White Teeth provides a lively insight into
inter-generational multicultural working class life in London between the late
seventies and early nineties through the lives of three families connected by
marriage, friendship and shared experience. At the kernel is the unlikely friendship
of Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal forged, as we soon learn, at the end of World
War II.
But the book starts on New Year’s Day 1975 when
Archie’s suicide attempt fails and turns instead into an engagement and subsequent
marriage to Clara Bowden, many years his junior and the daughter of an immigrant
West Indian Jehovah’s Witness.
Samad also marries a considerably younger
woman, Alsana, and the two ex–comrades spend many an evening discussing life at
O’Connell’s snooker club, its Irish heritage maintained by definitely un-Irish
host Abdul-Mickey. Their parallel lives continue to echo with both producing
offspring. The Jones union is blessed with daughter Irie; the Iqbal’s produce
twin boys, but Magid’s and Millat’ differing personalities belie their physical
similarity.
As the younger generation gains adolescence
an altercation at school brings Josh Chalfen into their ambit; and with him his
super-parents Joyce and Marcus. The Chalfens are high achievers (she a
horticulturalist, he a geneticist) with an unshakeable belief in their approach
to parenting, which they freely exercise on Irie, Magid and Millat.
The interference is not universally
appreciated, and when Marcus’s latest research project becomes controversial, it
produces a catalyst for conflict. Battle lines are drawn and forces converge
towards a potentially life changing climax.
The book sprawls deliciously over 500 pages,
giving each character time and space to develop and interact (dipping back into
prior generations to give even more context). There is comedy in the detail and
pathos in the larger themes as cultures clash, generations battle and ideologies
strive for supremacy, sometimes within the same character.
It was an acclaimed debut novel when
published in 2000 and still reads fresh and relevant today.
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