengali immigrants and a Jamaican woman and her bi-racial daughter. This collision of many cultures is really a more accurate description of contemporary London than the homogenous stereotypical ideas, according to my professor who has lived in Britain. The novel wrestles with the theme of identity, as characters struggle with who they are and where they've come from. Samad Iqbal attempts to raise his boys with Muslim values and does not want them to be "corrupted" by Western culture. Irie Jones wishes to uncover her heritage but then must decide how much it should define her. 

At the end of the semester as assignments were piling up overwhelmingly, I still made reading this book a priority (maybe even when I should have been studying...) because I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I became engrossed in the novel both because of the many quirky characters and engaging plot and because of the philosophic musings about personal and cultural identity. My only hesitation in recommending the novel is that it contains an immense amount of profanity. Overall, however, White Teeth is a very well-written and witty novel that intrigued me and kept my interest.