White Teeth is a solid debut. The first few hundred pages are a bit
overworked and cumbersome, and the literary flare, metaphors and clever
observations do not exactly form a good working relation with the plot. Still,
as the story continues Smith gets into her pace and things come off quite
nicely. There are a couple of pieces that seem to be bits of texts that were
gathered in the table drawer - the school ground's fragmented and bordered
Geography is one. These bits are condensed with literariness and less ambitious
in terms of infusing them with plot. They are also very solid, to say the least.
Despite the shaky start and the hum-drum feeling some parts of the text
give off, when Smith succeeds in proportioning the cleverness with plot (not
necessarily the "literariness") as she does in the first few pages of
the "Chalfan Family" episode the outcome is remarkable. I liked this
book. Having said that, the "big finish" contains many inadequacies
including outright plot inconsistencies, This is something the editor should
have done something about. All in all however the somewhat uneven level of
writing can be overlooked in view of the few extraordinary bits.
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