1001 Group Read for September, 2012: White Teeth

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1001 Group Read for September, 2012: White Teeth

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1george1295
Bearbeitet: Sept. 1, 2012, 3:51 pm

This is one of our two group read books for September. The other is The Red and the Black.

2amerynth
Sept. 1, 2012, 7:21 pm

I hope to read both, but I started with White Teeth yesterday. I'm close to halfway through and enjoying it so far. I especially like how well-drawn the characters are... I feel like I knew who Archie was within just a page or two. I like the overall theme -- the struggle of immigrants torn between two different cultures -- though I'm not sure it's anything super new and enlightening either.

3Britt84
Sept. 2, 2012, 11:15 am

I'm also hoping to read both... But haven't started in either yet. I'm having a busy month, so I don't know if I'll manage to read both. I'll probably be reading The Red and the Black first, so it might take a while before I have anything useful to say about White Teeth.

4george1295
Sept. 2, 2012, 4:41 pm

I am about 60 pages in and really enjoying this. It is an easy read. The characters are very well done and it is a funny story. What scares me is that these people are probably quite normal. :P

5annamorphic
Sept. 2, 2012, 4:53 pm

I just ordered my copy and will be starting later this week. I hated the last Zadie Smith book I read so profoundly that I am wary about this one (like, I bought the very cheapest copy available on Amazon, which I usually don't do) but people do say this book is better so I will give it a try.

6The_Hibernator
Sept. 3, 2012, 7:09 am

I already abandoned White Teeth. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. I think the book was very clever and funny and had interesting characters, but I was a little overwhelmed by the crudity and obscenities. I can certainly see why everyone likes it so much, though, because part of me wonders how the book ends. I'll have to hang out on this thread and see what other people (less squeamish than I) think.

7ALWINN
Sept. 3, 2012, 3:10 pm

Yay I started this book on audio a few weeks ago and have to admit have kinda got side tracked and now I know I will finish with the group.

8Yells
Sept. 3, 2012, 8:39 pm

Just started my copy and I am liking it so far. I can't say I like any of the characters though. They seem rather shallow.

9The_Hibernator
Sept. 4, 2012, 7:21 am

I agree that the characters are shallow...but I consider that an essential part of a parody, and this book struck me as a parody.

10ALWINN
Sept. 4, 2012, 1:47 pm

The first couple of chapters. The characters are shallow the man that owns the meat shop is not like I have to save this man from himself but Oh I dont have a license for people to kill themselves here take it somewhere else. Wow what a caring ass. Now onward....

11Yells
Sept. 4, 2012, 4:30 pm

10 - That part made me laugh! It was absurd and over-the-top but yet, I can totally see someone being so self-absorbed that they can't even see beyond that to recognise someone in need. I meet people like that every day.

9 - I wasn't thinking of this as a parody but that totally makes sense. Explains why I have been laughing at inappropriate times :)

12annamorphic
Bearbeitet: Sept. 9, 2012, 5:22 pm

I've finally started White Teeth. Although I think I'll be able to finish this one (unlike On Beauty), I feel the same discomfort with it, as if Smith's humor is not really very generous but more snide and mocking. It's hard for me to put my finger on why I think that, and I'm not sure I'd pick it up had I not read On Beauty first.

13Yells
Sept. 10, 2012, 12:00 pm

I finished it a few days ago and have mixed feelings. There were parts that were great and parts that dragged. I loved the first two sections but once the focus moved to the kids, I lost interest. They were such horrible people and I really didn't want to know them.

I do like Smith's writing style so I will continue with On Beauty. She does have an odd sense of humour - sometimes it made me laugh out loud and sometimes I just cringed.

14jfetting
Sept. 15, 2012, 10:14 am

I just finished it yesterday. I agree with bucketyell - I liked the beginning best, and really the whole first part of the book up to when the Chalfens were introduced. If she had stuck with the Iqbals and Joneses, and then came up with some sort of plot for that family, I'd have enjoyed the book much more. After the Chalfens entered the scene it seemed like the book devolved into a big ol' mess, plotwise. The whole thing with the mouse in the last couple sections - what was that? Just silly (full disclosure: I'm a mouse geneticist myself).

I think that Zadie Smith does a great job with her characters, especially her side characters (I loved the two old guys playing dominos in the poolroom, and their additions to conversations, and how Smith described them - that made me laugh). Love them or hate them, they're really well fleshed out. But the plot - I don't know. I feel like she introduces these great/irritating/whatever characters and then realizes she has nothing for them to do, so she sticks in a whole bunch of random noise and then it's done.

On Beauty also left me cold (although Howards End has a great plot, so she did have that going for her in that book). I think she's just one of those authors who isn't for me. Small Island by Andrea Levy has some similar themes, Jamaican immigrants in post-war London, and I thought that one was much better.

15Allison.Potter
Sept. 15, 2012, 4:53 pm

Dieser Beitrag hat von mehreren Benutzern eine Missbrauchskennzeichnung erhalten und wird nicht mehr angezeigt. (anzeigen)
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That's until she meets Kellan...


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16annamorphic
Sept. 15, 2012, 6:20 pm

#15, I have reported you for spam. Please remove this post.

17The_Hibernator
Sept. 15, 2012, 6:47 pm

I doubt she'll look at the post again. Once it gets several flags it'll be gone regardless.

18StevenTX
Sept. 17, 2012, 7:13 pm

I finished White Teeth and agree with bucketyell and jfetting that the Chalfens--and getting away from the theme of immigrants in general--hurt the book. "Silly" is exactly the word I used to describe the last chapters--like a TV sitcom rather than a serious novel. Of course Smith says right at the beginning in the quote from E. M. Forster that her book is about the little decisions that make a big difference in our lives, but it could have carried that theme without turning the plot over to the Chalfens. I wanted to know more about Clara in particular, but she becomes a minor character after Irie is born.

That said, I really enjoyed Smith's writing style, and on that basis alone I won't hesitate to read On Beauty at some point.

19aliciamay
Sept. 18, 2012, 5:01 pm

Sorry group, I have stalled 4 chapters into this and the comments are not making me eager to put much effort into it : ) I have been amused in trying to explain the book thus far to a few people in real life, "Well, it starts off with an attempted suicide, but since that doesn't work out the guy marries a Jamacian immigrant woman less than half his age who is fleeing her zealot Jehovah's Witness mother..." Surprisingly no one wants to borrow it.

20annamorphic
Sept. 19, 2012, 1:47 am

#19 -- great summary!
I am almost half way through and although I will finish it, this will never be my favorite book.
A long article on Zadie Smith now in the New Republic:
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/107209/reader-keep

21puckers
Sept. 19, 2012, 4:30 am

I'm also about half way through, but I'm really enjoying it so far. While the characters have flaws they seem decent people, and there are observations that I find very humorous. I'm a bit wary of the second half given some of the comments above.

22ALWINN
Sept. 20, 2012, 5:03 pm

Im so glad this one is finally over. The first half did show some promise but the second half was a chore to get it done and over with.

23puckers
Sept. 21, 2012, 11:17 pm

Finished the book this morning. I agree that the story loses momentum in the second half with the introduction of the Chalfens - they were annoying and somehow cartoonish in their behaviours and attitudes. The introduction of Futuremouse added an unnecassary layer of detail, though I can see that much of the novel was around genetic make-up and cross-cultural interactions - nature v nurture etc. Having said all that I still enjoyed the novel overall 4/5.

24annamorphic
Sept. 22, 2012, 2:31 pm

The Chalfens incorporate everything I hated about Smith's next book, On Beauty. I was chugging along through this one but as soon as Joyce Chalfen appeared I remembered why I had been nearly unable to finish OB -- I had to skim it standing in the library stacks, rather than listening all the way through on audiobooks, or I would have gone crazy. The other characters in White Teeth had seemed like humor but the Chalfens are just nasty, unsympathetic parody and they even make me rethink my attitude about some of the other characters -- like, why was I willing to accept Hortense as funny? Perhaps because she's sufficiently distant from me, because I don't know anybody from the group that's being parodied in her, whereas I absolutely know people of the sort the Chalfens are intended to mock.
Back in about the 1970s there was a book that parodied people living in Marin County. I remember us, far away in Lancaster PA, reading it and laughing our heads off at these strange nutcases who populated the weird west coast. Now that I live in the Bay Area I think back to that book and how nasty it was. Smith's humor reminds me of that book.

25devone
Sept. 22, 2012, 7:29 pm

I just finished The Red and the Black and started White Teeth and the month is nearly over - oh pshaw. The mixed reviews it's getting on this thread make me wonder if I will finish it now, or set it aside so I can start on the Oct group read. We'll see.

26george1295
Sept. 23, 2012, 9:18 am

I finished this a couple of days ago and I really enjoyed it. The end told the whole story of these two bungeling families. The Chalfens did not bother me. Although, it might have been better if Smith had written a sequel about them. . .maybe 'The Chalfens meet Draccula' or 'Chalfenstein'.

27annamorphic
Sept. 29, 2012, 7:29 pm

Finished this, finally, as the month is about to end. My thoughts about it are on my thread. Basically, it was clearly better than On Beauty, the book after this one, but I was never brought around to appreciating her humor.