Imagine you have the option of entering two different living rooms.
One is a den of complete comfort. Old, worn sofas and recliners, an out-dated television, chipped tables, maybe a cross-stitched picture or two on the walls. The house will smell an interesting mixture of homemade bread and sweat, the sweat of hard-working, physical mid-western people.
Now the other is a stream-lined, modern, hip area. Strict adherence to a color scheme, shiny leather furniture, glass tables. The wall hangings are sparse, lots of light infuses the room and the scent is one of cleaning agents and incense.
Is one better than the other? No. But that said, as a midwestern girl living in a big city, I’d choose to relax in the first. Would I think you strange if you chose the second? No. It’s a matter of taste.
I really wanted to like this book. I’d heard great things and really looked forward to reading it. In some ways, it felt very familiar because I’d read Zadie Smith’s On Beauty first and some elements of White Teeth reminded me of my journey through On Beauty. But I have to say, I think this book just made me as uncomfortable as I would have been attempting to relax in the second living room I described above. I just felt as if the references, the dialogue, the character development were over my head and so smart I felt uneducated as I read it.
I read a lot of books. I’m not an expert on what makes good literature and what doesn’t. But I do read quite a bit and some books surprise me and some books disappoint. Very few reach that middle ground where I’m just plum baffled by them. White Teeth is one of those few. Does that mean you should read it or should not? That’s not for me to say. What I will say is that you should also give it a chance and, in the future, I will probably be back to read it again and see if I can understand it more when life has taught me a bit more.
