White Teeth by Zadie Smith

"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men

           Gang aft agley, "

( The best laid plans of mice and men

     often go awry )

                                                                           -To a Mouse by Robert Burns

     I am a big fan of British satire, so when I picked this book up I hoped to be impressed. The narrative style is quite unlike anything I have read before and I loved it. At the same time, reading this book was tedious too. This is really hard to explain, do I like the book or not? I can't tell and that is annoying. I was experiencing a farrago of emotions while reading it.

     The book is written in four parts, each part focuses on one of the primary characters, sort of a point of view of that particular character. The first two parts on Archie and Samad are like a prelude. Samad is a first generation Bangladeshi immigrant and Archie is Samad's man Friday. I found this part to be placid and it took an effort to keep reading. The second half of the book shifts to Irie Jones and from here on I sensed a glimmer of interest to keep reading.   

     Lot of cliches and over dramatized characterization completely overshadows the quirky and well written narrative. In retrospect, I am intrigued to read Zadie Smith's writings in the future, this book however has failed to impress.