Book Review: "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith

White Teeth (2001)

4 Stars out of 5

Zadie Smith

448 pages

“What is past is prolog.”

Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith has written an amazingly good first book. It is a novel written with humor and affection for the characters, of the pains felt by the immigrant and non-immigrant people that inhabit this book, and it is a book that takes a satirical gaze at the different viewpoints between the working classes and middle classes in Great Britain. In short, it is an unorthodox exploration of race and gender relations, and at the individual character level it is a very clever view of expectations versus reality. It is as Time magazine thought when they placed this novel amongst the best English-language novels from 1923-2005, an excellent exploration of the human condition; all the more remarkable as it came from a new author who wrote it at such a young age, 24.

Smith’s book covers a 135 year span of time, though it will focus (with two significant exceptions) on the years from New Year’s Day 1975 to New Year’s Eve, 1992. On that New Year’s Day in 1975 a very disconsolate Archibald Jones will be sitting in his car, thinking about a recent coin toss he made and inhaling the car’s exhaust fumes that are slowly filling the car he is sitting in. He is disconsolate because his first wife, a slightly mad Italian by the name of Ophelia has divorced him. After 30 years of marriage, she will leave poor Archie with nothing more than their broken Hoover vacuum cleaner. With these opening lines, the reader will very rapidly be propelled into Smith’s style of humor and her recursive narrative style. The sad state of Archie’s condition may not be comical to every reader, but the ensuing scene where a local Halal butcher will run to Archie’s car cannot fail to raise a smile on just about anyone’s face. The butcher is not there to save Archie: no, he is upset because he needs the parking space for his customers, and further, as he will repeatedly state, “he has no permit for suicides in his parking lot”. The “blackness” of the humor Smith employs here is slightly out of character for the book, but not her use of humor. She will employ that extensively.

Archie’s comical reprieve will permit him to leave the butcher shop's parking lot and to wander dazedly to a hippie commune where he will meet the love of his life, the beautiful Jamaican immigrant teenager, Clara. Archie being at least twenty years older than Clara will via their marriage, over the next 17 years provide a framework for Smith to discuss how the generational and cultural differences between the working class Englishman and the equally poorly educated Jamaican immigrant can, despite their dissimilarities still find a way to bridge those differences in order to build a life. It may not be the life Clara might have hoped for; because those differences are real and, quite frankly they stem more from the age differences than the cultural ones. Still, the bond is there and they will, through their union produce a lovely being, their daughter, Irie. Irie (Jamaican for “no problem”) will become a character axis of sorts that the overall story will revolve about.

Archie’s world also includes his similarly aged, friend from their days in WWII (where they were part of a tank crew), Samad Iqbal. Samad acts the role of a devout Muslim, but anyone would be forgiven for wondering at Samad’s definition of a good Muslim. Samad will frequent with Archie an “Irish” pub owned by a Muslim relative of Samad’s, Mickey. Samad and Archie will pass their evenings drinking alcohol, but will (in Samads’ mind) make up for that lapse by not eating pork. Samad will also engage in an extra-marital affair with his twin sons’ music teacher, Poppy Burt-Jones. He will commit a number of other offenses that he feels are affronts to Islam, but yet he will still continue to do. Samad will write off his misbehavior by blaming the effects of English culture: “people call it assimilation when it is nothing but corruption”. Samad feels he and his boys are being corrupted by their new homeland, yet of course as "bad" as England is, returning to Bangladesh is not really an option that is for even a moment ever considered.

Samad has like Archie has a wife that is a generation younger than him, Alsana. She is unlike Clara something of a thorn in the side of her husband (well, pretty much everyone’s side; she is quite prickly). She was not so difficult though that she and Samad could not have any children; they had twin boys, Millat and Magid (the elder by two minutes). That small degree of seniority between Millat and Magid will play a large role in how Samad will view each of them. Their different temperaments will also play a big role: Millat will while in his early teens, be someone who wishes to be a gangster like his heroes in “The Godfather” or “Goodfellas”, but will as he reaches his late teens turn to radical Islam. His motivation seems more like an attempt to belong than anything else. Magid will be sent at age 10 to live in Bangladesh for 8 years in order to become Samad's vision of a good Muslim; instead he will turn into an atheist/scientist that is more of an Englishman in his views and manners than any of the standard born and bred Anglo-Englishmen that drive Samad so mad. (It is very hard to discern which of the two is the greater disappointment to Samad.)

There are a host of other characters in the book: Clara’s mother Hortense (born during an earthquake in Jamaica and a lifelong devote of Jehovah Witnesses), an old boyfriend Ryan who will throw off Clara to join Hortense in the JW’s, several aged Jamaicans that frequent Mickey’s establishment along with Archie and Samad, a Nazi/French doctor who plays a role in Archie’s personal evolution (and makes an utterly unnecessary return in the climax), and most significantly a Jewish/Catholic middle class family of scientist/atheists, the Chalfens. Marcus Chalfen is the family’s patriarch and noted R&D biologist who will pull Magid even further from Samad in terms of influencing him. Joyce Chalfen is the mother and a noted author of horticulturist subjects. She will pull Millat away (to some degree) from Samad and Alsana as she tries her horticultural/mothering abilities in “fixing” the troubled Millat. The key point here is more how she sees Millat as just another plant gone wrong: in her mind, all it will take is a change of sunlight or watering schedule, and he will be good as new. The satirical description by Smith of Joyce's failure to see the “immigrant” youth as a human as she busies herself with their reclamation is hard to not notice. Marcus too has a project, one even more ambitious, he intends to fix all of humanity and intends to show the world his means to do so on New Year’s Eve, 1992 with his “super mouse”. That his grand creation sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon is one more example of Smith’s satirical wit.

Smith’s language is always entertaining in “White Teeth”, but it is the themes she seeks to explore that are the book’s greatest strengths. Her interest in the immigrant experience and how cultures interact are clearly displayed and easily grasped. However, it is her sense of optimism that underlays her storylines with that I find the most appealing. Consider the following early description of Irie:

“It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the fish pond, Danny Rahman in the football cage, Quang O’Rourke bouncing a basketball and Irie Jones humming a tune. Children with first and last names on a direct collision course.”

To be sure, she uses a clever metaphor at the end of the description, but it is the subtle joy Smith exudes in this passage that is most appealing; the sense that despite the differences, everything will come out alright in the end. Smith is also such a confident writer: it shows throughout this book right along with her sunny view that hides beneath the black humor and satire that sometimes gloss over deeper feelings. Smith seems to be saying that somewhere under these hybrid children speaking their creole-like languages, there is hope for the future; a future where tolerance will grow right alongside these 2^nd generation kids.

One last note on themes and this comes from the book’s title, “White Teeth”. Superficially, it is tempting to consider how all people regardless of skin color (let alone religion) have teeth that are white. This physical trait is one Smith explores a little in the manner of a teeth-related several metaphorical sub-stories. In one, Clara loses her teeth in an accident, wears dentures and never tells Irie. When Irie learns of this fact, she feels betrayed that her mother could keep such a secret from her; as if Clara’s teeth were more an emblem of who Clara was ,rather than merely a set of teeth, artificial or not. But it really seems to me that it is the fact that teeth have roots far more than the color of teeth that Smith makes better use of. Imagine how important roots are as a powerful concept to the new immigrant. The first generation will throughout their life reach back to their youth in the motherland to help establish their personal identity. Even the second generation explores this concept as they wander in a confused state between their roots in the new land and the old. Smith brilliantly alludes to this point with a story involving Irie. Irie is a child of a white man and a black woman. She has a bit of both her mom and dad in her physicality and her temperament. But the one thing that compels Irie more than anything else at age 13 is her hair; her kinky hair. Irie will spend an afternoon in (one of the book’s best described moments) a Jamaican hair salon as she desperately tries to straighten her hair. Smith wryly describes the lesson Irie learns from this event – it is a lesson on many levels, not just the newly damaged hair level.

If we turn to manner in which Smith writes, it is the structure of her various vignettes and her mastery of several sets of ethnic patois and their particular colloquialisms that are the most impressive. By the time the reader finishes this book, he or she will know in great depth and I think with equal appreciation the particular beauty of lower class Jamaican and Bengali English word usage. Smith will not limit herself to them though, as she will pepper certain sections of the book with conversations by various Scots and middle-class Englishmen and women. Such language is for the most part particularly colorful and artistic, but it leads to two problems I had with book: repetitive use of structure and a certain literary technique. I mentioned above her use of a recursive technique (a flashback, if you prefer). Smith will construct her entire book with many sequences that will have the same structure. They begin for example with something like the one above with Archie: Archie in his car contemplating his pending death, then a flashback that explains how Archie got to this point, which will then segue back to Archie. With a more attentive editor, I think Smith’s over-use of this technique would have been reduced; but since she evidently lacked one or she had one with a starkly different point of view from me, there are many (too many) such recursions. The book and its length suffer for it.

The other structural complaint (and this is by far, my biggest complaint) covers the same ground: overuse of a particular literary technique. The technique in this case is Smith’s use of “speeches” by certain of her characters. Taken by themselves as standalone scenes, these speeches are often extremely witty and (sometimes) useful in explaining the characters’ backgrounds, the story’s themes, and the book’s overall arc. Her themes and optimistic views are the strength of this novel (and why I recommend it), but the overuse of the various “speeches” and a too-convenient tying up of story lines for the climax weaken the novel and why I do not give it the perfect score of 5 stars that I would otherwise have given it.

I do recommend this book. It may go into excessive detail over parts of the Islamic and Jehovah Witness religions, and it certainly has at least one too many prolonged speeches by Hortense, but it is a brilliant examination of identity, multiculturalism, race and religion, and yes teeth (on several levels – a grown Irie becomes a dentist!). There is a quality and spirit that I love about this book. It may be a little too long, but it quite definitely makes me want to look into one of the four additional books Smith has since published. As I marveled over "White Teeth" what is a Smith of 40 and now a professor of English in an American university have to say about man? I would really like to find out. In the meanwhile, if you have not read “White Teeth”, I suggest you do so. You will be glad that you did.

Movie Review: "Brooklyn"

Brooklyn (2015)

PG-13

5 Stars out of 5

Director                                John Crowley

Writer                                   Nick Hornby (screenplay); Colm Tóibín's (book)

Cinematography                  Yves Belanger

Saoirse Ronan                      Eilis Lacey

Emory Cohen                      Tony Fiorello

Maeve McGrath                  Mary (friend)

Fiona Glascott                     Rose Lacey

Jane Brennan                       Mary Lacey (mother)

Jessica Pare                          Miss Fortini

Jim Broadbent                      Father Flood

Domhnall Gleeson              Jim Farrell

Julie Walters                        Mrs. Kehoe

Brid Brennan                       Miss Kelly

There is a kind of European movie that stands in stark contrast to almost every American movie. This European genre includes good writing, good acting, and themes focused on the human experience. To be sure, there are many American movies with these elements, too. The difference is the manner in which this “genre”, this European film type tells its story (at least in my mind), and this is with kindness. To simplify this special quality into a single word is far too inadequate a way of looking at the point I am trying to make. Perhaps an analogy would work better. Let’s use that staple from Hollywood, the road trip. In most well-made American movies (and we can certainly use Ridley Scott’s “Thelma and Louise”, 1991 to illustrate what I am trying to say) there is the three part sequence to the story: describe the back-story, build some dramatic tension/conflict, and then resolve the tension via some climatic scene. It is the path the American film will inevitably take, that aspect that makes it stand apart from the European film, the American will almost certainly introduce violence. Consider for example, Thelma and Louise’s final wave good-bye as they sail over the cliff, not to mention the gun-play that led them there. Now consider the 2015 Irish-Canadian film “Brooklyn”: a young woman comes to America from Ireland to find her way in life. It is a simple, sensitively told tale. It too has tension, a villain, conflict, and a climax. What it utterly lacks is violence. The story can be related to and enjoyed by anyone, even Americans - even though, not one bullet was fired.

“Brooklyn” begins in 1950’s Ireland with the introduction of a young woman working in a store, Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan). She works with several other young women for an older woman, Miss Kelly (Brid Brennan). We quickly learn Miss Kelly is a very mean-spirited creature and all of her young workers live in fear of her. If there is any lingering doubt in the viewer’s mind as to who is this film’s villain (if it truly has one), Miss Kelly will work hard to help you identify her. Eilis lives with her older sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) and widowed mother, Mary Lacey (Jane Brennan). Rose loves Eilis deeply and wants more for Eilis than their little town of Enniscorthy can provide. Rose will arrange with the help of an Irish priest in America, Father Flood (Jim Broadbent) to get Eilis out of the boy-friendless/Miss Kelly rut, fate has placed her in. Rose’s generosity will be for the films’ first third, a good example of “good deeds reaping a kind of punishment” (to paraphrase the saying somewhat).

Eilis will wave good–bye to her mother and sister from aboard a steamship bound for America and her future. She will gain a new friend and useful advice on the ship, but her seasickness on-board will foreshadow another type of sickness that she will soon experience in America. She will have her physical needs all prepared for her via the thoughtful intervention of Father Flood. Eilis will live with an understanding if somewhat demanding landlady (Mrs. Kehoe; Julie Waters) and with several other young women of Eilis’ age in a boarding house in Brooklyn. She will get a job at an up-scale department store and work for an experienced woman who also will care for Eilis’ emotional and physical needs (Mrs. Fortini – Jessica Pare). But Eilis is not happy. It is not immediately clear if Eilis is having troubles dealing with the culture shock of New York City vis-à-vis Enniscorthy, or if her rambunctious fellow boarders are intimidating her, or if she simply misses and fears she will never see again her sister Rose (tellingly, her sense of loss relative to her mother is somewhat more subdued).

Again with some helpful intervention from those around Eilis, people that care for her and worry about her worsening emotions, she is put into a situation where she meets a young Italian-American, Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen), Like almost all of her American experiences, Eilis has little to fall back on in terms of understanding Tony; fortunately for Eilis, she doesn’t need any more understanding than simple human kindness. The match is made, it matures, it crosses a threshold, and then the movie’s conflict is brought in: there has been a tragedy back home in Ireland. Eilis feels strong pressures to return home, at least temporarily. The conflict is that now Eilis has a new home, new friends, a boyfriend, the new life for which she left Ireland for America; and back home, she remembers all too well the reasons why she left in the first place. Even though Ireland was her home, there were too many “Miss Kelly’s” and too few “Tony’s”.

Eilis will eventually return to Ireland and to the aftermath of the sad event that drew her back. This time, though, the town will seemingly rise up as one (barring one individual) to apparently try to convince her to remain this time. She will get a new, professional level job that she is particularly good at, she will get a new boyfriend, Jim Farrell (Domhnall Gleeson) who is clearly a good man, she will be reunited with her former best friend, Mary (Maeve McGrath), and she will feel unrelenting pressure from her mother to stay in Ireland. Everything will move into alignment to keep her in Enniscorthy; everything but Eilis’ conscience. Ironically, it will be through the self-righteous involvement of the movie’s villain, Miss Kelly, and her new attempts to hurt someone, that will finally show Eilis the path she must take in life.

I have written the above summary in a pretty obtuse manner by not detailing the tragedy that draws Eilis back to Ireland or the details of Eilis’ mother’s motivations. The details are emotional, compelling and key plot points. Besides these undisclosed aspects of the plot, it is sufficient to say that Eilis makes several decisions in her young life that are largely understandable (even if not all of them are honorable or sensible). Her actions have created the dramatic tension in this movie. She freely made some choices that were hers to make: move to America, fall in love with Tony, return to Ireland, become involved with Jim. These were her choices. Her mother’s attempts to draw Eilis back and to keep her were her choices; they too were understandable, if not all honorable. The meanness and bitterness of Miss Kelly were her choices in life, though in one case, there was something decent that actually came out of her spite – it helped Eilis open her eyes to her situation.

With respect to the movie arc as a whole, the conflict in the movie is real and compelling, it is understandable by anyone. The pain of departure at the Irish port as Eilis bids her sister farewell is there for all in the audience to feel and think about. We all watch the little steps in Eilis’ maturation, we might wonder what each of us would do, and likely we all want the best for her as she moves through life; a simple story, beautifully told. “Brooklyn” is most notably told by Saorise Ronan’s remarkable skill of portraying Eilis.  Director John Crowley brings the camera close in on Ronan’s face, often framed by some significant scene in the background. The background will help to convey the time or mood at some point in the movie, but in fact, it will be Ronan’s lovely, expressive eyes and mouth that will be the true conveyors of mood. The direction, camera work and writing are all significantly good in “Brooklyn”, but it is on Ronan’s vulnerable shoulders that this movie truly rests.

Writer Nick Hornby has decided to use a kind of symmetry in his story telling. Such symmetry creates a point of view about life in general. On Eilis’s trip across the Atlantic, she is befriended by a travel-experienced Irishwoman. Eilis will have her own opportunity to help someone in a similar manner. Tony will pick up Eilis from night-school each evening, even though he must leave work to do so – it is sweet, and it helps illustrate his love and devotion to Eilis. But there will come a time in the movie when Eilis picks him up from work (the camera view of her waiting is framed by the Brooklyn Bridge) – both the framing and her actions work together to support the idea of her devotion to Tony and to Brooklyn. These examples of life repeating itself for Eilis all have her as the one taking the action previously done by others on her behalf. It will help establish her growth, but it also helps to make the bigger point that life, simple and beautiful can come around in each person’s life and can do so in a manner that is at the very least dramatic to the individual. And quite frankly, can be thought to be dramatic to any one as an example of how life is truly lived: people love and care for one another or maybe (as with the Miss Kelly’s of the world) don’t; but all of this goes on without car chases, shoot-outs or false examples of human drama.

This movie is a treat for your heart and your mind. There was one flaw: I found the character of Tony’s little brother way too Hollywood stereotypical of the precocious (but sweet) young brother. This character seems to me to be a rare example of poor writing in this movie (the actor was fine and largely stole each of his scenes). However, that poor character choice aside, this movie is a gem and easily earned its various Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay) – it is the unusual example of where I am in complete agreement with the academy on all choices.