White Teeth

a novel by Zadie Smith

2000 Hamish Hamilton

Zadie Smith is KILLING ME!!
Killing me softly with her words, unravelling with unabashed bravado across the page, and I'm asking myself again...Why is it that everyone else seems to find these great books before I do????  I had to hear about it in Interview Magazine, way after it was written of course, in an article that was revisiting it a "2nd time".

I'm only 2/3 of the way through the book, and I want to write about it.  This is now on my must read and must obtain list - because I've only borrowed it and don't own it.  I know I'm going to read this again, the way I know I'm going to read Middlesex by Eugenedes again.  But this novel...wow, it has hit so many funny bones, as well as understood sentiments and realistic scenarios.  It's so rich and (no pun here) colorful.

What really impresses me is the way that she has written about men, being a woman.  I want to scream, "Ah!  She sees right through us! Ah! I am naked!"  Her ability to switch in and out of body between the male and female views is astonishing.  If I did not know who wrote the book to begin with, I would be hard pressed, no, it would be impossible for me to guess the gender of the writer.  She has gone so many steps further in writing into the male life than Brett Lott did writing as a woman in "A Song I knew by Heart".  And that attempt was really good and convincing.

But I do love her twisted and flourishing wit amidst all the seriousness of the lives of these characters.  There is just no stopping it.  My favorite is still pgs 76-77 about the McDonough clan, I believe is the name, and how they have this propensity to find the most violent parts of wars and get involved in them.  It was somewhat reminiscent of Forest Gump's lineage, only way funnier.  Her words are masterful.

You MUST read this if you like great literature.  All 5 screaming stars.  But not with bacon.

Agitatus