I ordered the book today after learning that my favorite bookstore in Portland, Powells, had sold out of autographed copies in an hour and are limiting purchase of unautographed copies to "one per customer."

The book looks great---check out the 20 plus editorial comments in Amazon.com. Also, on Amazon, the book is half price now--around $12.00, hardback.

I'm in, I've got it, and it looks fabulous, and everybody is talking about it, let's find out why!

ginny

Yes, I am very interested! I heard a great review on NPR and I will get a copy.

Jo

I read a wonderful review of this book and it's on my MUST READ list! Count me in. I'm going to B&N and hopefully pick it up today.

It's 50% off on-line, gail and I got my copy next day with normal shipping. You should get 40% off at the store, i should think.

White Teeth has been selected as the August Discussion at the NYTimes Book Forum. Looks like they beat us to the punch - this time.

Saw Zadie Smith interviewed on our local Books program. She may be 23, but she is an old soul. She is incredibly sophisticated for such a young woman. I have a hold on this book and still want to discuss it, even if NYT beat us to the punch.

Now that makes 6 (I believe, Sarah). When would work well for you??

She must have been born either under the sign of Aquarius or Gemini, the truly old soul, let's find out when!

ginny

October?

October works very well for me!

ginny

I'm still interested -- have the book, am reading it now.

Aside from the book being a phenomenal piece of writing, it is a crack-up. I can't remember when I have found anything with such clever and witty humor in it.

It seems October 1st may be the best date for most of us, although I know that some of you are reading it now - which is great. Would you still join in a discussion on that date (he says, hoping)?

Charlie, best I can promise is that I'll subscribe -- I'm too far into the book to stop now, and October is a long way off to hold my thoughts in abeyance! I'm sure you'll have a full contingent of participants come October - there are still plenty of people who haven't "discovered" the book yet and when they do, they'll be perfect for the group.

Okay you have me hooked, and I really like Powells- just ordered Becoming Madame Mao and was wondering if that would ever get on our list. Darn if I can remember title of a really wonderful book I just finished that fits right in to our multicultural approach- set in SriLanka (Ceylon). I truly respect the quality of writing by these young authors. So when were you all thinking of discussing this book? Shoot this dissertation with NEVER get written at this rate

Yes - Yi LiLin: Becoming Madaeme Mao has interested me very much. Was it Anil's Ghost that you have just read?

probably...michael ontdatje (sp). i love the way he writes.

fairwinds - I'd be really happy if you can join us here on October 1st.

Charlie

charlie w...thanks...i enjoy reading first novels of writers. i am at the peak of guest season right now...and am juggling five different books into the wee, small hours.

it's quite wonderful to have zadie receive a nod from salmon rushdie.

Book was Cinnamon Gardens- the senior moment has passed- put in my reserve for Zadie I am 209th on the reserve list. But learned my lesson last time when I gave up on a long reserve list and once I took my name off it was available. So did I miss, what ?month are we discussing this book?

YiLi Lin: OCTOBER 1st..plenty of time

okay and i'll be "home" in nc and might have a better chance at that library, just got becoming madame mao- wonder if we are even considering this book.

The author of that one certainly has an interesting background. It's on my "would like to read" list, and if there were others interested, then well.....

so charlie let's create a groundswell.

Ok, YiLi - See the discussion below this one.

I think its here! Gotta note from the library, only have to pay my fine before I can pick it up

The book is "in the house" its raining outside!

YiLi, is there anything better in the world than a rain storm outside and a good book?

And is there anything worse than a good book that has to just sit there while I make myself put off reading it until close to discussion time!

Betty, worse than not reading it at all is to stop reading it in the middle -- which is where I was when the Oct. 1 date was chosen! It is so darn tempting to pick it up and continue.....but like you, I'm resisting. I needn't tell you it is a fantastic read!

I can't stop now- its due back to library, plus I did that with Daughter of Fortune and lost my thread. So pleeeaaaasseeee let me do just this little preview then i'll be quiet- I am in thrall with this young woman's observations of the everyday and putting them in the larger context. I don't think I could ever match her super style and excellent "telling" but I have decided that I could learn her transition where she creates her characters (and then seems to disgard them) in a context- with my own writing. Yahooie glad you all found this book.

Want to let you know I am reading- slowly. lately this "reading for pleasure" must find its place within the work day and after work research- but i think i stop and pause a lot in this book because i am just overwhelmed by the insights this young woman has about the human condition- she's 24! must be a very old soul reincarnate.

Sorry Betty, I've been out of town, but YES, I DID see Zadie Smith interviewed on our local book talk show here in San Francisco. I was so impressed with her poise, her intelligence, her maturity. I had nothing of that at her age, and I wondered a lot about where she got it from.

Yili, do you get any hints of Smith's background from the novel? Was she raised by intellectuals? I think (?) the book is semi-autobiographical - as first novels often are - and if the parents there are intellectuals, maybe that tells us something about Smith.

I am on an interminable waiting list at the Library for this book - I think it's been about TWO MONTHS!!! It is THE hot book here in SF.

Hopefully, I'll have it by Oct, when this discussion officially starts.

In her interview with Charlie Rose, she said "male friendship" was the main thing. No, she said, she didn't know male friends of that age, only young male friends---from whom she gathered much. She's read everything, I gathered. When she mentioned an author, she would say, I read everything he wrote. Gee, I hope I remembered this next part right. Charlie Rose said, I read that you read through the whole Koran five times. Oh, yes, she said. She also referred to being totally alone for 2 years writing this, didn't talk to people, did not go out, "lived with it" she said. He read a NYTimes (still another) article which said she had altered literature, a la Rushdie. Had she read and been influenced by Rushdie? She didn't think so, or maybe, she said, only to the extent that she may have been influenced by the same writers---that she knew they liked the same writers. She was almost through with the book when she read "everything he'd written." This woman means business, doesn't she? It was refreshing to hear what hard, hard work someone was willing to do.

She also said (hope I get this right) that she doesn't love writing, the process, that is, but that when a day goes right and the writing is good, there is nothing better.

Oh, Rose also mentioned that the BBC has already contracted to do a movie of White Teeth.

Thanks Betty. Wow, she's impressive. So who were the authors that she's read everything of? Would be interesting to know her influences.

Well, shoot, Sarah, for the umpteenth time I am regretting not taking notes as she talked. Also, her low-pitched English accent and my unusually bad reception of that one channel had me turning up the volume again and again---which didn't help.

From an exceptionally tawdry discussion of Zmith (as I now will call her), her favorite authors (or at least her most important influences):

IT LIT DEBUTANTE Zadie Smith AGE 24 WHY HER? She’s more precocious than young Martin Amis, more photogenic than Sebastian Junger, and simply a damn fine writer. When she started composing her widely acclaimed -- nay, adored -- debut novel, “White Teeth,” she thought it “was just about two guys and their friendship over a long period of time.” It exploded into a seriocomic epic set in her native London and profoundly concerned with roots -- cultural, familial, and dental. “When I got halfway through,” she says, “images were starting to come together and reoccurring jokes, and you think: This does look like a novel, it smells like a novel, it seems to be the same shape. That’s very exciting.” MOST CREATIVE THING SHE’S EVER DONE “A poem that I wrote. I never write poems, ever, but I wrote one out of those fridge-magnet letters during one of my mother’s parties. Everyone was fairly drunk, and I don’t know why I was writing with letters on the fridge, but I must have been fairly drunk as well. But this poem is actually kinda good. I often show it to people and pretend it’s by somebody else -- by a good poet -- and they buy it.” BIGGEST INFLUENCES E.M. Forster, John Updike, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo... “Nabokov is the bee’s knees.” WHO’D PLAY HER IN THE BIOPIC “How about Angela Bassett? She’d get all that muscle definition I don’t have. That’d be fantastic. Doesn’t look a thing like me, but she’d rule.” NEXT While the BBC turns “White Teeth” into a miniseries, Smith is working on her follow-up, “The Autograph Man,” about a London autograph dealer “involved in some interesting religious sects.... The structure of it is very much based on [Nabokov’s] ‘Pnin.

England must be busting it's literary buttons with pride.

Reading I still get caught up in the authorship. Thinking she's gone to Cambridge must be bright- but then I wonder is she a prodigy and what was her childhood like- that she could absorb these observations and then play them out in characters. Even imagining precocious children growing up in america in the 60's - toddlers and pre-schoolers of the intellectual radical- exposed to many adults- these children, like ZSMITH need a certain something to digest it all and spit it back in story.

I was thinking that she might have spent time actually interviewing people with these life experiences then taking their stories to the creative edge???????

Oh PS wouldn't it be just super if this were an author we could get to post a few things directly to us.......

I've put a link up top to the Random House 'Bold Type' interview. Many of these also have audio with them - unfortunately, this one does not.

But here's an audio interview from San Francisco's Bay TV (Sarah's back yard)by Barbara Lane of that stations Bookmark program. If you have Real Player, see the link above.

I would really like to meet this young woman sometime. Almost half way through the book! Glad I've been to London, adds to the pictures in my mind.

Yes - Charlie - that Barbara Lane interview is the one I saw on TV. She has an excellent Book program.

Thanks for putting that up.

You all are the reason I never accomplish much anymore. You have convinced me to read this fine novel and yesterday I reserved it from the local library.

HOOOOFAH! Alf's on board!!

Let us hope I'm on board. The last time I reserved a book, I wound up buying it insteasd. The wait was too l-o-ng and you know how impatient I get when I want my book!

Just checking our start date. Wondering if others have the book and started reading yet? This read is very slow for me, finding the author puts a lot into each paragraph- (plus it is NOT in large print).

October 1, YiLi? I just started also..."one part detergent to four parts vinegar"...words to live by!!

Uh, are we killing viruses in this folder, too?

Yes. I'm beginning to see them everywhere!

Chas: My background was in infectious diseases and I had a stint at the CDC, in Atlanta. Believe me, one becomes obsessed I still see them everywhere and I've been retired for a year now.

aha the germs, the germs...but then in Ayurvedic medicine one sees the energies (or not sees) of disease. Hmm now that I said that it gives me pause and a reason to go back in this book a bit and take another look at what one does not see in these characters and the forces they respond to.

I'm lost. Is there something in White Teeth about germs (haven't started reading yet) or did this folder skip its flu shot and catch a virus from another folder?

This germ thing I think is just rampant throughout all the discussions- but it is giving us all pause - a new way to look at the world and for some of us through the eyes of the germ now we better watch that we don't contaminate the crew setting sail on the 1st.

Did someone say you could get this book for 1/2 price on Amazon?

I have been trying but I can only find full price. ANy hints for me??

Judy- It was 50% off when this first went up, becasue it was on the NYTimes list at the time. B&N now has it for 30% off with 7% to SNet if you go thru the bookstore. Click on the book cover above.

(I also sent you an e-mail)

Oh gee, count me in, too! I need to re-invent my other life, tho!

Linda

Thanks Charlie for that campus site. That is awesome and I go t the book for 12.27 no tax and no shipping. Thanks again

Finished book last night- wish it did not have to go back to library I'd like to re-read last chapter more slowly.

Finally got a copy from the library. I plan to read it carefully and take copius notes on a large legal pad. Reading the Human Stain I took notes on little post-its and they are all stuck to each other and get stuck to the pages and hard to read because they are a medium blue. Glad to see some familiar faces here! I am very impressed with the quality of the posts at Senior Net. Members seem to be taking their time to think and post in an intelligent manner. The Red Tent area was what drew me to Senior Net. Impressive quality!! You are all to be congratulated.

~ Linda

Linda- As one of the "intelligent" posters, you also deserve congratulations.

The book came today Charlie. From the looks of it I had better start now. Thanks for the e-campus.

There is a great deal more meat to this novel than I originally thought. It is one of those stories where you read an excerpt,put the book in your lap, muse and dwell a bit on the sentence, then pick it back up and continue. I found it quite provocative, actually. If one doesn't object to the language in it, it is an enjoyable read. Reading this author,I had the feeling that I was being taken thru a sociology course.

Alf- provocative is the perfect word!

Alf says "like being taken through a sociology course." Good phrase! Am up to page 58! I can't help but see one correlation to The Human Stain by Philip Roth but I will keep my "keyboard" shut for now!

Linda

Yeah, Linda. I'll be coming in here too October 1 (the book is sitting on my table begging to be read) - and I'm excited to hear there is a correlation between White Teeth and Human Stain!!

Oh good because I just started the Human Stain- really too late to join that discussion. But keep reading- whew!

You're not too late, Yi Li. We've just about finished discussing Chapter 3. I'll bet you could still join in. But stay with us here, too!!

Linda

so many posts over there ethough--- what to do, what to do maybe at least a quick peak...

I'm only on Chapter 2, YiLiLin, so you can easily catch up.

Give it a whirl!!

ginny

Actually I did catch up on some of the recent posts and am getting the gist of where you all are- I was so caught up in the first chapter reading descriptions of an academic environment that was all too familiar- so i am now looking at the book in the light of the discussion. see you there....

and yes, i think it is a good read along with White Teeth, I look forward to how me move from one to the other.

I keep trying to figure out what her book is about. One post here says "male companionship" and I have heard that an interview says "religion." I'd say it's that and much more. Looking forward to October 1st!

Linda

Exactly right, Linda. Those two things and much, much more.


Charlie

Whew, all these other discussions and its been awhile since I finished White Teeth- looking forward to those jump start questions, hmm what is it less than a week now? Yeah!

I will probably finish White Teeth in the next day or so. Should make for some interesting discussion and comparison with The Human Stain.

Linda

Linda - Have just finished a rapid reread of this. The last 8 pages just take you breath away. Had I realized this the first time? Probably not. Endings are very important to me. The ending of this one is brilliant and atone for any sins of the previous 440 pages (if there were any). I'll say no more. Look forward to seeing you all here on Sunday.


Charlie

Getting a late start here. I just started the book last night and laughed so hard in the first few pages, I thought I was going to have to stop eating my sandwich.

Also, within minutes, I was reminded of Human Stain.

You never read books twice, Charlie. What's up?

I know, I know. Although I didn't really read it twice...the second time was a skimming rush through - but I slowed right down to savor that last part which I didn't do well enough the first time.


Charlie

Charlie- would it be possible to post (or link) to those final pages. I too recall the impact and wanted so much to reread but the book was due and there is such a long wait list at our library that I doubt I can re-reserve it in the near future.

YiLi Lin - I'll see what I can come up with. I have a few ideas. In the meantime, check the Header again everybody....


Charlie

Hey! Check that Penguin link again at the top! There is a brand new interview with Zadie there and it is very good. You might want to watch out for spoilers a bit, but her way of talking comes through even though it's not audio. She reminds me of Annie Lamott sometimes when I read an interview. (Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies)

Linda

Yes, Betty Gregory --- I laughed so hard also. And at the same time it was sad.

I'm going to try to join this discussion.

~Marj

What is past is prologue
-----Inscription in Washington, D.C...museum

The inscription to begin Zadie Smith's book gets at the heart of her concerns, perhaps even gets at her motivations for writing this book. How are we shaped, and to what extent does our personal history (or even our history as a culture - be it Smith's Britain or the United States or Australia or Jamaica or Bangladesh) dictate how we view and approach the present and the future? Weighty concerns for a 24 year old writer. We see this idea throughout the book. It's revisited many times. How we approach problems are, to a great extent, dictated on how we got where we are, first. How Britain deals with it's emerging multi-ethnic character, is influenced by Britain's history. But the good news is the past is just the beginning. That is good news, isn't? Somewhere between the coin-flip and the imperatives of each and everyone of our histories, lie our own abilities to determine the future. A hopeful assessment is it not? How much control do we have over our own futures?

Smith has said elsewhere that,

The germ of the book was the following idea: Would it be possible to get through the 20th Century without blood on one's hands, simply by doing nothing?

Archie is the test of that idea and so I guess that makes him the centre of the book. It's a fantasy, of course, and impossible and amoral, possibly ---

but it's a dream I have, like the return of God or the possibility of one day getting a good Manhattan in a London bar.

What I enjoyed about this book so much was her sense of humor and fun. Just like in the statement above. To be able to ask the "big" questions with such a grounded sense of herself - well...as others have already said: She must have been here before!!

And so the book ends and begins with Alfred Archibald Jones. New Years Eves. New Years Days. It's 1974 and Archie has decided to end his life with a flip of his trusty coin ("heads, life, tails, death"). Who is Archie and why has he come to this point?

---

I have posted a "suggested discussion schedule" in the header (the top of this discussion page). This is a suggested, rough schedule only. Please do not feel constrained to follow in lock step along with this schedule. The discussion will take us where we need to go. This has been in Coming ATtractions for awhile, so I'd assume that most of you have probably finished the book. But for the first week I'd ask that we keep in mind that some may have not. OK? Welcome everyone. Please enjoy yourselves here and share your thoughts.


Charlie

There are many philosophies that avow our past is our future and often in reading them and stories built upon them we forget to consider our "present". Present is hard to define, just by saying the word it has become a past, but within that infintisimal moment in time, we are making choices. For some of us these choices are based on a cultural imperative as well as a personal history, but I'd like to offer that it is not so for everyone. There are those who see each moment for what it is (to them) and I wonder if these are the people who can leave this world without blood on their hands. ?? I think Smith also tells us about the past with a sense of presence in it, making at least this reader believe that the choices were compelling at those moments in time.

I've read the first section. Zadie is a marvel. I agree, her sense of fun in the wretched situations puts a big smile on my face.

For instance when Clara has her teeth knocked out in the m-cycle accident. It was an awful moment but hilarious as well. Almost part of a cycle that had to be.

I marvel at her 'talent' for this depthful writing at such a young age. "A born writer; an old soul..." - in a line from the Random house review.

Having lived in North London(if I remember correctly), and setting the story mainly there, she surely must have an innate feeling for picking up nuances and relationships among and between.

Enjoying it tremendously!

~Marj

Bravo Yili Lin: "those choices were compelling at THOSE moments in time." When I first began this book, I mulled over "What is Past is Prologue." I like that! As if time elapsed is an introduction or a preface, as it was here for White Teeth. Our intro brings us face to face watching the despondant Arch "grabbed from death" by life. She paints a pretty picture of a tired ,depressed, rejected man ,quite joyless as he ponders his own "past" existence. The time before the present continues to be woven throughout the entire novel.

How lucky we are that there are writers like Smith! I had to laugh as she simply showed us fate intervening in Archie's try for suicide: "While he slipped in and out of consciousness, the position of the planets, the music of the spheres, the flap of a tiger moth's diaphanous wings in Central Africa, and A WHOLE BUNCH OF OTHER STUFF THAT MAKES SHIT HAPPEN had decided it was second-chance time for Archie." (Capitals mine).

It's not a pompous, not a ponderous declamation of "fate" but such a delightful sentence that makes me respond "YES!" while giggling at Smith's clever acknowledgement of the unknown elements of fate.

YiLi - No - it is not so for everyone, as can be seen in Smith's novel. Archie is one of those who has trouble making those choices for himself, doesn't he? Seems to have been in a malaise since the war. Stuck at 62.8 seconds with an inability to ever improve. "Madam Posterity stuck Archie down the arm of the sofa and forgot about him." Archie can (but it's not necessary) be read as Old England. Moldering on the sofa. "A huge fan of second opinions." Alf wrote that ZS shows us "a pretty picture of a tired ,depressed, rejected man ,quite joyless as he ponders his own "past" existence." England?

---

MarjV - Right. She seems to have an incredible "ear" doesn't she? Readers and reviewers have remarked how she purposefully stocked this London of hers with a very multicultural look. She has said that there was nothing "purposeful" about it. She wrote about the London she sees. That's the way it is.

---

Gail T - Perfect quote. Just the sort that has her flawless balance of thoughtfulness and humor. I hope you'll all post your favorites as we go along so we can 'remember' them!


Charlie

Yes, Smith has an "ear," boy, does she, but her gritty playfulness during the first few pages lets us know we are in for every sort of humor.

My favorite laugh-out-loud moment came with the blinking Jesus when Clara, as a teenager, is coming into her mother's house:

"Clara closed the front door behind her, and walked ....through the living room, past Jesus who wept (and then didn't), and into the kitchen." Wicked humor!!

I've only read to the middle of the book (will catch up by week's end) and cannot believe how seamlessly these characters are aging!! It makes me think about Z Smith's age---24 (by now 25?)---maybe it's the perfect age. She still remembers the trembling certainty of teenagehood and her brain must record the nuances of various "adult speak" as she reads/hears them. Perfect pitch, just like humming a musical note.

So, to what extent IS our future determined by our past? I must have sat in on and read about a thousand interesting discussions of this and still tend to lean toward an answer of "to a great extent." Even as our various sciences continue to unearth truly fascinating links to genetic origins of behavior (aggression, musical ability, math skill, homosexuality, even), I find myself wondering about memories/experiences.

I currently read about our past experiences becoming "wired in," part of our brain matter. So, are our cultural experiences (long-term memory part of the brain) now literally (physically) part of us, part of our present moment? Probably so. Do we have power to alter the influence of those "wired-in" memories? I don't know. This past week, I've been scuffling with a family member and I end up feeling about 14 years old each time. Haven't I outgrown this?

Betty: I don't think we ever outgrow those emotions. An argument of any kind or dissention with family members always throw us into reverse, to prepare for the attack. We somehow "freeze" into that emotionally retarded era that we thought had already transpired and that we had already passed through.

I liked ZS's sentence that described Archie's marriage akin to "buying a pair of shoes, taking them home and finding they don't fit." It only took his 30 yrs with this gal who thought whe was a maid of a 15th century art lover. How funny is that?!??!??

Chas: His 62.8 minutes of fame as a track cyclist, coming in 13th place, was so much more important to Archie than the schrapnel in his leg , wasn't it? "He was handed a big wad of time " which he shared with Ibelgaufts. (Nationality again?)

betty - Haha! Good one Betty. I'm gonna love this discussion cuz it has me chuckling all over again..'wept...(and then didn't)!!! You wrote about "the trembling certainty of teenagehood" - and I think of how well she wrote of Irie and Millat and Joshua. But she writes with a touch of knowing about all her characters. Amazing how she can really get into their heads. That ability makes you like her characters (she must assuredly be fond of them all) and love the book - and makes her seem wise beyond her years.

ALF - You wrote about Archie's marriage and isn't it funny that we first meet the mad Ophelia only to learn later that Archie is indeed the Hamlet in this story. Here's a guy whose biggest moment(as Alf points out) was as an Olympic track cyclist. "What Archie liked about tack cycling was the way you went round and round. Round and round." Oh, my! And now he folds paper for a living. Yet you like these people. (you really, really like them))

Alf - after Archie is handed that big wad...an interesting bit. Archie does the coin flip thing which verified that:

"Fate was pulling him toward another life. Like a dog on a leash round a corner. Generally, women can't do this, but men retain the ancient ability to leave a family and a past. They just unhook themselves, like removing a fake beard, and skulk discreetly back into society, changed men. Unrecognizable...he is in a past-tense, future-perfect kind of mood. He is in a maybe this, maybe that kind of mood.

Elegant little passage. Light - the 'kind of mood' thing - makes you feel like breaking into song...and yet - the blush of recognition. I can't disagree that men have this ability...why the "ancient" ability, I wonder...


Charlie

For those of you far enough along to be taking note of all the "White Teeth" references. A parallel from the "real" world the other day. The city of Warwick, Rhode Island has decided to take down a big statue of Mr. Potato Head (yep - that one!) because of complaints. Seems the potato head skin was a bit dark and the teeth rather large and white....Really. This actually happened.

And from the neither here nor there department....or not: Mississippi still has a law on the books (although struck down by the Supreme Court) that says the state shall pass no law condoning mixed-race marriages....Seems there are people still passionately opposed to repealing this law that has no teeth (white or otherwise). My, my - we do cherish our symbols and our past...glories?


Charlie

Hello to all! Please let me introduce myself as a lover of Zadie Smith's book! I finished it weeks ago and then a friend borrowed it, so I'm having a hard time thinking about the early section... your posts are helping me, though, and as she is a fast reader, I may have my copy back in a few days.
Certainly, past experiences are "wired in," and influence us for the rest of our lives. Maybe especially those we would rather forget! I love Smith's characters and how they bring so much to each other that the others haven't experienced. I was interested to see she thought Archie to be the center of her book. does she mean the catalyst for action among all of them? He seems to share the central position with several others, in my memory. (Notice how I hedge about the number ..."several"!)
Does that "ancient ability" to "skulk back into society" have anything to do with man's naturally polygamous nature?

OK! Jo checks in! How are you?

If for some of us our past experiences, our cultural imperatives are "wired in" as a betty and Jo have said [i.e. Samad's and his Bangladesh]...and I'm going to extend the metaphor here...are there others for whom the wiring has essentially been ripped out? Like Clara [Clara's Jamaica?]

Archie, for me was the bookends of this novel - though a case can certainly be made for Irie and perhaps even Samad - or the twins. I'd love to hear from others - with perhaps different opinions on this.


Charlie

Pretty good, Charlie, thanks!
Loved Samad, he made me laugh more than anybody else. As the book progressed I became more and more intrigued with Irie. I sense the author's spirit in her. Her reactions to her world made me belive this the way the young Zadie would have experienced it. (As if she's really and old woman now, old soul and all!)
Good point about the "ripped out" wiring, but maybe Clara just found her past irritating, not vanished???

At the risk of appearing a bit sacrilegious, I have to admit that I get a tremendous kick out of books that treat religions or religiousness in an irreverent way. The whole chapter of Ryan and Clara had me cackling! Zadie was not poking fun at a religion but just having fun with thoughts, ideas and practices pertaining to religion that had been such a big part of Clara's upbringing.

Two quotes particularly struck me:

Ryan says, "Who do you want to be with, Claz?....With the 144,000 in heaven.... or are you going to be one of them who get it in the neck....I'm just separating the sheep from the goats, Claz, the sheep from the goats. That's Matthew. And I think you yourself are a sheep, innit?" Clara replies, "Lemme tell you someting. I'm a goat. I LIKE bein' a goat. I WANNA be a goat. An' I'd rather be sizzling in de rains of sulfur wid my friends than sittin' in heaven, bored to tears, wid Darcus, my mudder and you!"

and the second: "Likewise when Clara fell, knocking the teeth out of the top her her mouth, while Ryan stood up without a scratch, Ryan knew it was becuase God had chosen Ryan as one of the saved and Clara as one of the unsaved. NOt because one was wearing a helmet and the other wasn't. And had it happened the other way round, had gravity reclaimed Ryan's teeth and sent them rolling down Primrose Hill like tiny enamel snowballs, well...you can bet your life that God, in Ryan's mind, would have done a vanishing act."

What I thought about as I was busy laughing through this whole chapter is about how offensive this must be to some people. At one time I was very religious and I would have been pretty miffed and not seen anything funny at all in this chapter. But I "passed through" that time and it now seems that I enjoy most of all such parts of any book where religious foibles are displayed.

It reminds me of Peter DeVries, who always writes with such wit and cleverness on religious practices we hold dear. Particularly in Tunnel of Love, I think it was, where the local firework factory blew up one night and the protagonist in his book was afraid it was the end of the world and ran to the sink, sticking his head under the faucet and baptising himself in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Again, some may have been taken aback by this, but I just laughed for days over it.

Gail, you reminded me of what I was thinking (while laughing) as I read of the vanishing act of God if things had been reversed with Clara's accident----of all the comedians' irreverent and hilarious mimicing of sports heros for thanking God for leading them to (football, etc.) victories. Then pointing out that there is no mention of heavenly intervention when their teams lose. Or--much worse--just recently, I heard a searing criticism of a particular rap group whose music has shocking lyrics (beating women), who gave a long, drawn out thanks to God at the Grammy Awards show. Yuk.

And, yes, I agree, Z. Smith's irreverence isn't particularly religious-based at all, but I know what you mean about how upsetting it could be to some. And since I've been there, I could respect those objections easily. The raunchy language throughout, which just adds to the realism for me, could also offend. But, wow, we get to be invisible listeners to all this posturing among the kids---if we were actually there, they'd clam up.

You know, there must be a part of me that revels in the awkward hopefulness of the unfinished, brash kid----even when my head sides with the reason of the adult in a passage, my heart is forever with the kid.

Charlie, Jo----no, no, no, on the torn out "wires" of Clara. I'm in the middle of the book and have JUST read an answer to this, but I'll hold off 'til we get there. It's smack in the middle of something I've marked as a hypothesis to myself about Smith's main theme. Oh, shoot, I'm dying to say more, but I'll hold off. Remind me.

Good, ok, Betty! I wish I could get my book back right now!

CHARLIE:  It appears to me that the fine folks of Warwick, RI.  have a great deal of extra time on their hands to worry about ole Mr. Potato head, like that.  "Get a life" comes to mind.  Like your Miss. tale  ,  I often stoped to ponder what the "teeth" symbolizm signified.  ZS said it so well : "we're not like lower animals, our teeth are replaced regularly, we get two chances with teeth."  Is that so with life?
Wouldn't ZS have a field day with your Miss. story??  She wrote that " Archie couldn't imagine any piece of himself in a gene pool with Clara and winning."

This story certainly emphasises the "rejects" of society.  In the war they were the rejects: the "Buggard Battallion" where Arch drove the tank and Samad operated the radio.  Sam , the Bengal, who was from Bengladesh, formerly Pakistan, (not Indian).  That cracked me up each time he identified himself in that manner.   I loved it when Samad told Archie he had "picked up the wrong life in the cloakroom."  I still find it hard to believe that this was written by one so young.  Great humor.

speaking of humor--- GAIL:  You are right!  It is not sacrilege.  It's funny!   ZS has done a superb job of bringing levity and humor into something many ponder so gravely.

JO:  Call her up- beg, plead and grovel.  Then, she may give you back your book.
 

I am struck by how in the beginning of the book I did a lot of laughing and laughing out loud and as I got deeper into it did not laugh so much anymore. I can't think of a good word to describe the changeover where her humor became more a vehicle for profound observations.

I had the good fortune to travel to London and recall the amazing mix of cultures- so different from the mix in New York City- it was as if cultural diversity was "londonized" and I wonder if that is an intent of the author- to look at the story of these people through the eyes of London (moreso than Great Britain in its entirety)?

Okey-dokey! Begging, pleading and grovelling are right up my alley. I love the histrionics!
I had an inkling that the "WhiteTeeth" symbolized POWER. The Jamaicans were exploited by the British in their own land and when they came to England. They seemed powerless in both places, and Clara's missing teeth seemed connected with that powerlessness. In Western culture, if you have lots of money you can have the teeth you want without keeping them in a glass, as Clara had to. The scene in which Irie makes the discovery of her mother's teeth is funny, Irie's shock is even funny, but the fact that she doesn't have them (remember how ZS describes her -- how beautiful she is, but no teeth -- when Archie first sees her?)is connected with her new environment, maybe! As I have said, no book at present, but didn't she have the accident in England? Who was piloting the motorcycle? ZS makes frequent teeth references in the course of the story. Remeber the three kids talking about how often they brushed? They lied to each other.

Went back and read Gail's post: of course, Ryan was driving the motorcycle!

In part I (Archie) "TEETHING TROUBLES" ZS says "Clara had roots." (??as in molars?) She was connected to Ryan Topps. Her teeth were gone, ergo her faith was also. When she first met Archie at the bottom of the stairs, her faith had "receeded like low tide." That surely is "teething troubles."

Friendship.

I am thinking about that. Seems Z has been able to tell a man's story and also get into their friendship relationship. So far as I've read it seems the story of men. Their short time together in the service. Then all those years. Then a seeming relationship becomes a real one.

~Marj

Jo - Didn't Irie's name crack you up? "No problem"! And yes, of course, I too sensed the author's "spirit" as you say in Irie. That's why a strong case can be made for her as the center of the novel also. She's a character that was searching and growing - an evolving character. Archie, Samad, Alsana, Clara on the other hand...well they seemed to be more about coming to grips with their past. Irie was evolving as a person and testing her roots. You make the point also that "maybe Clara just found her past irritating, not vanished". There is a point much later in the book when Clara has visited Joyce Chalfen and is looking at her family pictures. Joyce asks Clara some questions about her family, which side she takes after or something. Clara stammers out an answer that even she doesn't believe in, but immediately afterward, is angry at herself for her answer. She's certainly ambivalent about her family history.

---

Gail - "foibles". That's a good word. We all have them - all of our sacred belief structures are, if seen from a slightly different perspective, odd in many ways. So ZS does something less than mock these beliefs - she pokes fun at them. Never mean-spirited.

---

betty - I might add one of our local (Red Sox) baseball heroes, great player, who has an obvious personality disorder, and who never fails to point towards the heavens in thanks as he rounds the bases.

---

ALF - "we're not like lower animals, our teeth are replaced regularly, we get two chances with teeth." 'Is that so with life?' you wrote. Good question. That brought me up short. Do we....I think we do - for the most part. I really do.

---

YiLi - Interesting observation (about laughing less the deeper you got into the book). I'm wondering if you're not remembering the residual effect of her ideas, rather than the effects of the humor after you've put the book down. But perhaps, you're right. I just didn't, I don't think, have that perception.

And as for her "londonized" diversity: ZS only says that, following one of the precepts of writing - she writes what she sees. This is her world and her vision is certainly shaped by the London scene.

---

JO - Loved what you said about Power and White Teeth. Certainly another way to interpret this ubiquitous symbol. The ways of seeing the meaning in her "white teeth" are as diverse as the milieu that she envisions. And Irie's discovery that her mother's teeth are "false" (her roots are false...not her own...extracted by a foreign power...left only with a symbol of what once was...) is certainly a major turning point in the novel. After that she rejects her mother and goes all the way back to her mother's mother - skips the generation...

ALF - Thanks for the reminder of "TEETHING TROUBLES". Each Chapter heading is important and many have the teeth tie-in, of course.

MarjV - Important comment! In fact, oddly enough, ZS has said that she finds it difficult to "write women", that "women are hard - so so hard, because their motives are almost always buried deep, where men...do tend to feel things obviously, and on the surface." Whether true or not - she writes in that belief, and I think it comes through in the way she writs Archie and Samad.

---

There's a nice section (pg 45) where Archie and Clara are newly weds and, after one of Archie's coin flips to settle an argument, ZS does a little riff on how "true lovers row" vs "more seasoned lovers" vs a "relationship on the brink of collapse." All of it quite nice. Yep. A wise, wise, lady.


Charlie

CHARLIE, I agree about Irie being the evolving character while the parents are still trying to come to grips with their pasts. Does Irie find more substance in her connection with her mother's mother? It seems to me that she becomes enlightened about Clara's rejection of her past while the reader's understanding of the British/Western influence is deepened. Why did the grandmother turn to the Jehovah's Witnesses?

I've just started the book, so I'm not as far along as many of you.

This book is Funny! Hilarious that Archie cannot kill himself parked in front of a kosher butcher - unless he's hung upside down and bled. "No one gasses himself on my property. . . . We are not licensed."

I also found interesting the discussions of the lack of acceptance in 1975 of someone who'd been in WWII. Archie's war service was also useless to him when he tried to get a job in Fleet Street in 1955: "We would require something other than merely having fought in a war, Mr. Jones. War experience isn't really relevant." This in response to Archie's application for work as a WAR Correspondent!!

And then there was the reaction at the commune: "This is the whole problem with his generation, they think they can hold up the war as some kind of -- "

With all of the Greatest Generation talk here in the US in 2000, I forget how WWII vets were viewed here in 1975. Is it possible our vets have always been seen in a different light from those in Britain?

YiLi, I noticed the same thing as you---that I found fewer and fewer things to laugh over as the book progressed. Charlie's question to you about post-reading residual effects led me to think that the residual or ACCUMULATION, actually, of thoughts DURING the reading may be affecting my reactions. At the first of the book, I didn't know the characters, so everything struck me as funny. As I absorb and get attached to these people, sadness and consternation are edging out laughter. I'm far from finishing the book.

Betty, yes I think that is a strong observation, as the book progressed and I learned the history of the characters, I think I too moved from humor to empathy- not saying the writing and the barbs were not funny, but more often we use humor to relate other emotions.

I am heading home for a couple weeks, and hope to access the site from the library computer. But thought I'd leave you all with the following quote- to me this is not only an example of "informed humor" but might open the door to discussing aspects of acculturation and perhaps that fine line between acculturation issues and racism.

"No one else was more liberal than anyone else anywhere anyway. It was only that, here, in Willesden, there was just not enough of any one thing to gang up against any other"

Is this quote the essence of a multicultural society? I wonder can there truly be multiculturalism within an historical dominant culture? I wonder moreso if this book is exploring this issue in a way that allows the reader, particularly the American reader, to confront these issues.(perhaps the significant role for the humor).

Love reading the comments of you who are way ahead of my reading. Lends some depth.

Just last night I was on the part where the children visit the elderly gentleman (can't remember his name right now)....and he was talking about teeth and his false ones, etc. Be back with the comments.

Is this an American edition we are reading? I know other novels are Americanized. I prefer they would not do that. If I read an English novel I wish to experience it in total. In fact, someone on CBC radio was talking about that very thing in regard to the Harry Potters books. YiLi's comments above brought that to mind.

~Marj

YiLi Lin, as the world stands now, can there be a spot that doesn't have an historical dominant culture? I think that will change in time, but like many places in the U.S.A. and in Northern London, the environment is multicultural. By the time intermarraige over the generations mutes the differences, no one will care in any profoundly chauvenistic way about the historical dominant culture.
"No one else was more liberal than anyone else anywhere anyway. It was only that, here, in Willesden, there was just not enough of any one thing to gang up against any other." Yes, I think the quotation is the "essence of a multicultural society". The old saw ,"If you can't lick 'em, join 'em " should be altered to finish with "enjoy them!"

Charlie - thanks for your comment on Z's statements re difficulty writing women. Helps to understand the feelings while reading that I could not put to words. _____________________________________________

And more on teeth ------- when the 3 children visit elderly Mr Hamilton with food gifts the conversation veers toward teeth. His comments about the Congo and "niggers" dieing because they could be identified by the whiteness of their teeth. And there are more comments about teeth...rotting teeth, brushing teeth, the importance of wisdom teeth - "the only part of a body a man must grow into" And then about wisedom teeth passed down by the father. Once again into the past brought to the present.

So much in that short section. More is there. I am not even commenting on > the Pakistanis & food, etc.

______________________________

Assimilation ----- I think we all lose out

Acceptance ---- then we can live together; enjoying our differences, celebrating our differences

Tolerance -----you over there, me over here

Just tossing things around in my head.

~Marj

I really enjoyed the chapter about Archie and Samad's military service. But I have wondered about - and have been puzzled over -something in the following quote: Archie says

"Our children will be born of our actions. Our accidents will become their destinies. Oh, the actions will remain. It is a simple matter of what you will do when the chips are down, my friend. WHEN THE FAT LADY IS SINGING. When the walls are falling in, and the sky is dark, and the ground is rumbling. In that moment our actions will define us...." (CAPS MINE)

What puzzles me is the sentence "When the fat lady is singing." What immediately jumped to mind is the quote so often used here, "The opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." If that is the phrase that Smith had in mind when she put that sentence in, it certainly makes sense. But the full phrase wasn't "invented" until 1977-78, and Smith has it being alluded to(if that is, in fact, what she is using) in 1945. Smith as an author would have been aware of that quote, but Archie in 1945 would not have. I wonder if there is some other literary allusion to fat ladies that I am not aware of? Help, anyone?

White Teeth is something we all have in common. (And we all get "long in the tooth!")

Sorry haven't been around much. Been awfully busy. I have some quotes to share and a link or two. Have to rush off to a chat just now.

I felt Irie was Zadie in many respects.

Linda

Jo - Believe you are right about Clara's discoveries. They served a dual purpose - for Clara and for the reader. This generational skipping is a phenomena that we see in fiction (and of course, in real life, too). I remember much the same looking beyond the preceding generation to a more distant past in the multi-generational novel Pears on a Willow Tree that we read here. Leslie Pietryzk, the author, even joined us on-line. This manifests itself as the self-sacrificing generation. The immigrant generation gives it up for the future of their children - losing their roots in the process which causes the succeeding generation to look beyond them for heritage and identity. Does this describe Clara adequately?

Why did the grandmother turn to the Jehovah's Witnesses?: We really learn of this in Irie's section (Part 3), Chapter 13 - The Root Canals of Hortense Bowden. Ambrosia, Irie's Great-Grandmother, was converted to the Jehovahs (while pregnant with Hortense) easily - "because they had nothing to convert from." The story of why Ambrosia converted to the Jehovah's is the story of the whole line of Bowden women: Ambrosia, Hortense, Clara, Irie. They were all looking for a man to "save" them - be it Cpt. Durham or Ryan Topps, or Archie - or Jesus. But that's a little later. We haven't discussed Archie's and Samad's war experiences (The Root Canals of Alfred Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal, and what is a seminal event in their lives - and a seminal plot turn too: the Dr. Sick incident. Any thoughts?

Hey, there, SarahT - Glad you're here. That's the spirit! Everyone needs to post their funny bits. There are so many little gemstones of them, aren't there?

"With all of the Greatest Generation talk here in the US in 2000, I forget how WWII vets were viewed here in 1975. Is it possible our vets have always been seen in a different light from those in Britain?"
I'd guess that they weren't viewed in a different light. I'm thinking it is the fact that this was 1975 - a full 1/4 century before the present.

betty and YiLi - Wow! Are you two guys on the same wavelength!I think you two are 100% right here - and have gotten to the core of what her humor is about: empathy. You've entered into Zadie Smith's Moral Universe. Speaking of The Chalfens (and this is much later - but I don't think I'm really giving anything away here) ZS has said

The Chalfens could be a lot of things - the colonising Europeans, the patronising Middle Class, the West, White folk in general --- but all they really are to me, now I read it again, are people with no empathy and too much sympathy. Empathy is the greatest of all human traits, in my opinion, and the one essential co-ordinate on the map of any artist. Anyone in the book with enough empathy comes good, anyone who substitutes empathy for its poor cousin, sympathy, comes bad. That's the moral universe of W.T. Not very complex, but there it is.

Great reading guys! Get back to us, YiLi. But you also bring up another great point with your quote from page 53:

"No one else was more liberal than anyone else anywhere anyway. It was only that here, in Willesden, there was just not enough of any one thing to gang up against any other thing..."

This is really Alsana speaking after they have moved to a "nicer" suburb. It seems to me she's just trying to assimilate it all: her new friends (with their "half blacky-white" children - no not "those kind of Indians", the multi-ethnic food shops ("Mali's Kebabs, Mr. Cheungs, Raj's Malkovich Bakeries"). Liberalism? Bah! "Survival is what it is about!" Wouldn't you say that Britain (or at least London) is well on their way - further along the way the America - to a multicultural society? And isn't that taking place "within an historical dominant culture" - Britain?

---

MarjV - We're definitely reading an American edition. The original was published in Britain - but whether there are any substantial or even minor differences, I can't say. Good question.

Gail - I can't answer your question - but there is a word for that...what is it? when something is used out of place and time. Help??


Charlie

Anachronism, Charlie.

Oh, right. Thanks. Are you good at those? Some people really have an eye for them.
Charlie

Charlie, NO. I've never found one in my life and never have looked for any. But this one caught me eye.

Chapter 4: Three Coming
We are introduced in this chapter to the incipient racism in Archie's office: Maureen's shock that Archie and Clara's baby might have blue eyes - Clara being "colored" and all; Noel's discomfort at "them Pakistani foods"; and Kelvin Hero (although not a "racialist" himself...) telling Archie it might be best if he didn't attend any more company functions. The chapter ends with Clara, Alsana and Niece of Shame talking about their marriages to older men. A segue into the next chapter - time for The Root Canals of Alfred Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal.

Authorial Intrusions. I love them. Some people don't. I like it in the movies when the actor steps out of character and stares into the camera, talking directly to the audience. This is a sort of equivalent to authorial intrusions and ZS inserts one here to start Chapter 5 - her way of taking us back ("Back, back, back) to 1945. Assigned to the same tank crew, Archie is obviously fascinated by the exotic Iqbal.

The reject of War. The Buggered Battalion. All members of the crew tell each other of their failures over many weeks

Until finally the tank rolled into a day that History has not remembered. That Memory has made no effort to retain. A sudden stone submerged. False teeth floating silently to the bottom of a glass. May 6,1945.

Obviously the events about to take place are meant to have a significance for us. And what happens? The tank becomes disabled. Archie and Samad go into town for a bit and find the entire crew slaughtered upon their return. The was has ended. Everything about the scene indicates that Samad and Archie are being isolated and focused on intently here. Samad tells Archie the story of his ancestor Mangal Pande and makes a plea to him about painting people with a broad brush. ZS writes in this section about these two men forging a life long friendship. Do you think she captured this? Could you see these two becoming these great, life-long friends having gone through these times together?

But she takes it one step further and puts them at what Samad refers to as a "moral crossroads." But it's sort of a moral crossroads of his own making. Remember that ZS has said that the germ of the idea for this novel was to explore if it was possible to go through life without getting blood on one;s hands. Samad obviously feels it is necessary, "as an atonement." It seems he's saying that only blood on their hands will show that they have faced the moral dilemma and chosen. Choosing is important to Samad . Making the choice. For Archie, as we shall see over and over - her prefers to have the choices made for him. USually by a coin-flip. And since the things they are fighting for (according to Samad) are the things that Archie stands for (not him) then Archie must do the deed - execute the war criminal. Samad prods Archie: "You don't stand for anything, Jones...Not for a faith, not for a politics. Not even for your country. How your lot ever conquered My lot is a bloody mystery."

Archie marches off into the desert with Dr. Marc-Pierre Perret (Dr. Sick) and returns, if not with blood on his hands, at least bleeding from the leg.


Charlie

Not wanting to fail in the eyes of his friend, Archie executed Samads "assassination idea". At least he led him to believe that.

Take note of ZS's statement that "Indians were emotional due to all that spicy food." I have made notes and don't have the book any l9onger. Where were we in the story when it was said, "Desire didn't bother casing the joint, checking to see if the neighbors were in. Desire just kicked down the door and made himself at home." What a great sentence that is.

Here is another great sentence early in the book - page 26.

"Darcus Bowden, Clara's father, was an odoriferous, moribund, salivating old man entombed in a bug-infested armchair from where he has never been seen to remove himself, not even, thanks to a catheter, to visit the outdoor toilet."

Watta sentence!

He had a "lifelong affection for the dole,the armchair, and British television."

Great descriptive piece.

And I'm sure everyone noticed the similarity to The Human Stain when Samed wanted "desparately to be wearing a sign, a large white placard that said:

"I am a waiter. I have been a student, a scientist, a soldier, my wife is called Alsana, we live in East London but we would like to move north. I am a Muslim but Allah has forsaken me or I have forsaken Allah, I'm not sure. I have a friend - Archie - and others. I'm 49 but women still turn in the street. sometimes."

That mental image of him wearing a sign immediatley reminded me of when the "sanctimony of ecstasy" was in full force, Roth envisioned a banner across the front of the White House saying, "A Human Being Lives Here."

Samed wanted to be recognized as a human being, too.

Sorry to be in the wrong chapter. I'll catch up soon, I hope!

ALF - Did you think it unlikely that that Archie would actually exxeecute a man in order to please his new found friend?

That is a great sentence and I can't remember the context so can't find it.

Hairy - "Hmph!" The description of Darcus Bowden is of a man debillitated by a "mysterious illness" immediately upon immigrating to England from Jamaica. Wonder what caused that mysterious illness?


Charlie

Hairy - I too loved the parts you quoted. I see lots of connection to The Human Stain. For example, while I'm not sure if this continues throughout the book, the white teeth appear on all kinds of people, regardless of skin color, age, origin, etc. White teeth seem (at least early in the book) to be a mark of humanity - as was the stain in Roth's book.

charlie- great to guide us where we are with the synopsis. That will help tremendously.

Sarah- The teeth "pop" up over and over. I have even missed some references I know and am only in the second section.

A movie I recommend. Saw it on video tape yesterday. "East is East" You will feel much of ZS's novel in this movie. Do watch it! There is past to present, as the ism's, some violence, inter-racial marriagge.......on it goes; and only 96 minutes.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0166175

I tried to post this as clickable as Joan taught me but it won't work here today

Marj

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0166175

Good morning, Marj. If you hit the [ENTER] key after you type or paste the link in the message box and THEN post it - it will chow up as a clickable. I'll check this out now. This movie sounds familiar.

No I don't Charlie.  The important point  was that he wanted Samad to believe he had done that dastardley deed.  He wanted to look good in the eyes of his friend .  Children  and innocents want to please those they look up to and be accepted.  Rememeber "Samad's social and cultural circulation of friends was about 9 yr. olds."  He became the Parent Governor ZS tells us.

Here is another example of her descriptive writing:

[speaking of the Indian restaurant]"He hadn't improved anything; everything was the same crap, but it was all bigger in a bigger building in the biggest tourist trap in London, Leicester Square. You have to admire it and admire the man, who sat now like a benign locust, his slender insectile body swamped in a black leather chair, leaning over the desk, all smiles, a parasite disguised as a philanthropist."

And here is a paragraph from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution worth considering: At first glance, the novel's title seems to refer to the idiocy of racism; no matter the color of our skin, we all possess the same color teeth. But Smith packs the book with references to molars and canines and the roots that hold those teeth firmly in place. How do teeth function as a metaphor beyond the reference to racial commonality? Samad repeatedly tries to convince his wayward children that culture and tradition are at the root of their identity. Teeth, then, "the only part of the body that a man must grow into," begin to serve as hereditary reminders of the influence family legacies have on personality and behavior. Discuss how often in "White Teeth" the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons. Investigate how Smith, using the pragmatic Jones family and the emotional Iqbals, deftly illuminates the struggle between cultural connection and personal freedom. "

There it is again, "The sins of the fathers" a Roth theme.

Teeth? ". How do teeth function as a metaphor beyond the reference to racial commonality? " A good question beyond the "on the face of it" answer as to why "White Teeth" is the title.

page 77 - "A sudden stone submerged. False teeth floating silently to the bottom of a glass May 6, 1945."

page 78-79 the tank and killed comrades part talks of silver fillings taken out of one's teeth.

I'm not trying to answer anything. Am just laying out what I've seen.

Linda

Testing --- click and drag mouse from here
Can you
see this?to here!

SarahT and Linda - I must admit, I didn't make many connections between HS and White Teeth, but I take your points. Thanks a lot for the selection from the Atlanta JC article. And ALF, Samad as "Parent Governor". That's exactly what he was.

Linda, this thought struck me: what if we all posted here...in white?? Lots of blank looking posts!!! That'd be pretty funny!

---

I just loved what ZS had to say about readers interpreting the symbolism of her book:

"I heard the writer Melissa Banks say that the most subconscious part of writing is not character, plot or theme, but structure, titles and chapter headings - I'd agree with that. I had no idea why I chose the title (it was the first thing i wrote down) nor what significance teeth would come to play...

jeez, maybe i should have included a "guide to symbols used in this book" like my friend, Mr Eggers...you gotta know how it hurts to make a writer take their most unexamined stuff apart.... but you've also got to know how much I appreciate your interest and attention to detail.... you are what Nabokov dreamed of, perfectly "attentive readers", "dear readers" -- and what he most dreaded about them; busy-bodies, with all their literary hatchets, all their surgical implements, looking for Freudian symbol, cultural allegory, political resonance, literary influence - but when I read, I'm exactly the same. That's what reading is, and without it - as he knew full well - we'd be nowhere. Anyway, he goaded them into it at the best of times. He begs us not to think of Lolita as "Old Europe debauching young America" or vice versa, just as I can't really bear being told Archie and Samad are little England and little India - knowing full well they are precisely that - and more, of course, and more....

Novels are more than the sum of the parts. The novel as I wrote it is a small, suburban thing; parochial and very much of it's time. The invisible cities Calvino talked about, the Platonic books, the grand literary edifices.... well, you make those.

Isn't that fantastic? These kind of things have come up before in our discussions, and she says so well what it is to be a "reader". I am convinced, having heard this similar thing over and over again from other authors, authors who have joined us here, that the "symbol making" of writers is an unconscious thing. That we, the readers, bring light on them for the first time...that they have been in darkness before and during the creative process. I like to think that at least.


Charlie

Sarah, Linda, Charlie, I, too, hear strains of Human Stain, sometimes same subject but different musical key---major (bright) for White Teeth and minor (dark) for Human Stain. Why is it, though, that I am less irritated when Smith turns to speak directly to the reader than when Roth does it?

Then, there is this, not really a similarity, but more of my considering a theme of Roth's and applying it to Smith's work----thinking about Roth's idea of how difficult it is to "know" someone, how often we are wrong in our assumptions and applying that to the many (purposeful) examples of racism and stereotyping in White Teeth, all the inaccurate assumptions about particular immigrants.

I want to second someone's comment about the helpfulness of your summing up the section to be discussed, Charlie. Also, I appreciate the quotes from Smith and others about her work. This last quote---can this be true---that she had no idea why she used "white teeth" as a title? What about chapter headings? Or all the hundreds of references to teeth? How can that be? I wonder if she meant that as she began the work, that she had no well planned agenda for the teeth references. That would make more sense.

betty - If we're all in a dark cave - it's easier for Zadie to get out than for Roth. She fight's for the light, he is mesmerized by the shadows. One can become impatient with Roth. Never (so far) with Zadie. It's always more fun when Zadie tugs at our sleeve. When Roth does it - well, sometimes it's "oh....you again [rolling of eyes]"

I am sure you're right about how the idea of white teeth probably developed as she went along and that she [obviously] mined it as she wrote. I'm sure that's what she meant. Also, I'd bet - as it seems that's how these things work - that the idea for that title came to her for a subconscious reason, a reason never fully formulated - except through the development of her novel.
Charlie

Another parallel between White Teeth and Human Stain is the depiction of older men with younger women (as well as interracial relationships). There, Coleman and Faunia. Here, Samad and Alsana, Archie and Clara.

Do these relationships bother you here as much as Delphine Roux was bothered by the Coleman/Faunia relationship in The Human Stain?

They do me, frankly. I wonder why Smith's model of male-female relationships is one in which the man is far older than the woman. And men also have another interesting proclivity:

"Generally, women can't do this, but men retain the ancient ability to leave a family and a past. They just unhook themselves, like removing a fake beard, and skulk discreetly back into society, changed men."

Is this true? Is Smith to be faulted for depicting men with the same jaundiced eye as Roth uses to depict women?

Charlie I am going to bite the bullit and tell you what I should have on the Ist of October. I was really looking forward to White Teeth and as you know bought the book quite some time ago.

Its just not my cup of tea. I keep reading but I am not enjoying it and I am too old to read things that don't interest me or that I don't like.

I am sure I will have better luck with Madame Mao and am really looking forward to that discussion.

I am so envious of your magic thing. Wish I could do it.

Well, my hat's off to you, Judy. Most of us hem/haw around with our dislike or disinterest in a book, reluctant to come right out and say, no, thank you!! You can be our model for speaking up. Besides, it's our various reactions, even within a discussion, that make the posts so interesting.

page 82

"...it was precisely the kind of friendship an Englishman makes on holiday, that he can make only on holiday. A friendship that crosses class and color, a friendship that takes as its basis physical proximity and survives because the Englishman assumes the physical proximity will not continue."

I thought that blacks are much more comfortable, treated more as people. Others have gone to France in the past and have been happy. Fitzgerald's and Hemingway's days come to mind. No racial prejudice or certainly less I have heard. Did you see Tina Turner on 60 Minutes?

Is not each person on earth ever made a unique individual?

I think in India there are over 200 languages. The country is divided up into many states or regions and each area has it's own language.

By the way, I am 58 pages into Blindness by Jose Saramago and am finding it very interesting!

I don't have any problem with the older man/younger woman sort of thing. Not in the books anyway. In real life I married a widower with 3 sons (two were teenagers) who is 13 years older than I am. We've been married 31 years and have added 2 more children to the mix. Nuthin' wrong with that!

Charlie - you're doing a super job! The summaries are extremely well done. Thank you for sharing your time and talents and intelligence with us! Linda

Not at my home computer so I am not sure this will post. Anyway- not to create a diversion, but I have been reading Anil's Ghost, the background of which is the disappearance and mass murders in Sri Lanka since I think it is 1980 or so. I find this an interesting bit of info when looking at the social history that engenders emigrations and provides insight into the why's of peoples choices in their new country. Almost an "individual politic" that helps us see the nature of friendships, loyalties etc. depicted in White Teeth. Funny in Anil's Ghost they are trying to recreate a skull and there is much ado about skeletons.

Charlie wrote: ve come up before in our discussions, and she says so well what it is to be a "reader". I am convinced, having heard this similar thing over and over again from other authors, authors who have joined us here, that the "symbol making" of writers is an unconscious thing. That we, the readers, bring light on them for the first time...that they have been in darkness before and during the creative process. I like to think that at least."

I agree. I think they go with their creative process. However it is for each one. I have never heard an author talk of the symbols they used, etc. There is mystery in the creation of anything.

We also bring to the reading who we are and where we have walked and how. ~Marj

We suffer from the sins of our fathers - or from our great grandfathers - or we suffer from their faults and the residual effects of their faults, their weaknesses, their human stain, as it were.

I came across this article some time ago. It is very, very long and contains zillions of spoilers but when I finished the book I read it and found that I agree with much of what the author of the article says. He really goes into great depth about the book and comparing other authors, etc. etc. I would say she is in good company with having her name mentioned with the other authors here.

www.thenewrepublic.com/07...print.html

Apparently there was an interview she had with Charlie Rose. Has anyone seen it? Can anyone find a transcript of the interview. I think someone said she said the book was about male companionship. Seems to be much more than that.

And one interview she said she spent two years alone writing the book and another she spent time with college buddies and they helped to edit and change and embellish what she had written. The truth lies somewhere inbetween, I suppose.

My problem when reading the book was, "What is she getting at? What is her purpose for writing this?" I wanted her to get to the point. I think I felt the same at times with Philip Roth, too.

Linda

Hairy- I think the point in some of these newer novels is the telling, the glimpse we get into people's lives- unlike the novels of previous decades where there was some singular moral issue or theme explored. In the beginning of my reading the literature of the milennium I felt a bit cheated at the end of the novels, but then I got in the habit of going back, rereading particular parts- at first looking for the point or foreshadowing of a point- and that is where I got what I call an aha moment- the point, i think is the characterization, people who live on the same planet but inhabit sometimes completely different worlds, it is the picture of these worlds and the telling of the stories of the people living in these worlds that might be the point. IMHO

but I ps'd on here to remind us all if we are looking for insight into symbols, someone needs to e-mail Barbara St. Aubrey- I think she is the symbol guru of Seniornet.

Sarah - We might add one Marcus/Irie to your list (if only in his lecherous imagination). And I did wonder about it, although they didn't bother me as much as in Roth.

Another Roth parallel is Coleman "unhooking" himself - to the nth degree. And to answer your question - yes - on the whole - I believe men have an easier time at that than women. This is a generalization, fraught with all the perils of same. Judy - I second what Betty said. Thanks for being frank. Every book is not for everyone. Never any sense in plowing through something you're not enjoying, either. One hopes that we have more hits than misses for the greatest number of people, though. We'll see you, I'm sure, in other discussions.

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THE MAGIC THING:
Anything you type in between this [FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF"]and this [/FONT]will be white text which can be seen when your cursor is dragged over the text!! Voila! Except you type "<" instead of "["

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Linda - Many of the best jazz artists ended up in France or elsewhere in Europe. Our loss.

YiLi - Let us know what you think of Anil's Ghost when you're done.

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PART 2 - Samad

What did you think of the "cricket test"? We humans do have our little "litmus tests" don't we? For those of you who no longer have the book, the inscription [if anyone knows what you call these little quotes that are on the title page of chapters - let me know, because I have no idea] goes like this:

The cricket test - which side do they cheer for? Are you still looking back to where you came from or where you are? (Norman Tebbit)

Anyone know who Norman Tebbit is?

I think we do look back, cling to attachments that we call roots. I think that's in all of us. Good thing? Bad thing? Little of both? Samad has become very involved in his children's school. Very involved. As Linda (was it Linda?) alluded to earlier - he was a parent-governor. ZS captures very well these kinds of local nitty gritty meetings on local issues, do you think? Very funny stuff. Then another of Zadie's little devices. She introduces Samad's mantras ("to the pure all things are pure" and "Can't say fairer than that")and then - as if she's just realized that we haven't been introduced to them yet: "But let's rewind a little" and I can hear in my head the sound of tape rewinding and I'm sure she wants us to hear this sound!. That's good, engaging, effective writing. That's writing that involves the reader. Involves the reader as in tune with the writer. We all want that, as readers, do we not? Crafty, Zadie. Crafty.

[This is posted before I read Linda's and YiLi's latest posts - but I've got to get off now - manana]
Charlie

Charlie - the Library wouldn't renew the book (too many holds), so I'll have to catch up when I get the book again (which should be very soon).

I agree with Linda, though, that I'm not sure what Smith is trying to tell us about the world with this book. YiLi points out that in this modern fiction, the journey is the goal (awful paraphrase), and maybe it would be best to approach the book with this in mind. But there's a part of me that always wants to be able to tell the next guy, who asks "what's the book about," that there's a message that he might want to read about.

I too live in a very multicultural city (San Francisco), so the fact that there are people of all stripes coming together isn't such a revelation. (Not that it is to anyone else either, but to the extent Smith's book is seen as "exotic" in its setting, it's sort of lost on me.)

Smith has been quoted saying this book is about religion, about the past affecting the present, about men's lives, etc. None of these strike me as the point of the book - and I haven't quite figured out what is.

Still puzzled.

Sarah- how about the book is about "hiding"?

And no your paraphrase was much clearer than my rambling- I think I need to get in the habit of spilling out my stream on consciousness on scrap paper then come up with a simple sentence or two for my posts.

I'd rather you didn't, YiLi, that is, try to boil down your thoughts. I like'em just fine.

Who said that the book IS exotic, or that the setting/circumstances are exotic, Sarah? If I'm forgetting someone's post, pardon me, because no, the multi-cultural (almost typed out multi-national hmmmmm) setting doesn't claim any new territory, but I don't think it was meant to.

I'm so ok with the "what is it about" question not so easily answered. That's probably a good test for your average writer, but from all accounts, this author may never fit that slot.

I think---among other things---she's writing in her backyard about her backyard, speaking through very specific local characters (pretty believable from my experience of San Francisco, Berkeley, Seattle) and attempting to ask a not so local (universal) question---how much and to what extent does a past inform one's present.

Of course, when the question is asked, it comes with baggage. If your ancestors had a history with British land grabbers, etc., etc., then the question is further complicated. And, in the case of families like Samad's, religion comes into play. How does one cope with this/these questions? Through friendship? And gender is added when one looks at male vs. female friendships, and male and female roles in marriages that are trying to answer/live this question. Archie's wife and Samad's wife do not even have similar gender roles---their roles as wives are different because of ethnic backgrounds.

So, the question of influence of the past is a jumble of variables, probably confounding each other---race, gender, specific family, sometimes specific neighborhood, sometimes coping mechanisms (a place of escape for Archie and Samad, O'Conners, and an almost in-your-face gutsy, reality-based view from Clara and Alsana).

Smith must have lived this question to some extent, or known family and friends who did. Even if she doesn't mention this in interviews, the fact of it is obvious.

oooh betty i just know we will meet one day.

the other "point" in this book, i think, is about the unique interconnectedness fo lives. though i think each character is hiding, from a past, an event, a future, etc., i wonder if it is not this hiding that is the cosmic connection. though the author may not come from a culture that emphasises the nature of connection, her characters do- and archie- ? he is aware of this connection at a subliminal level.

p.s. anil's ghost, charlie- is a read it twice or at least someparts twice book- but filled with those quotes and observations that one wishes to underline if one owned the book- they are outstanding. i think still there is a part of this view into the political life of sri lanka that is important in white teeth- what it is i have yet to pinpoint- maybe when we get to the later chapters.or maybe we will "discover" that the political life of a nation, society or culture has a greater impact on an individual journey than we'd thought

Linda - Alas, it appears that Charlie Rose transcripts are not available on-line (they can be purchased for a goodly sum). Generally I have found that if I'm not really into a book, then I want the author to 'get to the point.' If I'm really enjoying the book - I don't ever want them to get to the point!! - sort of what YiLi is saying, I guess.



Sarah - Well, I might say, if forced, that the book is "about" finding our own identities, separate from the isms (be they religious or political) of the day, separate from the cultural mandates that our forbearers may force upon us...about finding the middle ground between our roots and our own flowering (to force the metaphor)...but, hey...whose forcing me?

I grew up in Miami, and a city decaying throughout the 6o's and 70's has been brought back to life, vibrant life but its diversity and multicultural life blood. I'd submit though, that "exotic" may very well be how the London that ZS writes of is viewed by many a reader. As betty says, "she's writing in her backyard about her backyard" - she's said almost that exact thing in interviews - to dispel the rumors that she had created some "exotic" literary never-never land.

And another very astute observation by betty (if I may say): "Archie's wife and Samad's wife do not even have similar gender roles---their roles as wives are different because of ethnic backgrounds." That is interesting isn't it?

YiLi - when you say "the political life of a nation, society or culture has a greater impact on an individual journey than we'd thought" I think of Samad and his fallen icon Mangal Pande, I think of Irie's almost having to start from scratch (as Jamaica 'herself' perhaps did) and I think of Archie - lethargic, indecisive, but reliable, dignified Archie. Archie's youth, once so full of promise really living on past glories - the sun sets on England early these days.

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"jumble of influences, betty says. Let's look at some of Samad's - at his "mid-life crisis." Samad says he's "been corrupted by England". And that his wife and his children have also. He;s at a "moral crossroads at 57 - just as he had said that Archie was at one back in the war. "I don't wish to be a modern man! I wish ti live as I was always meant to! I wish to return to the East!" In lieu of that - he returns one of his sons to the East to escape what he sees as the corrupting influence on his family. Ah,m the great irony here and the consequences of that decision of his twin sons!

His co-worker (Shiva) counsels him about having an affair with an "English girl" because it never works: "Too much bloody history" What would you say Shive means by that? Is there a subtext to this statement? And what did you think of Samad's affair with Poppy Burt-Jones? Speaking of this affair - wasn't the beginning hilarious? In Poppy's office, she leans forward in her chair and talks about what she perceives as the noble "sense of sacrifice" that those in then East have, of their "self-control", of their sense of abstinence and :self-restraint."

At which point Samad kicked the stool from under him like a man hanging himself, and met the loquacious lips of Poppy Burt-Jones with his own feverish pair

Slapstick, perhaps - but a vivid scene nonetheless. East meets West in a passionate lip-lock.


Charlie

Does it have to do with roots? The roots of religion? Are we more our culture or more our religion?

I can buy the "slice of life" book idea. But this one just begs for a moral tone, a meaning. I thought it might me a racial one - some "message." Some "answer" for the world. Sigh.

Linda

The "answer" - perhaps - though ambiguous - can be found in the "endgames" - but, later for those.

LOLLL Well, maybe it's just a lip-lock!

British Conservative politician noted for his abrasive debating style. He was secretary of state for employment (1981-83), trade and industry secretary (1983-85), and chairman of the Conservative Party (1985-87)

And so true-blue Tory MP Norman Tebbitt produced the question years ago that became famous as the Tebbitt test. If immigrants live in Britain and take on British nationality, they must prove their loyalty by cheering England in cricket against their country of origin. Years ago, The Times front-paged a photograph that showed a banner which read: "We’ve failed the Tebbitt test, and we’re proud of it." Any change these last many years? Mr India was that poster again, only a little more intoxicated. Mr India didn’t stand alone

Reference to N Tebbitt

I just remembered another part of one of Zadie Smith's interviews where she said (or suggested, hinted, can't remember) that people living outside of their country of origin may try to hold on tighter to their ethnic identity, that their memories of the "old country" may become fixed, frozen in time, idealized.

That tendency to idealize the past happens to everyone, though. In this country's present culture, we yearn for our past "culture" of "simpler times." Our nostolgia is seen in clothing styles, farm house architecture, interior decorating, car models (for goodness sake), "simplicity" lifestyle fads. Naturally, we forget the not-so-memorable parts of the "good old days," so our memories are distorted. I wonder how recent, thinking of a broader view, is this human yearning for the past. Does anyone know if this is new behavior, say, only 100 or 200 years old?

What a neat article! Thanks, Marj!

Linda

Great recent posts! Don't know where to start, whose observations to single out, so I'll just plunge in haphazardly. Betty, I think the longing for the past is a longing for clarified identity and nostalgia for belonging, fitting in. It probably never existed as we half-consciously or sub-consciously construe it. When I find old, faded pictures and relics of family past (in process of clearing out my childhood home right now after the death of my mother), I seize upon them and have a field day imagining what life must have been like, what motivated a particular picture-taking session, what great-grandma did to adjust an old recipe to make use of canned ingredients, why Mom wore a hat that day when her sister didn't, and on and on. As for the acquisition of items that remind us of times when we weren't even here, I think much of that is a 20th century phenomenon. I don't mean the antique collecting so much as the recreating or imitating of an older environment. We can afford such indulgences (well, some of us) and we have more time available for refining the details. (I'm thinking of the country kitchens in those architectural and home design magazines.) We really haven't assimilated into our crazy-quilt culture; we think we have to have the past so that we don't forget who we are historically. I did three things when I retired three years ago: visit the "old country," join an organization for women of my ethnic background, and buy a dog of a breed that has its origins in my grandmother's homeland. I didn't realize how concentrated my efforts had been to connect this way until I started reading these posts!



Samad reveres and misses his country, but Clara's memories and awareness of her grandmother's and mother's acquired beliefs have robbed her of any positive feeling about her Jamaican background. I think they both have realistic memories, but Samad's personality causes him to romanticize the effect his culture will have upon his son, partly because for him the past is "frozen". He doesn't allow for the possibility of change in Bangladesh (sp?).



In addition to this wonderful mix of ethnic heritage in one neighborhood and even in one little group of friends is the difference in personalities. One might expect the wife from Banglandesh to be subserviant to the husband, but Alsana is a fiery lady! I laughed out loud when she was grabbing at Samad and trying to silence him during that parent school meeting. Which one bent the finger back trying to get the other one to let go? Don't have my book back yet. Later on they go to the ground, literally, in the back yard over something else, and that was pretty funny too, but I can't emember now what they were fighting about. I love Alsana's eruptions!

Speaking of yearning for the past, I love old houses with a ridiculous passion. During different visits to strange cities, I have circled the same block of turn of the century homes until someone working in a yard looked at me funny, as if I might be casing the block for a midnight burglary.

I can sit through even bland PBS reruns, transfixed by wooden floors and detailed handrailings, high ceilings and candles held high to see up steep staircases. I love the sounds of old houses---heavy doors, tinkling front doorbells, footsteps on wooden floors, the crunch of carriage wheels outside. I know this sounds ridiculous, but my feeling when I'm watching is that I miss being there---even though I've never been there. I've never lived in an old house, with the exception of a tiny gingerbread thing on a run down street when I was 4 years old and that was only for six months.

There is a program on some cable channel that I've caught only a few times---something about "if these walls could talk"----that follows the restoration of older homes. Hidden passageways that have been walled up for decades are discovered; original wallpaper and woodwork are found above lowered ceilings. Dated objects, some from the original owners, are found in the attic or behind/in walls. The last time I watched, the house was particularly large with many rooms, but the new owners were surprised to discover two additional rooms that previously had been sealed up altogether, the walls having been moved at some time in the house's history. ooooh, great stuff!!

Pardon my wistful, off-topic thoughts.

"...transfixed by wooden floors and detailed handrailings, high ceilings and candles held high to see up steep staircases. I love the sounds of old houses---heavy doors, tinkling front doorbells, footsteps on wooden floors..."
Betty, me too!

How much of the culture comes through the years? How much of the religion? I keep thinking of the music and how I would hate to see any culture's or religion's music get lost in the immigration and beginning new roots process. That is one thing that seems to remain with some, thank goodness.

Maybe it's part of being a senior to look back as we do with such nostalgia. I think the period I grew up in was the best ever and miss it terribly. I felt the values were better, the manners were better, and life went at a better pace. And, with the advent of TV, the whole country was even more one in tastes and humor and music. I miss that. And yet we must move on and it probably wasn't the greatest of times but I still hang on to my memories.

Probably remember things wrong anyway.

Linda

Jo- yearnings for the old country and dog breed- ? what dog breed? I am entranced.

Betty your post tugs at a cord, idealization- the old country- old loves? I wonder if that is something ZS saw as she looked at the world, I keep remembering how young she is! This novel reminds me of my own youth, how I'd look out at the world and then carry on an inner conversation with myself, I'd watch my parents or neighbors carry on some ritual and remark about it inwardly- and with a "touch" of sarcasism- Zadie has written the novel- for me- of youthful observation.

Hairy you ask an important question about culture, society and/or religion- it has been my outsiders view that some religions, like the Muslim- hold the qualities and characteristics of the social order for those who practice. Buddhism in Asian countries is similar, here in America, it is my observation the Buddhism has become a label rather than a lifestyle- perhaps the same holds true inLondon for the Muslim ????

A youthful view, well, yes, that makes sense about Smith, YiLi. It could also explain the energy in Smith's words vs. the fatigue of Roth's. Not a very sophisticated thought, but maybe Roth has grown weary in his search. I have a hunch, though, that the two views have less to do with age than perspective.

My use of the word "youthful" isn't quite right. The view from youth is slightly different from "youthful."

MarjV - Thanks for finding that Norman Tebbitt stuff. That's good information. The Tebbitt test. And "proving" your loyalty. Not too far removed from the "English as a first language" movement...

And, betty, that holding tighter to ethnic identity is true, don't you think? Isn't this just what Samad decided that he had to do - for the sake of his family, as he put it? And "frozen in time" - yes. Frozen and anchored to the image of Mangal Pande. You ask a good question regarding the age of this phenomena. I can't imagine that it can be too old for Americans, Canadians - after all, we're young countries. Perhaps this idealization of the past has a longer history in a country like England.

Jo - I know I'm repeating myself, but your message reminded me again of Leslie Pietrzyk's Pears on a Willow Tree discussed here. She used an old photograph as a reference point (especially "what motivated a particular picture-taking session" and family recipe's as Chapter headings.

Jo, you do a wonderful job of capturing and comparing Samad vs Clara.

Linda, your speaking of losing a culture's music reminded me of something else that ZS has said when speaking of Bob Marley. Paraphrasing - Jamaica's only prophet, she called him. Yes, the music is important - the soul of a culture in many ways.


Charlie

Charlie, I'll have to get Pears on a Willow Tree. Missed reading it for the discussion.
YiLi, my pup is a Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, frequently called a Wheaten, Irish in origin. Wheat is her color, and she has a dense, culy, easlily matted coat and a perpetually child-like temperament: play, run, jump! Life is so exciting for a Wheaten that they just about have a fit when company arrives. She is just two years old, but in no danger of ever growing up.

MOLARS

Jo and Betty talked about this "youthful" attitude or way of looking at things. It's universal, this younger generation looking at the preceding one in a certain way. But ZS says it's a two way street. Do you agree?.

Now, how do the young prepare to meet the old? The same way the old prepare to meet the young: with a little condescension; with low expectations of the other's rationality; with the knowledge that the other will find what they say hard to understand, that it will go beyond them...

Do you agree with that? Low expectations....and a realization that it's very likely that conversations will somehow miss the mark...just barely...just slightly, like two only slightly similar dialects of the same language.

Can Samad make decisions differently than he does? Is he relegated, because of the immigrant experience, to proceed in a certain way? How much is in his hands and how much is preordained? ZS seems to say: Not much. He can only play out the script.

...immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better. A trauma is something one repeats and repeats, after all, and this is the tragedy of the Iqbals - that they can't help but reenact the dash they once made from one land to another, from one faith to another, from one brown mother country into the pale, freckled arms of an imperial sovereign. It will take a few replays before they move on to the next tune.

Fatalistic? Perhaps, but somehow soberly tough-minded. There's the cachet of survival here that focuses one on an outcome bespeaking regeneration - renewal and the thriving of future generations. Hopeful and ultimately, optimistic.

[Jo- send me an e-mail and I'd be happy to send you my copy of Pears


Charlie

Thank you, Charlie!
I know from recent conversations with my teenage grandson that they really believe they are on a totally different wave length. Also, this experience combined with my teaching memeories convinces me that they want it that way! If you "understand" too much then their code is broken and that spoils the fun!
The immigrant experience as you characterize it, Charlie, certainly pertains to Samad and no doubt to many others, but when the ethnic difference is less obvious I don't think the experience is the same. The Irish Americans I know (my own grandmother among them) talked little about what was left behind and seemed very glad to be here! Probably they did not perceive their values to be threatened in the way Samad's were in London. What they have in common with Samad is the need for new economic and social opportunities, but they didn't feel thy were engaging in some kind of moral or cultural trade-off to get them as he did. Also, don't you think Samad is very much an individual? Maybe other Indians or Bangladeshians (!)abandoned their culture with a lesser sense of doom and alienation. Smith seems to be saying that his feelings are typical, though, but he comes across as a pretty unique character-- a real breast-beater, garment-render and hair-tearer type: OMYGOD the world is coming to an end!!!

Jo, your pointing out the difference between Irish immigrants and Samad's family makes me hypothesize a difference in the original relationship between the country (Britain or United States) and the immigrants or their ancestors. If the original relationship contained oppression, maybe that explains the ties to or yearning for the past. Also, I know there are forces that make assimilation into a dominant culture difficult---those perceived differences (does he look like me, does he act like me, how different is his skin color from mine) are related to distances between groups. These perceived differences work in both directions.

There is a place in the book (I wonder if I marked it) where Smith says the loss, the hurt, from that historical oppression lives on----even if the current generation doesn't recognize the origin of the loss. Smith was writing about Clara, if I remember correctly.

This two-way miscommunication between generations---or as Charlie writes, conversations that miss the mark, just barely, as if there are dialects within the same language-----this calls to mind one of my favorite passages in the book. Over two or three pages, Archie ends his sentences directed to Irie with "young lady." (I think Samad did it to, but I can't remember.) Archie is irritated with Irie and giving her irritated (and irritating) father talk. I laughed so hard at this "young lady" because it represented Smith's perfect ear in capturing Archie's (and Samad's?) aging into clueless fathers. "Young lady" means "I'm your father and I know everything and you have to listen to me and stop smirking!" Clueless.

This subject is also a sore subject with me. What I truly hate is when someone younger than me treats me, without checking it out, as if I won't be able to hear/understand/know. It's the equivalent to the blank look on the grocery store cashiers faces when they call me "ma'am." And where was I when this happened? One day the cashier was flirting with me. The next day, he was calling me ma'am. I hated that.

find this communication (mis?) between generations intriguing- especially since i have gotten a much better understanding of how my mother must have felt attempting to communicate with me- as I move along that path with my own children. When younger I just assumed my mother had no clue or was always preaching because being the youngest in a family with a large gap- I was raised by "old people". This is not the case in my family, my being young when my oldest was born and of course, seeing myself as a youngster- more their peer than parent- but alas that is now how they look at it-

so i think it is not so much a function of age and age difference as it is role and role difference- as a parent regardless of age there is this necessary (?) barrier that I used to think was more dominant in western traditions until I read your posts and thought more about white teeth-

Jo and betty- I agree that the colonial immigrant experience must be very different from the West European immigrant experience and, because of that, have certain consequences.

---

Have you all experienced this? Riding on a bus down 5th Avenue in New York or in any number of larger urban cities...experienced what ZS describes as the No. 52 bus - it goes "two ways."? [pgs 137-8] Go one way and "watch the many colors shade off into the bright white lights of town", or go in the opposite direction "as white fades to yellow fades to brown." Most of you probably have. It's always an interesting trip, curious and startling at the same time.

---

We've touched on it a little, but when the kids (Irie, Millat and Magid) go off their way on the No. 52 bus - to the "bright white" part of town - ZS writes in some detail on white teeth for the first time. Hamilton, the old English pensioner, has false teeth and tells the tale of colonial slaughter in the Congo: "When I was in the Congo, the only way I could identify the n****r was by the whiteness of his teeth..." They died because of that he goes on to say - while he lived because of it. Because of their white teeth. Irony, of course - but does anyone have any other \thoughts on that?

Hamilton's second assertion about teeth - that the wisdom teeth "are the only parts of the body that a man must grow into. He must be big enough man for these teeth." They're the teeth of the father and are passed down to the next generation. If you're not a big enough man for your father's heritage, for what he wishes (and must) pass along to you , then they won't fit, they'll grow crooked, become infected and they must be extracted. Hamilton recommends that they just be pulled out early in life and avoid the likely problems. "Who" do you think this is advice to? Sound advice? Obviously, this is advice from a representative of a "decaying" British society, and as such, the advice is certainly suspect. Do you think this is a little forced?

---

While the children are having tea with this representative of English decay, Samad has traveled (to meet with Poppy) the other way on the No. 52: to the place where the skin color has changed to black. It's here that he has his revelation - among the Mad of the city. The place where Mr. White-Face and Mr. Newspaper and Mr. Toupee and Mad Mary reside. Mad Mary looks at Samad with "recognition" and asks Samad the prophetic question: "WHAT'S DE SOLUTION, BLACK MAN." It's here that Samad comes to the decision the he must be "firm" and hold on to tradition. To save his family in this new world, he will tear it apart by sending one twin (if not both) back to retrieve their roots. But isn't it really his roots he's concerned with? Isn't it always folly to make these kinds of decisions for our children? ZS seems to think so.


Charlie

Did you feel Samed topped Mad Mary by spouting off to her or did you feel he was showing they may have been kindred spirits? I thought he was showing some madness of his own there.

Well, Linda, at first he was trying desperately to avoid her, but Mad Mary saw Samad as a "fellow traveler", and "spotted the madman in him." When he sensed that Mad Mary was actually listening to him, he became emboldened and put into words his conflicts. Mad Mary, by her confrontation, helped Samad understand his conflicts and formulate his 'solution.'

The scene (and chapter) ends, by the way, with Samad's two sons having discovered him with Poppy: "their white teeth biting into two waxy apples..." A Garden of Eden reference perhaps.


Charlie

I missed that above reference to the kids and the apples.

Love that teacher's name - Poppy.

I enjoyed that confrontation with Mad Mary. They reached each other.

~Marj

MarjV - I know. Poppy Burt-Jones. Great name. Veddy liberal Bri-Tish. So what was Samad's attraction to her?

As a sidebar to this discussion a report by the Commission into the Future of Multi-Cultural Britain has been released - and all h**l has broken loose:
The news
"There ain't no black in the Union Jack"


Makes some interesting reading if you have a few minutes. Sheds a bit of a different light on the status of racial tolerance in Britain.


Charlie

Interesting article on being British. How maddening it must be to those questioned by those of us questioning.

I think I am slow in thinking about the posts- so I might be backing us up a bit- but the more we discuss and the more I recall this book seems to be pointing out commonalities among us- and doing it in a shake up way- sort of "aha you think you are so...special...superior...unique...etc" and I wonder upon additional reflection is that is not what the white teeth are all about- other than those of us manifesting disease or decay- we as a species- regardless of race, religion or ethnicity have (or at least start out with) white teeth.

I think this thought hit me as I passed Anil's Ghost back to the librarian- bones and skeletons- what we are all reduced to and like Samad and Mad Mary- ZS is to me again pointing out what is common- the bit of madness in us all.

Wasn't it just a sudden attraction Samad had to Poppy. That is how I remember it. And his total body reacted. Those descriptions were so funny. Just so great how she wrote him continutally saying : "To the pure all things are pure, etc." Rationalizing is a way of dealing with challenges.

Chap 6, second para.....starts: "by a strange process of symmetry.......," and a few pages on it leads to his thought processes where "desire kicks down the door".

Thinking about the Root Canals of Mangal Pande. Quite a chapter. Notice how they have this discussion in their very safe place. Samad sure is not going to leave his point of view. Hard to do that when we base who we are upon a point of view especially when ancestors are so revered.

Root canals are not nice. I have 'encountered' several. And there is always follow-up pain and procedure.

~Marj on Friday

Just read the article Charlie mentions and links.

So then, I ask, what do you image when you say American? Is it a multicultural reality that the word connotes? Don't mean for anyone to answer this - just privately look.

~Marj

YiLi Lin - Absolutely. Besides white teeth as metaphor in its many incarnations - one of their primary meanings is just that I think: they are something that binds us together, something that we all have, as human beings, in common. Also, as you say, there was that recognition between Mad Mary and Samad - again their commonality.

MarjV - And it was a mutual attraction between Samad and Poppy, wasn't it? But a bit of the forbidden, perhaps? A barrier between them? A door? Which would bring into focus the line you quoted (a great one, by the way): "desire kicks down the door".

Good point about their "safe place". O'Connell's Poolroom. How in the world is this young woman writer able to capture the flavor of a place such as O'Connell's. O'Connell's is a particularly male bastion, isn't it? "O'Connell's is no place for strangers." Or women, it would seem. "O'Connell's is the kind of place family men come to for a different kind of family." Yet, she seems to get it right on! These are the places where idealized history and/or myth is revered. Where the big subjects are discussed ("from the meaning of Revelation to the price of plumbers.") So, naturally, this is where Samad and Samad meet to discuss the future of their children ("I tell you, I don't know what is happening to our children in this country.")

WHen talking to Archie about his children, Samad brings up one of the big concerns of the novel: assimilation. Archie says that "people call it assimilation when it is nothing but corruption." Would you say that's the common view of assimilation? That it's a "corruption" of who we are? Of out culture? Of our religion? I'd say so.

Although...(page 161), ZS tells the little tale of the Queen of Thailand. Remember it? She's floating down the river with her entourage and they capsize and she drowns. No one can save her because tradition taught that no one could touch the Queen of Thailand - thus no one could lend her a helping hand.

"If religion is the opiate of the people, tradition is an even more sinister analgesic...To Samad, as to the people of Thailand, tradition was culture, and culture led to roots, and these were good, these were untainted principles...roots were what saved, the ropes one throws out to rescue drowning men.

So Samad has decided to throw th life preserver or "roots" to his sons. The irony of course, is that he is having a terrible time keeping to the traditions himself - what with Ms. Burt-Jones and all! He ends the affair. Her reaction, I really can't print here, but it was funny: "her grief would have been an epiphany bringing him one step closer to his own redemption. But instead he had got only......." Too funny. To Shiva, it was only history repeating itself: "It's all brown man leaving English woman, it's all Nehru saying See-Ya to Madam Britannia."

Charlie

Charlie, you ask how does this young woman, Z. Smith, capture the flavor of the place such as O'Connells, this male retreat. I don't know of her personal knowledge of such a place, but I know that women have always been aware of those closed male enclaves that exclude them---the old boy network, the locker room, the men only clubs.

As wives, mothers, and other service roles, women have been listening to stories of places and from places forever. When I was in management, the guys' favorite thing to do was to tell "war stories" from years passed. Hour long stories, at happy hour, with everyone chiming in. "Remember when old Johnson was thrown in jail when we were down in San Antonio?" Hoots of laughter. Then the long version of two women in his hotel room, one of them a sheriff's wife, but he didn't know it, somebody complaining about noise on the next floor up, the manager knocking on the wrong door----laugh, laugh, laugh----then how old Johnson gave a perfect presentation in front of 300 the next morning. Laugh, laugh, laugh. A thousand war stories I heard.

Wish I could repeat perfectly an explanation from an article of women's intuition. Most people use that term to mean some kind of sixth sense. This article proposed that because of women's service roles (taking care of...husbands, children, parents), that listening to, staying in tune with and anticipating others' needs---plain old paying attention---is something women learned to do well. We pay attention to those we are taking care of---or to those who have power over us. (Other articles talk of the same paying attention slaves did, in part, to stay alive.) I wouldn't be surprised at all if Clara and Alsana could describe exactly what O'Connells meant to Archie and Samad. They may have rolled their eyes about it, but on another level could understand what needs were filled.

Betty while here in NC I take time to head up to the library and read as much "southern literature" as I can cram in- books we don't see on the shelves in the north. Well in keeping with your post, I am reading a book and was caught by the phrase about women being characters in other peoples (men) stories! Gave me pause to think how much of my own life I have lived in my own story- and reinforced my conscious sense to continue to create my own story.

In a way I imagine ZS as living her own story, I see her sitting in the pubs and accessing the lockeroom - raising a few eyebrows along the way- but watching, listening and now telling it her way.

these thoughts on assimilation are intriguing- though behind I am reading last weeks NYT Magazine section on Chandrika Kumaratunga- pres. of Sri Lanka- I remember when in London many years ago I was struck by how "political" even the young people were- aware and very much informed by political events- I am looking for the link to Sri Lanka in this book- I believe there is more to Samad and the fact of him and his presence in this book than I first thought.

America? I think alot of us forget that America designates 2 coninents. Most of my friends were born in one of the other countries of this hemisphere. A few weeks ago without thinking I said "us Americans" referring to those of us who were born in the U.S. The person who was with me was born in one of those other countries ~ She is an American also.

Charlie in previous post: "WHen talking to Archie about his children, Samad brings up one of the big concerns of the novel: assimilation. Archie says that "people call it assimilation when it is nothing but corruption." Would you say that's the common view of assimilation? That it's a "corruption" of who we are? Of out culture? Of our religion? I'd say so"

I also agree. If assimilate means 'to absorb' - then there is no way to celebrate differences. We are not accepting. We are sucking away some life blood. Such a difficult situation. In my neighborhood we have several ethnic groups. They will not speak English - and that angers others. And me sometimes. I would like them to speak English and still have their own cultural specialness. Can this be or am I wanting assimilation? But you can't have understanding if you can't speak to each other. How can I know what they think if they refuse to speak English - which they can. Rambling on Saturday evening.

MaryV- I agree with that sense of corruption- but then I wonder why emigrate? The answer in many instances is obvious- the need for political, religious and economic freedom. I think that what is unique is people reinventing themselves in western countries like the US whose history is one of multiculturalism. It would be interesting for me to learn about people who move from an historical single culture nation to another historical single culture nation. The only reference I have is a friend, Chinese, who spent a lot of time in Viet Nam- looking for freedom that fell apart in the 60's- then back to china then made it west. Her life changed most when she came through western countries and settled in the United States- here she learned English, was able to practice her profession. Her "assimilation" is not complete, she is still awed by many american ways and angered by others. Funny though in writing this, I am looking from inside out- never before this moment thinking about how americans are viewing her. Hmmmm

anyway ps to charlie after reading the NYT article I found it very informative in terms of Anil's Ghost and now see that book as a greater and important literary contribution It's a quick read and might enhance some people's enjoment of White Teeth as a follow up- even if not a selected book for discussion.

Betty - I like your intuition thoughts. Yes.

YiLi - thanks for your comments. If your friend can practice her profession & can communicate in English - can she not still preserve the uniqueness that is hers. I sometimes think "American ways" are dependent on where you live...in a large city it would be so different than other places. And a small town - depending on its ingrowth - could be horrid or wonderful.

I guess my bottom line is --- acceptance, not tolerance or assimilation. And I want it in my direction also.

I also have read "Anil's Ghost". A tragic novel but quite excellent.

And on we go with Irie. I like how she is "becoming" in this third section.

~Marj

page 195 Alsana says, "You go back and back and back and it's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe. Do you think anybody is English? Really English? It's a fairy tale!"

We certainly do resemble this bag of jelly beans sitting in front of me.

Marj - You wrote about how some in your neighborhood not speaking English angered other. Your post reminded me of an incident when I was an army inductee. I remember a kid from Southern Georgia who nearly went into a rage when the Hispanics in our midst spoke their language. It was unbelievable, and I can still remember the veins popping on his neck. This really gets to some people for some reason. It appears to have nothing to do with the desire for communication. More about the "difference" being something to fear, I suppose.

YiLi Lin - When V. S. Naipaul writes about people from India in Trinidad - that would seem to foot the bill for what you're talking about. He has a unique perspective on multiculturalism.

Ondaatjie is certainly someone I need to read - another gap in my reading that I need to catch up on. Thanks for the reports. Linda - The fairy tale of the pure Englishman probably applies to Americans - citizens of the United States as well as of Canada (thanks Louise) - as much as it does to the English.

Well, as Marj says. On we go with Irie. And your find her "becoming" in this third section. That's the thing about Irie in this book, though. She's seems to be the one that is searching, growing. Becoming.


Charlie

Charlie's and Marj's stories about anger and discomfort around those who speak their native language call to mind kids who don't like it when other kids have a secret language. Maybe it's even related to how it feels when, in a group, two people are whispering back and forth.

When my apartment was flooded from a broken water main-pipe, everyone who came to do the clean-up work spoke Spanish to each other. By the end of the day, I was exhausted from repeating instructions about furniture placement to blank faces who didn't understand me and I was on edge from listening to hours of laughter and talk I didn't understand. The day would have been difficult and trying, even if we all spoke the same language, but the additional challenges---including my need to not show any irritation---added to the fray. The only time I "lost it" and yelled at someone was the 10th time, or so, that someone almost let the cat out. That's when I told the head of the carpet team that if his men couldn't remember to close the door quickly, that they would all have to go home. I don't know how he translated what I said, but the laughter was gone and there was some door slamming when they came in and out. So, throughout the day, there was separation, first including laughter, later anger. Is a puzzlement.

Yes, it is like when people whisper. You are left out. There is no way you can begin to understand without communication. We're not talking about handholding in critical illness (when you can communicate with eyes and hands ) but trying to do basic relational things.

Alf - the jelly bean jar is neat visual image!!!!!

The language problem is constant here in so. Fla. It doesn't bother me too much until some one asks me why I don't speak Spanish and makes it sound like an accusation. I also get a little annoyed when I go into old chain stores like Walgreen's or Publix and I can't find anyone who speaks enough English to help me. I shop quite happily in some of the discount stores where little English is spoken.

Why "The Miseducation of Irie Jones"? (Chapter 11)

Irie Jones is 15. There's a lot going on in her life: problems with her self-image and her weight...she goes to get her hair straightened. Then there's the very interesting scene in class where they are discussing Sonnet 127. Irie thinks she sees the subject of the sonnet under study as maybe being black, and she likes what she hears ("Then will I swear, beauty herself is black..."). But her teacher (Mrs. Roody) shoots down this interpretation: "No, dear, you're reading it with a modern ear. Never read what is old with a modern ear." Nice scene. Mis-education.

Because of the smoking incident at school, Irie is about to meet the Chalfens - The Chalfens are a very important piece of the narrative puzzle. Things will start to coalesce around them.


Charlie

I think that section with Irie and the sonnet was so well written. I was drawn right into the scene. Then I was thinking how often sensitive souls are "shot right down" with the comeback of 'authority'. Squash! Stomp!

~Marj

Sounds like we all relate to Irie's rendition of the sonnet- I can vividly recall when I was first exposed to Shakespeare's sonnets- a book - bound inleather- given to me as a gift from an older, wiser friend. Thinking about it now, I was 16 at the time, he was an outrageus 22! anyway while he was off at war, i would bring the book to my classes and read the sonnets as if they held special messages just for me- like Irie- I remember one teacher confiscating the book believing I was titillating (is that the word?) over one as the equivalent of a "dirty poem"- goes to show you where hismind was!

I got the book back- that's another story!- and an interesting education- I then read the poem from "his" eyes- hmmm and would like to think that new education was an interesting jump in my overall maturity - but I also learned, like Irie- about perceptions and choosing a way to see the world. I think that is one of the things we see in Irie throughout this book- she is a defining character who makes public her observations.

MarjV - Irie is squashed isn't she! ZS does a good job of letting us feel her humiliation and the need, at her age and juncture to receive validation ("She had thought, just then, that she had sen something like a reflection, but it was receding...". Any teachers among us care to comment?

YiLi Lin - Not sure what you mean by Irie being a "defining character". (I think I do, but don't want to assume). Care to elaborate?

---

So what do you all think of the Chalfens? Irie immediately starts comparing them with her own family - especially Marcus with her father. They are so different from what she is used to. Whole other worlds are being opened up for her through them. ("She'd never been so close to this strange and beautiful thing, the middle class). This is all very typical, don't you think?

One thing for sure. They (the Chalfens) are all bored and ripe for new projects ("...the boredom was palpable. The century was drawing to a close and the Chalfens were bored)... Especially Joyce. And Irie and Millat come along at just the right time.

Do you have the book? Do you remember that Joyce was having a problem with thrips on her delphiniums? There is a definition of thrips (from Joyce's own book) on page 263. Now, my reaction here is that the Chalfens were like thrips themselves!!:

"Thrips have good instincts: essentially they are charitable, productive organisms and help the plant in its development. Thrips mean well, but thrips go too far...

Her advice for radical pruning is like "tough love." ("Joyce paused and looked at Irie and Millat the way she had looked at her "Garter Knight" delphinium")

With the introduction of the Chalfens, I think the major points of view are now all in place. With Chalfenism we have "the firm belief in the perfectibility of all life, in the possibility of making it more efficient,ore logical...more effective." The rest of the book in some ways is all about the various characters coming together as their religions (Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslim beliefs) and secular beliefs ("science", "chance", "determinism", "free-will") clash to a denouement.

Irie is particularly intrigued by the fact that "there existed fathers who dealt in the present, who didn't drag ancient history around like a ball and chain. SO there were men who were neck-deep and sinking in the quagmire of the past."

Pg 271 and ZS goes off on one of her really nice "authorial intrusions" regarding multiculturalism, race, and the immigrant experience (these are almost always special - lyrical, almost elegiac, and prosaic at the same time:

"This has been the century of strangers, brown , yellow, and white. This has been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a playground and find Issac 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. Names that secrete within them mass exodus, crammed boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checkups. It is only this late in the day, and possibly only in Willesden, that you can find best friends Sita and Sharon, constantly mistaken for each other because Sita is white (her mother liked the name) and Sharon is Pakistani (her mother thought it best - less trouble). ...despite all this, it is still hard to admit that there is no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English... But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts, compared to what the immigrant fears - dissolution, disappearance...It is both the most irrational and natural feeling in the world.

Charlie

I rather liked Irie and often thought I saw Zadie in the character.

Interesting about the thrips. I think you're right, YiLi Lin.

Linda

I agree, Linda. Sure MUST be a lot of Irie (No problem) in Zadie Smith!!


Charlie

Marcus and Joyce, ripe to take on new projects, writes Charlie. All throughout this section and further into the book, I have marked pages with the letter "G" for guilty. Long, long before I sat in a graduate class with white me as a minority, learning finally the parameters of my own hidden racism, I would have counted myself as "aware," far beyond others who claimed, "Oh, I'm colorblind," to a place, I thought, of honoring separate colors and backgrounds.

In such an "aware" state, I, too took on projects. The one that kept coming back to me as I read of Marcus and Joyce's well-meaning interventions (well, almost well-meaning, their innocence rather disgusting) was my insistence on rounding up Hispanic and Black elementary children from my mother's hometown north of Austin and hauling them off to visit the University of Texas at Austin campus. We invaded museums, were allowed into the football stadium, stayed 10 minutes in a class (prearranged), ate lunch at a loud and exciting student union, bought baseball caps.

Where the guilt comes in is with my memories of the awkwardness of getting parent permission. Why was someone who was not their teacher wanting to do this? The truth of what I felt, that it would be an uphill battle for many of them to go to college, stayed secret. This isn't the first time I've revisited my motives of those trips, but Z Smith does a good job of reminding me.

New subject. Irie's wanting straight, flickable hair (ah, that toss of hair that almost all of us learn to do)----what a perfect example from Z Smith of the confusion inherent in combining cultures, or more accurately, when one culture is valued more than another. Irie was more fortunate than most---there was someone there to tell her (the same day) that her natural hair was her, more beautiful.

Good grief, how does Smith know how to get this ALL, all these issues, into so few sentences? She's so on target, it's unsettling.

betty Thanks so much for that story. You mention the awkwardness of getting parental permission. Imagine how Alsana felt when permission wasn't even sought. Alsana says:

"The English are the only people who want to teach you and steal from you at the same time."

Chalfens? Chaffinches she calls them. A great visual. "...little scavenging English birds pecking at all the best seeds." Hmmm. Sort of like Imperial England ripping the natural resources from the poor colonies? "...they [The Chalfens] are like birds with teeth, with sharp little canines - they just don't steal they rip apart!"

A few words about "style":
In one of the Irie sections (The Root Canals of Hortense Bowden), the Jamaican earthquake of 1/14/07 occurs just as Sir Edmund Flecker Glenard attempts his rape of Ambrosia - concluding with his death buy falling Madonna. THis is perhaps the most obvious example of the magical realist style. Earlier this year I read Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Smith has obviously been influenced by the magical realist style of writers like Rushdie, Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. You can see it also in: the twins (their separation-connection and, oh/ow, those broken noses!!). In Samad's being caught out with Poppy by the children. In Archie and Samad's 1945 tank crew experiences. In the pen-pal voice from the past, Horst Ibelgaufts. In the "Last Man on Earth" Ryan Topps. In the Mad people of the City, and in that ubiquitous coin flip - involving the same man yet!. My reading in this area is spotty at best. How about you? Can you cite other examples of the influences of this style? Though Smith has a style all her own doesn't she? She's anything but derivative. And what about her style? She's more "realist" than "magical" I'd say - but what a spell she weaves!


Charlie

as Charlie says -------- what a spell she weaves

as Betty says........Good grief, how does Smith know how to get this ALL, all these issues, into so few sentences? She's so on target, it's unsettling.

I sure do not like coming to the end of this novel. One of those where I dread putting it down.

Off the specific subject - but not the general : Fantastic book I just received from www.Chapters.ca. I had heard Dr. Bruce Meyer on CBC radio. Talking of the Great Books. He has a talent for bringing them alive. And he speaks poetically. Well, I was so impressed after hearing him many times that I found his e-mail address and wrote asking if by the merest chance he was going to publish. And he wrote back - yes. That was last year. His book was coming out this fall. And I just got my copy. "The Golden Thread: A Reader's Journey thru the Great Books."

~Marj

and I could just feel where the story might go when I read about the thrips and the intro to the Chalfens

MarjV - You really must click on Joan Pearson's name and tell her this. She is, as you may know, our Great Books guru and may be very interested in this. May even try to get him in here to talk about Great Books. Would you do that and let her know his e-mail also? Thanks.


Charlie

MarjV: Are we talking about the Great Books like I am reading --now? Is this fellow out of Chicago? Oh! I am getting excited.

Samad and Alsana arguing over where Magid went wrong - his grand experiment sending him back to the old country didn't work. Loved this exchange:

Samad: "We are tricky, we are tricky b***ards, we humans. We have the evil inside us, the free will. We must learn to obey." Alsana: "Let go, Samad Miah. Let the boy go. He is second generation - he was born here - naturally he will do things differently. You can't plan everything"

Wonder how many variations on this particular conversation has been repeated throughout the ages!!

---

I believe we've touched on this much, much earlier but one of the clearest uses of the white teeth metaphor is when Irie discovers that her mothers teeth are false. Her mother had never bothered to tell her - not deliberately so - the time was just never right. Her eyes are opened - as only thy can be at sixteen:

But Irie was sixteen and everything feels deliberate at that age. To her, this was yet another item in a long list of parental hypocrisies and untruths, this was another example of the Jones/Bowden gift for secret histories, stories you never got told, history you never entirely uncovered, rumor you never unraveled..."

"She was sick of never getting the whole truth" about her past and so decides to go to the only place where she can find this truth about herself and her family. Her grandmother's. To her grandmother where she aims to lay claim top her past, "her birthright", find out where she came from.

Growing up in your "native" country, we don't normally have this need. It must be intense - an almost urgent biological need, like sea turtles swimming back to a very specific place to deposit their eggs. Difficult to relate to on an immediate level.


Charlie

Yes, Charlie I will.

Alf - not chicago, he is a prof - U. of Toronto. It is a one volume book. His homepage is not up to date with the new publication on it. And Chapters.ca doesn't have anything other than the title. Like a ghost ship in the night!!!!!! I can e-mail you some more on it if you want. Let me know.

~Marj

~Just thinking how often in families the whole story isn't told - for whatever reason.

great that you pinpointed the amazing evil=free will! I wonder if this is important as an observation by a single character- a notion that helps us see who he is individually and within the context of the story- or is this one of those elements of the novel that encourages us to theorize on the nature of cultural identity (again). Is this need to learn to obey a necessary aspect of Muslim culture in Sri Lanka, an observation on what is wrong with the world based on personal experience or cultural history? hmmm

Oh, YiLi I think both. ZS has many characters expressing their outlooks which gets to the root of who they are. At the same time, the more these fundamental things separate us - the more they mark us as members of the same species. As ZS quotes to start off the last section (Maagid, Millat, and Marcus):

The fundamental things apply,
As time goes by

Charlie

You what struck me reading your post this morning, Charlie?- guess it is obvious but would enjoy some feedback. ZS has created characters that are almost archetypes- do you think? If we take another look at Archie, Irie and Samad and see them as representative "types" almost Jungian- hmmmmmmm..... What think ye all?

Great question, YiLi, about Jung's archetypes. Instead of those ancient (meant positively) groupings by type, I probably lean toward a broader, social (cultural) context, in this case, ethnic origin and individual family. As Smith shows through her characters, that gets modified by other things---individual personality, age, gender.

Doesn't Smith do a wonderful job showing age or generational differences. As I wrote before, I really liked how she aged Archie and Samad. Part of the aging included assimilation changes for Samad---I marked my book somewhere where I thought Smith was showing how even, EVEN, Samad had been changed by living in England. During some argument somewhere, Samad dips something he was eating into CAPSUP, of all things.

Smith's use of twins is very interesting. By using twins, she's holding the biological factor constant. By having the twins develop DIFFERENTLY than Samad thought they would, religion appealing more to the twin in England, I wonder if Smith is saying that people who move away from their country of origin yearn for, are drawn to, their roots. Smith has said in an interview that it may be easier to hold onto an ethnic identity if you are an immigrant in another country. I'm not sure, though, that she's saying that that is a good thing. Samad idealizes the past, sees everything in the present through lenses clouded with his perception of the past.

I can't get my thoughts straight about what she's saying about religion---that it is a hindrance to assimilation? that it PROTECTS one from assimilation? that it's difficult to take a religion out of one ethnic context (country) and plop it into another? that it helps one hold onto an ethnic identity? that religion, as so many other things, is personal, can't be generalized to groups?

page 437 - "In a vision, Irie has seen a time, a time not too far away from now, when roots won't matter any more because they cannot because they mustn't because they're too long and they're too tortuous and they're just buried too damn deep. She looks forward to it."

I waited the whole book for her to say something that might give us an inkling of what she is trying to get across.

She has said the book is about religion. Some say it's about race or cultures. She needs to narrow her field in order to get her points across - although I'm not sure she had many real points.

There is a review I read a while ago that really hit me and I agree with it. I printed it out and it is 10 pages long. The reviewer did an excellent job and must think very highly of her writing, but points out some areas where she needs to improve. http://www.thenewrepublic.com/072400/wood072400_print.html

(forgive me if I put this up before...memory lapse) Linda

Linda - thanks for the link. I remember you mentioned it previously and I did want to read.

In that quote you use above about - itis like she is saying "let us be"....let us accept. I was just thinking how often quirks of personality that a person doesn't like get attributed to their ethnicicity. (sp?)

~Marj

Linda, thanks so much for that link. I never can decide, though, if I should read wonderfully written reviews---it leaves me without my naive questions and musings. Some reviews, though, are so enlightening that, how can I NOT read them.

So, Smith sacrifices character for caricature. Her stories have "vitality" and evolve, but not her characters. Her characters do change, but we never see the interior of that change, only the exterior. This reviewer's comparison of Smith's "big contemporary novel" to others is very instructive, persuasive. It's true, for me, that in these recent big contemporary novels, at least I don't remember, that I haven't really ached with an emotional connection to a character.

I take his point, though, that Smith is capable of (slowing down) and showing us the interior of a character, that she's better at this than Rushdie---and although my experience of Rushdie is limited, this made immediate sense.

I wonder, though, if this reviewer has a fixed idea of what is greater, what is lesser. His bias for slower, simpler character studies is evident. Does this mean that the multi-storied, multi-connected (not magical realism, he says, but impossible realism), "vital" hyper busy novels are deficient? What do you think, Linda?

It just dawned on me as I was reading ---- the Mo of the KEVIN group is the very same butcher man who helped Archie in the first chapter. One chapter to go...I am savoring it.

And I looked up Zeno's paradox on Google (from pg 384 wher ZS talks of immigrants--- one link was

Paradox of the tortoise and Achilles

What I took from the article was he would like to see more character development, more of a richness and fullness of the characters and less, flat "cartoonishness". He wanted to see more of a moral tone and have the characters flesh out that tone and have something to say through their actions and the plot development.

I may be putting some words into his mouth here.

It's possible that's what he does mean. He cites DeLillo and others and, yes, maybe that's what he wants - less "slice of life" with no viewpoint to share and more "moral tone". I think that's what I feel was lacking here, too. I can't say too much because I haven't read that much of those authors. I read 2/3 of Underworld and because of real life had to set it aside and haven't returned to it. I was VERY into the book, however.

Hmm, now wouldn't that be a fun one to discuss sometime!!

Linda, hoping she makes a little sense.

Hmm a better word than I was groping for before- but I thought caricature was the whole point of what Smith was doing- I think this is where I was heading with my post about archetypes.

The recent posts remind me of that beatle's song- can't recall the exact title- but that what if there were no country and no religion too.....and the beatle's I would imagine had a significant impact on smith- though she's of a younger generation.

back to the religion thing- taking a broad view (dare I do this?) I see a very fine line between relgion and culture which comes first the chicken or the egg I will defer for another discussion- bit it seems to me that Muslim/Sri Lanka is interchangeable with Samad - it is not so much religion preventing acculturation, religion is a part of his ethnic identity as well. We don't see this perhaps as much in christian societies and cultures because that is the dominant one in the west, but rather than looking at our regional selves in the USA how about looking at England, so much of what we term a British "face" in a way is also the Protestant face of British history.

I think ZS is a lot smarter than some reviewers are crediting - perhaps again her age- if she were an aged, philosopher/writer a Camus for example, perhaps it would be chic to deconstruct her writing as if one were deconstructing the words of a prophet or genius.

"I think ZS is a lot smarter than some reviewers are crediting - perhaps again her age- if she were an aged, philosopher/writer a Camus for example, perhaps it would be chic to deconstruct her writing as if one were deconstructing the words of a prophet or genius."

I think this reviewer is giving her plenty of credit. He equates her with some pretty heavy-weight authors. She is in good company in his review.

I've read a few interviews of hers and those read really well. She is quick, intelligent, and funny as can be.

YiLi - I agree that ZS has posed her characters as archetypes, but not of the cardboard variety. They're flesh and blood and that makes all the difference, I think.

Hairy - I really loved those last few pages of the book, including that quote. And you know what? I look forward to that time also. Honestly, I've never been much of a "roots' person. I think that, on the whole, this reverence for our "roots" does more harm than good. I'm sure I'm in the minority here. And I freely admit that my "roots" are pretty much nondescript as I see them. My father's not Irish or Italian, nor is my mother of any other particular readily identifiable sub-culture. This has never bothered me. But it has left me with a somewhat jaundiced view of those that cling to their 'culture" so closely. I know, I know. There are all kinds of arguments for the contrary, but this is always the way I have felt. I wonder, and I'm not completely sure, if ZS (Irie) is saying something very similar. Linda, I think this is just an amazingly ambitious book for a first effort and I don't think these things (religion, race, culture) can be so easily separated. Sure, she was all over the place - shotgun style - but most often she hit on something important.

Betty - I really disagree that ZS sacrifices "character for caricature" for the reasons I stated above. It is true, however, that the only character that really "evolves" is Irie - the others are all somewhat static. In fact she addresses this very thing with regards to Millat and Magid when she talks about Zeno's paradox. And thanks to MarjV for bringing the subject up, because I believe this is the crux of the book right here. At the end of Chapter 17, just after she brings up the old myth that "Immigrants are...resourceful; they make do. They use what they can when they can" she introduces us to the paradox. To the concept of Immigrants as "blank people", ready to be stirred in with the great melting pot. Well, not so Magid and Millat. They "Couldn't manage it."

"They left that neutral room as they had entered it: weighed down, burdened, unable to waver from their course or in any way change their separate, dangerous trajectories. They seem to make no progress. {emphasis mine] the cynical might say they don't even move at all - that Magid and Millat are two of Zeno's headf**k arrows, occupying a space equal to themselves and, what is scarier, equal to Mangal Pande's, equal to Samad Iqbal's. Two brothers trapped in the temporal instant. Two brothers who pervert all attempts to put dates to this story, to track these guys, to offer times and says, because there isn't, wasn't, and never will be any duration. In fact, nothing moves. Nothing changes. They are running at a standstill. Zeno's paradox. But what was Zeno's deal here (everybody's got a deal), what was hiss angle? THere is a body of opinion that argues his paradoxes are part of a more general spiritual program. To

1. (a) first establish multiplicity, the Many, as an illusion, and
2. (b) thus prove reality a seamless, flowing whole. A single, indivisible One.

Because if you can divide reality inexhaustibly into parts, as the brothers did that day in that room, the result is insupportable paradox. You are always still, you move nowhere, there is no progress. But multiplicity is no illusion. Nor is the speed with which those-in-the-simmering-melting-pot are dashing toward it. Paradoxes aside, they are running, just as Achilles was running. And they will lap those who are in denial just as surely as Achilles would have made that tortoise eat his dust. Yeah, Zeno had an angle. He wanted the One, but the world is Many. And yet still that paradox is alluring. The harder Achilles tries to catch the tortoise, the more eloquently the tortoise expresses its advantage. Likewise, the brothers will race toward the future only to find they more and more eloquently express their past, that place where they have just been. Because this is the other thing about immigrants ('fugees, emigres, travelers): They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.

I think this is beautifully expressed and wonderfully supported. It took a few readings for it to sink in, but I know you've got to go with her on these things.

---

By the way, the concept of Marcus' Future Mouse was the lightning rod around which all of the characters were drawn as the novel reached it's climax. Did you find this "project" as a cause celebre somewhat far fetched? It is said that these things are taken much more seriously in Europe than in North America - so that the idea that a project of this type is something that everyone would get all exorcised about is not a stretch at all. By the way, take a look at this and then tell me if you think the idea of a Future Mouse project is far-fetchedGFP Bunny UmmmHmmm...."Strange Days, indeed."


Charlie

       
                    	     Imagine there's no heaven,  
                             It's easy if you try,  
                             No hell below us,  
                             Above us only sky,  
                             Imagine all the people  
                             living for today...  

                             Imagine there's no countries,  
                             It isn't hard to do,  
                             Nothing to kill or die for,  
                             No religion too,  
                             Imagine all the people  
                             living life in peace...  

                             Imagine no possesions,  
                             I wonder if you can,  
                             No need for greed or hunger,  
                             A brotherhood of man,  
                             Imagine all the people  
                             Sharing all the world...  

                             You may say I'm a dreamer,  
                             but I'm not the only one,  
                             I hope some day you'll join us,  
                             And the world will live as one.  

Charlie

I ran into an unusual one, too. http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=9795

Oh...My...(well)..God, Linda! Imagine if this was worked into Zadie's book!!!


Charlie

What a novel that would have been! Isn't that a strange one?! Yipes!

Far-out, whew

Good grief, I say, to above links re cloning.

My thought about Future Mouse - fits right in with Marcus' character and the Chalfen "creed".

Didn't realize it is taken more seriously in Europe. Good point!

Laughed out loud at the place where the brothers are given community work - and it is in Mrs Chalfens garden.!!!!

~Marj

Thanks for the song charie-

On page 388, there is a speech by the founder of KEVIN, and ZS alludes to his "great affection for tautology." To quote an example:

Now there are many types of warfare...I will name a few. Chemical warfare is the warfare where them men kill each other chemically with warfare.

And he goes on. Now different subject but the form of the speech is nearly exactly like the speech that one of the Green Bay Packers gave to the Wisconsin legislature a few years ago. Does anyone remember that? Caused quite a stir and the formula is the same. This football-player cum reverend was a fundamentalist also. I have to believe that ZS heard the details of that incident.

---

In some ways, the way the characters all come together at the end, the way the plot gathers them all up and sweeps them together to focus on a single cause celebre reminds me of some movies with the same kind of sprawling sweep that ZS has. Robert Altman's Nashville for instance and oddly enough, the recent Magnolia. I'm a particular fan of multiple story lines coming together in a late rush, I guess.


Charlie

MarjV - Thanks. Funny. I wonder if she really did write that review herself! Wouldn't put it past her, though.

---

Loved this passage, too. Quite a commentary on "empire" by Abdul-Colin. The KEVIN group is on its way to the FutureMouse unveiling and they're walking through Trafalgar Square. All around the images of Empire. The statues of Nelson, Havelock and George IV facing Big Ben. At the other end of the Square is the National Gallery:

"They do love their false icons in this country...Now, will somebody please tell me: what is it about the English that makes them, build their statues with their backs to their culture and their eyes on the time?...Because they look to the future to forget their past. Sometimes you just feel sorry for them, you know?...They have no faith, the English. They believe in what men make, not what men make crumbles. Look at their Empire. This is all they have...The sun rises and sets on it in twelve hours, no trouble. This is what is left."

Quintessential Smith. Can one say that about a first novelist?


Charlie

Thanks for the review, Marj!

Appropriate or not, as I read the linked article (thanks Marj), I thought "Out of the mouths of babes." The irony of this young English writer holding her England before the mirror, with such wit and style, and to receive such applause from this England----well, it confirms her hopeful tone.

Have to add this comment. Since we started reading the book I find myself thinking about the characters now and then. Not some fluffy types that passed out of my head.

~Marj

Me too , Marj. Wanted to mention a few more things that I liked before we close this out.

Irie, comparing the 'house' of her family to the 'house' of other, normal families:

"They [the other families] open a door and all they've got behind it is a bathroom or a living room. Just neutral spaces. And not this endless maze of present rooms and past rooms and the things said in them years ago and everybody's old historical s**t all over the place...They don't mind what their kids do in life as long as they're reasonably, you know, healthy. Happy. And every single f**king day is not this huge battle between who they are and who they should be, what they were and what they will be...No attics. No s**t in attics. No skeletons in cupboards."

The sons and daughters often think of the 'burdens' of family. Perhaps this is even more a burden on second generation immigrant children.


Charlie

Charlie - I, like YiLi, just got the book back and it looks as if you're wrapping up. I'll try to catch up nonetheless.

Charlie, before we close could you perhaps find a few more intriguing quotes from those last pages- they were such an amazing wrapup to this book and provide opportunity for us to reflect on that long view of what we've read.

The KEVIN crew (including Millat) are on their way to the debut of FutureMouse. The reasoned arguments of Muslim fundamentalism. The FATE group (with Joshua Chalfen) are on their way to the debut of FutureMouse. Animal rights meet paternal repudiation. Choose the Mouse over the Man. The Kingdom Hall group (with Hortense Bowden and Ryan Topps) are on their way to the debut of FutureMouse. Thoughts in Black and White. Faith over Reason. The Jones' and Iqbals' (and Irie pregnant by one of the twins) are on their way to the debut of FutureMouse. The fatalism of Archie and Samad's mandates of heritage. All on their way to see Science.

"And all these people are heading for the same room. The final space...a clean slate."

Archie muses that the event is "just like on TV" - only better. Millat muses that there aren't any alien objects or events anymore, just as there aren't any sacred ones. It's all so familiar. It's all on TV." Millat (like any suicide bomber)seems pushed along by "the four-letter F-word, Fate. Which to Millat is a quantity very much like TV: an unstoppable narrative, written, produced, and directed by somebody else." But the he sees the difference between TV and real life: Consequences.

Irie, wondering about the origin of her unborn child looks back and forth between Millat and Magid.

"In a vision, Irie has seen a time, a time not far from now, when roots won't matter anymore because they can't because they mustn't because they're too long and they're too tortuous and they're just buried too damn deep. She looks forward to it."

Meanwhile Samad greets Hortense outside the meeting and recognizes in her something of himself:

"He knows what it is to seek. HE knows the dryness. He has felt the thirst you get in a strange land - horrible, persistent - the thirst that ;lasts your whole life."

---

It turns out that Marcus; "mentor" is none other than the infamous Dr. Sick - Dr. Marc-Pierre Perret - whom Archie had supposedly executed in the waning days of the war at Samad's challenge to Choose. Archie and Samad have the recognition at the same time. At the same time as Millat draws his weapon to fire. Archie, having saved the man before with the flip of a coin, makes to "save the same man twice and with no more reason or rhyme than the first time." So Archie seems to repeat his history - but also seems to have taken a more active part in the outcome the second time around. He's made a moral choice this time, not letting "fate" decide it for him. One's actions can make a difference. So the story ends - but "the end is simply the beginning of an even longer story." THe story has to be played out. Has Archie come to terms with the flaws in his fatalism? He seems to have: "The past is always tense and the future , perfect. And as Archie Knows, it's not like that. It's never been like that." And the FutureMouse scurries off to his freedom.

---

Thanks you all for your participation. I hope you enjoyed the book as much as I did. We say many times that we look forward to an author's next book. And that is surely the case for me with this one. One just wonders, what she'll do next, and I want to be there to find out. This discussion will remain open for a time for your final comments.


Charlie

Just imagine the pressure on Z. Smith to repeat this quality in her second book. I'd invest in stock in it, though.

Like others, the characters--and more so, the ideas--of the book will stay with me.

One more thought on archtypes. Jung's archetypes are dated and terribly sexist---not just a little bit, but blatantly. So, strictly speaking, Z Smith's rich characters don't fit very well into those narrow stereotypes. However, not so strictly, I kinda see what both YiLi and Charlie are saying, in that Smith used very recognizable TYPES. And to Smith's credit, we recognize them. They seem knowable.

------------------------------------------

After Irie is pregnant with a twin's child, but whose isn't known, I couldn't quit thinking how smart Smith was to make us wonder how the child would turn out. No genetic difference between the fathers, so we are left to ponder different environmental ("nurture" vs. nature) factors---and IF they would make a difference. Smith keeps us wondering about this throughout the book.

This book turns on its head most of the graduate school experiences and my UC Berkeley job experiences of honoring and promoting ethnic differences. With some confusion, I actually see the merits of both sides. I can't help but remember, though, the first huge wave of pride that came from the Black is Beautiful surge in the 60s, this coming after so many years of Black being anything but beautiful---in the media, politics, schools, the courts, personal images.

The idea of roots is an interesting one. Some ask, why bother? What's the purpose? I guess I see "history" as a larger context, which would include, for example, what happened to the native populations of North America. Who doesn't need to contemplate that part of history? Maybe I believe we need to know each other's roots, need to know how we came to be where we are.

Smith has said she feels she has a really good book in her someday but this isn't it. Not yet.

I didn't know that, Linda. Wouldn't you just love to know details of her life from day one---where does such confidence of talent come from? One of her parents, if not both, must have helped nurture this young woman along. Would love to know if there was a third grade teacher or a seventh grade teacher who did something extraordinary---like spoke to her parents, or took her to the "big" library, or handed her challenging books, or entered her in a writing contest. I know sometimes that a unique force like Smith can't be explained and is mostly a quirk of hard wired genes and "natural" talent, but I still love the stories of who recognized the talent and opened a few extra doors.

Some writers are born of painful beginnings, I know, but I suppose I have a picture of such a YOUNG writer doing well because of supportive beginnings. Would love to know the details, anyway.

thanks for the quote charlies- it reminded me a thought i'd had when reading those final pages- to try to look more closely at gatherings, and begin to imagine or at least recognize not only the individual lives all come together but the thread- the cosmic "thing" that brought all these people to this place. It is an especially intriguing way to take time to look when some 'event' occurs at the gathering- not just trauma, any event- sort of what is the history of all these people here- what compelled them to be here at this moment and why.

betty points out an important point of emphasis re the unborn child of Irie. This really reiterates ZS's final maxim that "the end is simply the beginning of an even longer story."

Sometimes I have done what you suggest YiLi: think about the disparate threads behind a gathering, how and why everyone all came together. It's always a particularly compelling reverie. I do the same thing about "place." When we think of why we are where we are - a physical location - we know, for the most part that there are many, many factors involved. I've always found it mind-boggling when traveling through a place to contemplate: "Well, here are these people. In this place. Isn't that funny that they chose here and I did not. Why do I live in New England with it's cold and snowy and unpleasant winter weather? Why have I moved from sunny Florida? There are complicated reasons and everyone has equally complicated reasons for "being" where they are. Some are the reverse mirror image of my own travel. The thoughts always fascinate me.


Charlie

Wow- I thought I was the only one who did that, Charlie. Now that I am older I sometimes imagine what my life would have been like had I lived in other places. There is so much about who we are, not only from parents and gene pools but the nature of the region where we live.