Dickens and novel that never ends

[Terrance]

A genre is hardening. It is becoming easy to describe the
contemporary idea of
    the "big, ambitious novel." Familial resemblances are
asserting themselves, and a
    parent can be named: he is Dickens. Such recent novels
as The Ground Beneath
    Her Feet, Mason & Dixon, Underworld, Infinite Jest, and
now White Teeth
    overlap rather as the pages of an atlas expire into each
other at their edges. A
    landscape is disclosed- -lively and varied and brightly
marked, but riven by dead
    gullies.

    The big contemporary novel is a perpetual-motion machine
that appears to have
    been embarrassed into velocity. It seems to want to
abolish stillness, as if
    ashamed of silence--as it were, a criminal running
endless charity marathons.
    Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page, as these
novels continually flourish
    their glamorous congestion. Inseparable from this
culture of permanent
    storytelling is the pursuit of vitality at all costs.
Indeed, vitality is storytelling, as far as these books are
concerned. If, say, a character is introduced in London, 
call him Toby Awknotuby (that is, "To be or not to be"--ha!
) then we will be
    swiftly told that he has a twin in Delhi (called Boyt,
which is an anagram of
    Toby, of course), who, like Toby, has the same very
curious genital
    deformation, and that their mother belongs to a
religious cult based, oddly
    enough, in the Orkney Islands, and that their father
(who was born at the exact
    second that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima) has been
a Hell's Angel for
    the last thirteen years (but a very curious Hell's
Angels group it is, devoted only
    to the fanatical study of late Wordsworth), and that
Toby's mad left- wing aunt
    was curiously struck dumb when Mrs. Thatcher was elected
prime minister in
    1979 and has not spoken a word since. And all this, over
many pages, before
    poor Toby Awknotuby has done a thing, or thought a
thought!

    Is this a caricature, really? Recent novels--veritable
relics of St. Vitus--by
    Rushdie, Pynchon, DeLillo, Foster Wallace, and others,
have featured a great
    rock musician who, when born, began immediately to play
air guitar in his crib
    (Rushdie); a talking dog, a mechanical duck, a giant
octagonal cheese, and two
    clocks having a conversation (Pynchon); a nun called
Sister Edgar who is
    obsessed with germs and who may be a reincarnation of J.
Edgar Hoover, and a
    conceptual artist painting retired B-52 bombers in the
New Mexico desert
    (DeLillo); a terrorist group devoted to the liberation
of Quebec called the
    Wheelchair Assassins, and a film so compelling that
anyone who sees it dies
    (Foster Wallace). Zadie Smith's novel features, among
other things: a terrorist
    Islamic group based in North London with a silly acronym
(kevin), an
    animal-rights group called fate, a Jewish scientist who
is genetically engineering a
    mouse, a woman born during an earthquake in Kingston,
Jamaica, in 1907; a
    group of Jehovah's Witnesses who think that the world is
ending on December
    31, 1992; and twins, one in Bangladesh and one in
London, who both break
    their noses at about the same time.

    This is not magical realism. It is hysterical realism.
Storytelling has become a
    kind of grammar in these novels; it is how they
structure and drive themselves
    on. The conventions of realism are not being abolished
but, on the contrary,
    exhausted, and overworked. Appropriately, then,
objections are not made at the
    level of verisimilitude, but at the level of morality:
this style of writing is not to be faulted because it lacks
reality--the usual charge against botched realism- -but
    because it seems evasive of reality while borrowing from
realism itself. It is not a
    cock-up, but a cover-up.

    One is reminded of Kierkegaard's remark that travel is
the way to avoid despair.
    For all these books share a bonhomous, punning, lively
serenity of spirit. Their
    mode of narration seems to be almost incompatible with
tragedy or anguish.
    Indeed, Underworld, the darkest of these books, carries
within itself, in its calm
    profusion of characters and plots, its flawless carpet
of fine prose on page after
    page, a soothing sense that it might never have to end,
that another thousand or
    two thousand pages might easily be added. There are many
enemies, seen and
    unseen, in Underworld, but silence is not one of them.

    The optimism of all this "vitality" is shared by many
readers, apparently. Again
    and again, one sees books such as these praised for
being cabinets of wonders.
    Bright lights are taken as evidence of habitation. The
mere existence of a giant
    cheese or a cloned mouse or several different
earthquakes in a novel is seen as
    meaningful or wonderful, evidence of great imaginative
powers. And this is
    because too often these features are mistaken for
scenes, as if they constituted
    the movement or the toil or the pressure of the novel,
rather than taken for what
    they are--props of the imagination, meaning's toys. The
existence of vitality is
    mistaken for the drama of vitality.

    What are these stories evading? One of the awkwardnesses
evaded is precisely
    an awkwardness about the possibility of novelistic
storytelling. This in turn has
    to do with an awkwardness about character and the
representation of character.
    Stories, after all, are generated by human beings, and
it might be said that these
    recent novels are full of inhuman stories, whereby that
phrase is precisely an
    oxymoron, an impossibility, a wanting it both ways. By
and large, these are not
    stories that could never happen (as, say, a thriller is
often something that could
    never happen); rather, they clothe real people who could
never actually endure
    the stories that happen to them. They are not stories in
which people defy the
    laws of physics (obviously, one could be born in an
earthquake); they are stories
    which defy the laws of persuasion. This is what
Aristotle means when he says
    that in storytelling "a convincing impossibility" (say,
a man levitating) is always
    preferable to "an unconvincing possibility" (say, the
possibility that a
    fundamentalist group in London would continue to call
itself kevin). And what
    above all makes these stories unconvincing is precisely
their very profusion, their
    relatedness. One cult is convincing; three cults are
not.

    Novels, after all, turn out to be delicate structures,
in which one story judges the
    viability, the actuality, of another. Yet it is the
relatedness of these stories that
    their writers seem most to cherish, and to propose as an
absolute value. An
    endless web is all they need for meaning. Each of these
novels is excessively
    centripetal. The different stories all intertwine, and
double and triple on
    themselves. Characters are forever seeing connections
and links and plots, and
    paranoid parallels. (There is something essentially
paranoid about the belief that
    everything is connected to everything else.)

    These novelists proceed like street-planners of old in
South London: they can
    never name a street Ruskin Street without linking a
whole block, and filling it
    with Carlyle Street, and Turner Street, and Morris
Street, and so on. Near the
    end of White Teeth, one of the characters, Irie Jones,
has sex with one of the
    twins, called Millat; but then rushes round to see the
other twin, called Magid, to
    have sex with him only moments after. She becomes
pregnant; and she will
    never know which twin impregnated her. But it is really
Smith's hot plot which
    has had its way with her. In Underworld, everything and
everyone is connected
    in some way to paranoia and to the nuclear threat. The
Ground Beneath Her
    Feet suggests that a deep structure of myth, both Greek
and Indian, binds all the
    characters together. And White Teeth ends with a
clashing finale, in which all
    the novel's characters- -most of whom are now dispersed
between various cults
    and fanatical religious groups--head toward the press
conference which the
    scientist, Marcus Chalfen, is delivering in London, to
announce the successful
    cloning of his mouse.

    Alas, since the characters in these novels are not
really alive, not fully human,
    their connectedness can only be insisted on. Indeed, the
reader begins to think
    that it is being insisted on precisely because they do
not really exist. Life is never
    experienced with such a fervid intensity of
connectedness. After all, hell is other
    people, actually: real humans disaggregate more often
than they congregate. So
    these novels find themselves in the paradoxical position
of enforcing connections
    that are finally conceptual rather than human. The forms
of these novels tell us
    that we are all connected--by the Bomb (DeLillo), or by
myth (Rushdie), or by
    our natural multiracial multiplicity (Smith); but it is
a formal lesson rather an
    actual enactment.

    An excess of storytelling has become the contemporary
way of shrouding, in
    majesty, a lack; it is the Sun King principle. That lack
is the human. All these
    contemporary deformations flow from a crisis that is not
only the fault of the
    writers concerned, but is now of some lineage: the
crisis of character, and how
    to represent it in fiction. Since modernism, many of the
finest writers have been
    offering critique and parody of the idea of character,
in the absence of
    convincing ways to return to an innocent mimesis.
Certainly, the characters who
    inhabit the big, ambitious contemporary novels have a
showy liveliness, a
    theatricality, that almost succeeds in hiding the fact
that they are without life:
    liveliness hangs off them like jewelry.

    This is less true of Zadie Smith than of Rushdie; her
principal characters move
    in and out of human depth. Sometimes they seem to
provoke her sympathy, at
    other times they are only externally comic. But watch
what she does with one of
    the many bit-parts in this large and inventive book.
Smith is describing the
    founder of kevin, the fundamentalist Islamic group based
in North London. She
    tells us that he was born Monty Clyde Benjamin in
Barbados in 1960, "the son
    of two poverty- stricken barefoot Presbyterian
dypsomaniacs," and converted to
    Islam at the age of fourteen. At eighteen, he fled
Barbados for Riyadh, where he
    studied the Koran at Al-Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic
University. He was
    five years there, but he became disillusioned with the
teaching, and returned to
    England in 1984. In Birmingham, he

    locked himself in his aunt's garage and spent five more
years in there, with only
    the Qur'an and the fascicles of Endless Bliss for
company. He took his food in
    through the cat-flap, deposited his shit and piss in a
Coronation biscuit tin and
    passed it back out the same way, and did a thorough
routine of press-ups and
    sit-ups to prevent muscular atrophy. The Selly Oak
Reporter wrote regular
    bylines on him during this period, nicknaming him `The
Guru in the Garage' (in
    view of the large Birmingham Muslim population, this was
thought preferable to
    the press-desk favoured suggestion, `The Loony in the
Lock-Up') and had their
    fun interviewing his bemused aunt, one Carlene Benjamin,
a devoted member of
    the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

    Clearly, Smith does not lack for powers of invention.
The problem is that there
    is too much of it. The passage might stand,
microcosmically, for the novel's
    larger dilemma of storytelling: on its own, almost any
of these details (except
    perhaps the detail about passing the shit and piss
through the cat-flap) might be
    persuasive. Together, they vandalize each other: the
Presbyterian dypsomaniacs
    and the Mormon aunt make impossible the reality of the
fanatical Muslim. As
    realism, it is incredible; as satire, it is cartoonish;
as cartoon, it is too realistic;
    and anyway, we are not led toward the consciousness of a
truly devoted
    religionist. It is all shiny externality, all
caricature.

    II.

    It might be argued that literature has only very rarely
represented character.
    Even the greatest novelists, such as Dostoevsky and
Tolstoy, resort to stock
    caricature, didactic speaking over characters,
repetitive leitmotifs, and so on.
    The truly unhostaged writer, such as Chekhov, is rare.
Buddenbrooks, a
    beautiful novel written by a writer only a year older
than Zadie Smith, makes
    plentiful use of the leitmotif, as a way of affixing
signatures to different
    characters. (Yet how those tagged characters live!) Less
great but very
    distinguished writers indulge in the kind of unreal,
symbolic vitality now found in
    the contemporary novel--consider the autodidact in
Sartre's Nausea, who is
    somewhat unbelievably working his way alphabetically
through an entire library,
    or Grand, the writer in The Plague, who somewhat
unbelievably writes the first
    line of his novel over and over again.

    Dickens, of course, is the great master of the
leitmotif. Many of Dickens's
    characters are, as Forster rightly put it, flat but
vibrating very fast. They are
    vivid blots of essence. They are souls seen only through
thick, gnarled casings.
    Their vitality is a histrionic one. Dickens has been the
overwelming influence on
    postwar fiction, especially postwar British fiction.
There is hardly a writer who
    has not been touched by him: Angus Wilson and Muriel
Spark, Martin Amis's
    robust gargoyles, Rushdie's outsize chararacters, the
intensely theatrical Angela
    Carter, the Naipaul of A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S.
Pritchett' s cocky
    salesmen, and now Zadie Smith. In America, Bellow's
genius for grotesquerie
    and for vivid external description owes something to
Dickens. And what is
    Underworld but an old-fashioned Dickensian novel like
Bleak House, with an
    ambition to describe all of society on its different
levels?

    One obvious reason for the popularity of Dickens among
contemporary novelists
    is that his way of creating and propelling theatrically
alive characters offers an
    easy model for writers unable, or unwilling, to create
characters who are fully
    human. Dickens's world seems to be populated by vital
simplicities. He shows a
    novelist how to get a character launched, if not how to
keep him afloat, and this
    glittering liveliness is simply easier to copy, easier
to figure out, than the recessed
    and deferred complexities of, say, Henry James's
character- making. Put bluntly,
    Dickens makes caricature respectable for an age in
which, for various reasons, it
    has become hard to create character. Dickens licenses
the cartoonish, coats it in
    the surreal, or even the Kafkaesque (the Circumlocution
Office). Indeed, to be
    fair to contemporary novelists, Dickens shows that a
large part of
    characterization is merely the management of caricature.

    Yet that is not all there is in Dickens, which is why
most contemporary novelists
    are only his morganatic heirs. There is in Dickens also
an immediate access to
    strong feeling, which rips the puppetry of his people,
breaks their casings, and
    lets us enter them. Mr. Micawber may be a caricature, a
simple, univocal
    essence, but he feels, and he makes us feel. One recalls
that very passionate and
    simple sentence, in which David Copperfield tells us:
"Mr. Micawber was
    waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his
room, and cried very
    much." It is difficult to find a single moment like that
in all the many thousands
    of pages of the big, ambitious, contemporary
books--difficult to imagine the
    possibility of such a sentence ever occurring amid the
coils of knowingness and
    the latest information.

    It is now customary to read 700-page novels, to spend
hours and hours within a
    fictional world, without experiencing anything really
affecting, sublime, or
    beautiful. Which is why one never wants to re-read a
book such as The Ground
    Beneath Her Feet, while Madame Bovary is faded by our
repressings. This is
    partly because some of the more impressive novelistic
minds of our age do not
    think that language and the representation of
consciousness are the novelist's
    quarries any more. Information has become the new
character. It is this, and the
    use made of Dickens, that connects DeLillo and the
reportorial Tom Wolfe,
    despite the literary distinction of the former and the
cinematic vulgarity of the
    latter.

    So it suffices to make do with vivacious caricatures,
whose deeper justification
    arises--if it ever arises--from their immersion in a web
of connections. Zadie
    Smith has said, in an interview, that her concern is
with "ideas and themes that I
    can tie together--problem- solving from other places and
worlds." It is not the
    writer's job, she says, "to tell us how somebody felt
about something, it's to tell
    us how the world works." Citing David Foster Wallace and
Dave Eggers, she
    comments: "these are guys who know a great deal about
the world. They
    understand macro-microeconomics, the way the Internet
works, math,
    philosophy, but . . . they're still people who know
something about the street,
    about family, love, sex, whatever. That is an incredibly
fruitful combination. If
    you can get the balance right. And I don' t think any of
us have quite yet, but
    hopefully one of us will."

    III.

    That is gently, modestly put. And to give Smith her
considerable due, she may
    be more likely to "get the balance right" than any of
her contemporaries--in part
    just because she sees that a balance is needed, and in
part because she is very
    talented and still very young. At her best, she
approaches her characters and
    makes them human; she is much more interested in this,
and more naturally
    gifted at it, than is Rushdie. For a start, her minor
Dickensian caricatures and
    grotesques, the petty filaments of this big book, often
glow. Here, for instance, is
    a school headmaster, a small character who flares and
dies within a few
    pages--but Smith captures his physical essence surely:
"The headmaster of
    Glenard Oak was in a continual state of implosion. His
hairline had gone out and
    stayed out like a determined tide, his eye sockets were
deep, his lips had been
    sucked backwards into his mouth, he had no body to speak
of, or rather he
    folded what he had into a small, twisted package,
sealing it with a pair of crossed
    arms and crossed legs." This conjures a recognizable
type, and indeed a
    recognizable English type, always in the process of
withdrawing or
    disappearing--as Smith's highly Dickensian image
suggests, always mailing
    himself out of the room.

    Smith, as Rushdie has said, is "astonishingly assured".
About her, one is tempted
    to apply Orwell's remark that Dickens had rotten
architecture but great
    gargoyles. The architecture is the essential silliness
of her lunge for
    multiplicities--her cults and cloned mice and Jamaican
earthquakes. Formally,
    her book lacks moral seriousness. But her details are
often instantly convincing,
    both funny and moving. They justify themselves. She
tells the story, essentially,
    of two families, the Joneses and the Iqbals. Archie
Jones is married to a
    Jamaican woman, Clara Bowden, and is the father of Irie.
He fought in the
    Second World War, as a teenager, alongside Samad Iqbal,
a Bengali Muslim
    from Bangladesh. The two men have been friends for
thirty years, and now live
    near each other in North London. This is a bustling,
desolate area, full of
    velvetlined Indian restaurants and yeasty pubs and
unclean laundromats. Smith
    bouncily captures its atmosphere. Any street in this
region will include, "without
    exception":

    one defunct sandwich bar still advertising breakfast

    one locksmith uninterested in marketing frills (KEYS CUT
HERE)

    and one permanently shut unisex hair salon, the proud
bearer of some
    unspeakable pun (Upper Cuts or Fringe Benefits or Hair
Today, Gone
    Tomorrow).

    Samad's wife Alsana is an engaging creation. She earns a
living sewing leather
    garments, at home, that are bound "for a shop called
Domination in Soho."
    Samad is a waiter at a restaurant in central London, an
intelligent man, frustrated
    by his foolish occupation; and a moral man, frustrated
by the lax country he
    lives in. He spends much of the novel in a fury--he is,
precisely, a caricature
    more than a character- -about England and English
secularism. He is determined
    that his twin sons, Millat and Magid, will grow up in
the ways of the Koran. But
    Millat, at least initially, has joined a tough street
gang, who speak "a strange mix
    of Jamaican patois, Bengali, Gujurati and English," and
hangs out on streets
    populated by "Becks, B-boys, Indie kids, wide-boys,
ravers, rude-boys,
    Acidheads, Sharons, Tracies, Kevs, Nation Brothers,
Raggas and Pakis." (Such
    an inventory is what Smith means by bringing us the
information. But this
    crocodile of youths has a use-by date inside it: Colin
MacInnes brought us the
    information about the London of the 1950s in Absolute
Beginners, and where is
    that novel? At an absolute end.) Millat's brother,
Magid, is a scientific rationalist,
    and apparently no more interested in Islam than his
brother. But his father
    decides to send Magid, the better student, back to
Bangladesh, for a safely
    religious education. The plan backfires, of course.

    When smith is writing well, she seems capable of a great
deal. At several
    moments, for example, she proves herself skilled at
interior monologue, and
    brilliant, in other passages, at free indirect style:

    `Oh Archie, you are funny,' said Maureen sadly, for she
had always fancied
    Archie a bit but never more than a bit because of this
strange way he had about
    him, always talking to Pakistanis and Caribbeans like he
didn't even notice and
    now he'd gone and married one and hadn' t even thought
it worth mentioning
    what colour she was until the office dinner when she
turned up black as anything
    and Maureen almost choked on her prawn cocktail.

    One of the novel's best chapters is a gently satirical
portrait of the Chalfen
    family, middle-class North London Jewish intellectuals
of impeccable smugness,
    with whom Millat, Magid, and Irie become involved. (One
of the Chalfen sons,
    Joshua, attends Glenard Oak school with the Jones and
Iqbal children.) There is
    Marcus Chalfen, busy with his genetic experiments, and
his wife, Joyce, who
    writes about gardening. She lives the politically
unexamined life of the liberal
    who is sure that she is right about everything. Even her
gardening books encode
    her bien-pensees about the importance of hybridity.
Smith funnily invents a long
    passage from one of them: "In the garden, as in the
social and political arena,
    change should be the only constant.... It is said
cross-pollinating plants also tend
    to produce more and better-quality seeds."

    Yet this same Joyce cannot help exclaiming, when Millat
and Iris first appear in
    her house, about the delightful novelty of having "brown
strangers" in the house.
    By mocking the Chalfens, even gently, Smith works
against the form of her own
    novel, and guards against a Rushdie- like orthodoxy
about the worship of
    hybridity. Here Smith evinces an important negative
capability which she
    promptly deforms by inserting a needless little lecture
into the same chapter:
    "This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow
and white. This has been
    the century of the great immigrant experiment." Still,
these are rare lapses. Far
    more powerful than such announcements on the authorial
Tannoy is a lovely
    moment when Marcus Chalfen puts his arms around his
adored wife (the two
    are devoted, if a little complacently, to each other),
"like a gambler collecting his
    chips in circled arms," whereupon the fifteen-year-old
Irie, whose parents are
    much less communicative, thinks "of her own parents,
whose touches were now
    virtual, existing only in the absences where both sets
of fingers had previously
    been: the remote control, the biscuit tin, the light
switches."

    Smith is a frustrating writer, for she has a natural
comic gift, and yet is willing to
    let passages of her book descend into cartoonishness and
a kind of itchy, restless
    extremism. Here, for instance, is her description of O'
Connell's, a bar and cafe
    where Archie and Samad have been regulars for many
years. Comically, it is run
    by a family of Iraqis, "the many members of which share
a bad skin condition,"
    but it has kept its Irish name, and various Irish
accoutrements. It is where, we
    are told, Archie and Samad have talked about everything,
including women:

    Hypothetical women. If a woman walked past the
yolk-stained window of
    O'Connell's (a woman had never been known to venture
inside) they would
    smile and speculate--depending on Samad's religious
sensibilities that
    evening--on matters as far reaching as whether one would
kick her out of bed in
    a hurry, to the relative merits of stockings or tights,
and then on, inevitably, to
    the great debate: small breasts (that stand up) vs big
breasts (that flop to the
    sides). But there was never any question of real women,
real flesh and blood
    and wet and sticky women. Not until now. And so the
unprecedented events of
    the past few months called for an earlier O'Connell's
summit than usual. Samad
    had finally phoned Archie and confessed the whole
terrible mess: he had
    cheated, he was cheating.... Archie had been silent for
a bit, and then said,
    `Bloody hell. Four o'clock it is, then. Bloody hell.' He
was like that, Archie.
    Calm in a crisis.

    But come 4.15 and still no sign of him, a desperate
Samad had chewed every
    fingernail he possessed to the cuticle and collapsed on
the counter, nose squished
    up against the hot glass where the battered burgers were
kept, eye to eye with a
    postcard showing the eight different local charms of
County Antrim.

    Mickey, chef, waiter and proprietor, who prided himself
on knowing each
    customer's name and knowing when each customer was out
of sorts, prised
    Samad's face off the hot glass with an egg slice.

    This kind of writing is closer to a low and unliterary
"comic" style than it ought
    to be. It has a pertness, but it squanders itself in a
mixture of banality and
    crudity. And unlike many passages in the book, it cannot
shelter behind the
    excuse that it is being written from within the mind of
a particular character.
    This is Smith as narrator, as writer. Yet nothing we
know about Samad (and
    nothing we later learn, incidentally) convinces us that
Smith is telling the truth
    when she tells us that this hot-headed Muslim sat
talking about women' s
    breasts; the topic seems, instead, to have been chosen
by Smith from a
    catalogue of cliches called "Things Men Talk About in
Bars." And then there is
    the extremism of the language: Samad is not just
anxious, but has bitten his
    fingers down to the cuticles, and has to be "prised" off
the counter "with an egg
    slice." It seems only a step from here to exploding
condoms and the like. The
    language is oddly thick-fingered, and stubs itself into
the vernacular: that juvenile
    verb "squished," for instance. It comports bewilderingly
with sentences and
    passages elsewhere that are precise and sculpted.

    The first half of Smith's novel is strikingly
better-written than the second half,
    which seems hasty, the prose and wild plots bucking
along in messy harnesses.
    Just as the quality of the writing undulates, sometimes
from page to page, so
    Smith seems unable to decide exactly the depth of her
commitment to the
    revelation of character. Samad offers a good example.
Overall, he must be
    accounted a caricature, complete with Indian
malapropisms and Indian (or
    Bengali) "temperament, " for he has, really, only the
one dimension, his angry
    defence of Islam. Still, every so often Smith's prose
opens out into little holidays
    from caricature, apertures through which we see Samad
tenderly, and see his
    frustrations, such as the restaurant he works in: "From
six in the evening until
    three in the morning; and then every day was spent
asleep, until daylight was as
    rare as a decent tip. For what' s the point, Samad would
think, pushing aside two
    mints and a receipt to find fifteen pence, what is the
point of tipping a man the
    same amount you would throw in a fountain to chase a
wish."

    This is breathtaking, and peers into a depth of
yearning: it is very fine to link the
    tip to money thrown into a well, and to link both to
Samad's large desires. One
    wonders if Smith knows how good it is. For it is
bewildering when, thirty pages
    later, she seems to leave Samad's interior, and watch
him from the outside,
    satirically (and rather crudely). She is describing
Samad's and Archie's war
    experiences, and the moment they first met. The tone
wavers drastically around
    the mock-heroic. Archie has been staring at Samad, and
Samad, all of nineteen,
    malapropistically demands: "My friend, what is it you
find so darned mysterious
    about me that it has you in such constant revelries? . .
. Is it that you are doing
    some research into wireless operators or are you just in
a passion over my arse?"
    We seem to be in the world of cartoons again.

    Forty pages later, Smith has a funny passage about Samad
trying and failing to
    resist the temptation of masturbation. Samad becomes,
for a while, an
    enthusiastic masturbator, on the arrangement (with
Allah) that if he masturbates,
    he must fast, as recompense: "this in turn . . . led to
the kind of masturbation
    that even a fifteen-year-old boy living in the Shetlands
might find excessive. His
    only comfort was that he, like Roosevelt, had made a New
Deal: he was going to
    beat but he wasn't going to eat." As in the passage
about O' Connell' s, the
    question is one of voice. Again, Smith is not writing
from inside Samad's head
    here; the sophomoric comparison to a boy in the
Shetlands is hers. So what is
    going on? The reference to the New Deal is hopelessly
misplaced, and merely
    demonstrates the temptation that this kind of writing
cannot resist, of binging in
    any kind of allusion. And what of that phrase, "he was
going to beat but he
    wasn't going to eat"? "Beat" is not Samad's word; he
would never use it. It is
    Smith's word, and in using it she not only speaks over
her character, she reduces
    him, obliterates him.

    And so it goes on, in a curious shuffle of sympathy and
distance, affiliation and
    divorce, brilliance and cartoonishness, astonishing
maturity and ordinary
    puerility. White Teeth is a big book, and does not deal
in fractions: when it
    excites, and when it frustrates, it "o'erflows the
measure." Indeed, its size tests
    itself, for one reason it disappoints has partly to do
with the fact that it becomes
    clear that over the length of the book Smith's stories
will develop, and develop
    wildly, but her characters will not develop at all. Yes,
Smith' s characters
    change; they change opinions, and change countries.
Millat, once an urban
    rapper, becomes a fundamentalist terrorist; Joshua
Chalfen, once a rationalist
    and loyal son of his scientist father, becomes an
animal-rights freak. Yet
    whenever these people change their minds, there is
always a kind of
    awkwardness in the text, a hiatus, and the change itself
is always rapidly
    asserted, usually within a paragraph or two. It as if
the novel were deciding at
    these moments whether to cast depths on its shallows,
and deciding against.

    Which way will the ambitious contemporary novel go? Will
it dare a picture of
    life, or just shout a spectacle? White Teeth contains
both kinds of writing. Near
    the end, an instructive squabble occurs between these
two literary modes. The
    scene is the conference room, where Marcus Chalfen is
delivering the news
    about the mouse. All of the book's major characters are
present. Irie Jones is
    pregnant, and for a while we inhabit her mind, and her
drifting thoughts. She
    looks from Millat to Magid, and cannot decide which twin
is the father of her
    child. But she stops worrying, because Smith breaks in,
excitedly, to tell us that
    "Irie's child can never be mapped exactly nor spoken of
with any certainty.
    Some secrets are permanent. In a vision, Irie has seen a
time, a time not far
    from now, when roots won't matter any more 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."

    Yet it is Smith who made Irie, most improbably, have sex
with both brothers,
    and it is Smith who decided that Irie, most improbably,
has stopped caring who
    is the father. It is quite clear that a general message
about the need to escape
    roots is more important than Irie' s reality, what she
might actually think, her
    consciousness. A character has been sacrificed for what
Smith called, in that
    interview, "ideas and themes that I can tie
together--problem-solving from other
    places and worlds." This is problem-solving, all right.
But at what cost? As Irie
    disappears under the themes and ideas, the reader
perhaps thinks wistfully of
    Mr. Micawber and David Copperfield, so uncovered by
theme and idea, so
    uninsured, weeping together in an upstairs room.


    James Wood, The smallness of the "big" novel.. , The New
Republic,
    07-24-2000.