Zadie Smith looks back at her debut novel 'White Teeth' 25 years after its release
14:59 Share

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Zadie Smith's debut novel, White Teeth, is one of those big monumental novels. If they're still making lists rounding up great books in 100 years, I'd bet that White Teeth would make the cut. That book recently marked its 25th anniversary, and Smith talked to NPR about what it's like looking back, not just on the work, but on the person she was when she wrote it.

But if you've never read White Teeth before, we've got you covered. We dug up Zadie Smith's interview with NPR 25 years ago talking about White Teeth, and it's a really interesting time capsule. She spoke with NPR's Leanne Hansen, and they got into why, of all things, Smith chose to write about faith in her debut novel. That's ahead.

This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics, presenting On Swift Horses, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, and Sacha Kaya. Muriel and her husband Lee are beginning a bright new life in California when he returns from the Korean War. But their newfound stability is upended by the arrival of Lee's charismatic brother Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past. Now playing only in theaters. Get tickets now at OnSwiftHorses.com.

25-year-old Zadie Smith just had her first novel published. White Teeth is long, almost 500 pages, and it has several grand themes. Immigration, race, religion, history, love, and genetics. Smith was born in England. Her father is British, her mother Jamaican.

White Teeth is set in Smith's North London neighbourhood, and the author gently pokes fun at her characters' fears and their struggle to find, as well as maintain, an identity. It is a 20-year chronicle of the daily lives of people, both sane and insane. Now the children knew the city, and they knew the city breeds the mad.

They knew Mr Whiteface, an Indian who walks the streets of Wilsdon with his face painted white, his lips painted blue, wearing a pair of tights and some hiking boots. And they knew Mr Newspaper, a tall skinny man in an ankle-length raincoat, who sits in Brent Libraries removing the day's newspapers from his briefcase and methodically tearing them into strips.

and they knew Mad Mary, a black voodoo woman with a red face whose territory stretches from Kilburn to Oxford Street but who performs her spells from a garbage can in West Hampstead. And they knew Mr Toupet, who has no eyebrows and wears a toupee not on his head but on a string around his neck. But these people announced their madness. They flaunted their insanity. And they were properly mad in the Shakespearean sense, talking sense when you least expected it. In North London, where councillors once voted to change the name of the area to Nirvana,

It's not unusual to walk the streets and be suddenly confronted by sage words from the chalk-faced, blue-lipped or eyebrowless.

White Teeth focuses on the story of the unlikely friendship between the shy, unassuming Englishman, Archie Jones, and his friend, Samad Iqbal, a devout Bengali Muslim. Both men are trying to pass on their religious and moral beliefs to their children, in Samad's case, twin sons from an arranged marriage. Archie married a younger Jamaican woman who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, and they have a daughter.

But things don't always turn out as planned. Zadie Smith says she's always been fascinated by those who try to live their lives according to religious principles. When people live to a religious principle, they subjugate their whole lives to one dogma, which might seem stupid to some people, but I think is quite remarkable. In what way? Because it takes a huge effort of faith.

And faith is fantastic. You are, I mean, it seems like one of the big themes you are exploring here is sort of the difference between nature and nurture, who we are, who we think we want to be, who we would like people to be, particularly with parents and children. Do you think it's different when you are dealing with immigrant families, families that are coming to a new country? For example, you have people in your characters from Jamaica, from Bengal. No, I think it proves the same for all the characters in the book, whether they're immigrants or not. It's a generational thing in a way.

It's always about trying to pass on what you believe is important to your children, and they're not always appreciative of that. It might be kind of exasperated with some immigrants just because it tends to be people from the East have a more active kind of religious background than maybe some people in the West. But I would say it's exactly the same for Midwest Christians or Baptists from the South. It's always tricky. You bring up something which I found fascinating. It's known as Zeno's Paradox. Yeah. First, can you describe that? Can you explain what that is?

It's a classical paradox about basically cutting up time. A good example of it is a race track, a circular race track, if you're running 400 meters around it, and then you imagine the race track cut into half.

To get to the halfway point, you at first have to get to the halfway point of that, and then the halfway point of that, and the halfway point of that, so it's endless. And on the surface, it makes you think that you could never run anywhere, or at least you couldn't finish the track, because you always have to complete half of the distance between one and another point. The point of that paradox is that the world is kind of entirely one and secular, and I want to try and show the multiplicity within oneness, what might appear to be oneness.

and that the two don't have to be contradictory or paradoxical in the way they are with Zeno. You can have a country which is one country, but it's still full of a huge variety of people and cultures, religions, lifestyles, and there's still a oneness to it because these people have decided to be part of a community together. And that was the original ideal of democracy, but as we know, most of our democracies...

working kind of tribal fashion, even though they appear to be democratic. A lot of people have compared this book to Salman Rushdie, and you're not thrilled with that comparison? No, I don't mind it at all. I'm very flattered by it, as anyone would be. I don't think it's entirely accurate, but it's very nice to be compared. Are you surprised at all by the reaction to this? I am astounded by it and slightly overwhelmed, and as you can probably hear, very tired, because I've just never had to do so much

and talking about myself ever. But I am pleased and amazed. What have you learned from this book tour that you're bound and determined not to repeat? I've met my readers, which is one of the best experiences you can have, I think. And they are very disparate, very kind, funny people. So that was really nice. And they talk a lot. They talk me under the table every time I give a reading. But, you know, it's just so nice to...

to meet the people who've actually read your book rather than... I mean, for two years, the only people who'd read it were reviewers and kind of publishers and editors and agents. And it's nice to meet people who've just picked it up on a recommendation or whatever. So I've learned how much fun it is to meet your readers. Have you learned anything new from the readers of your book that maybe you haven't heard? All the time. I think people notice things and point things out. And particularly when I'm signing, people come up and they always have something to say about the book or something they've noticed. And

So it's often quite enlivening. People tell me things like my name means grandfather in Yiddish, which I didn't know until I came here. Some of the readers, Caribbean readers, when they come up to talk to me, there's a kind of different spin on it because they see an experience in there that maybe they recognize or whatever, which is nice.

But it is a very kind of disparate crowd, it really is. And that's exactly what I wanted for it. Do you think the book is as good as everyone else says it is? I think it's a good book, yes. The book is the best part of me, and the book is the best part of most writers, so go to the book first. Sadie Smith, her new novel is called White Teeth, and it's published by Random House. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me.

This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices, like full-service wealth management and advice when you need it. You can also invest on your own and trade on Thinkorswim. Visit Schwab.com to learn more.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. With WISE, you can send, spend, or receive money across borders, all at a fair exchange rate. No markups or hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Okay, so more recently, Zadie Smith spoke with NPR's wildcard with Rachel Martin, and Smith talked about how distant she feels from the person who wrote White Teeth 25 years ago. Here's Rachel.

We're going to pull back and talk about White Teeth. Yeah. How are you feeling 25 years on? I mean, you know, it's very aging. That's what I have to say about it. Yeah.

I mean, would you rather just like, let's just move on? I wrote that thing when I was like 19, 20, 21. You know what's actually really hard, if I'm just being real with you, is that, you know, I'm going to be 50 this year. I'm menopausal. And it's hard to...

I think what comes with these feelings is a lot of silence. You know, you feel quite quiet inside. If you had me here in the chair at 27, I'd be talking 12 to the dozen. But I find myself much more quiet inside. So it's sometimes hard, yeah, to kind of answer to that 21-year-old girl who wrote that busy book because I love her and God bless her. But, you know, she's just not me. Yeah.

Do you have occasion to go back and open it? I mean, for the anniversary, I was meant to do that. And I did. I mean, I opened it. I took a look at one page and I was like, not today, Satan. That was kind of my reaction to that experience. So, you know, I really I love the thing I love about it is that teenagers love it.

teenagers pick it up and read it. And to me, that's exactly where it should be. That is a book for young people. And all the books for young people that exist from Catcher to something like Sula, Toni Morris. I love those books. I love books that are for young people and that young people respond to strongly. So I'm really delighted if White Teeth has any place in that canon of books you pick up at 15 and 16 and get excited about literature. Nothing could make me happier than that thought.

But at the same time, when it came out, it's not fair to put your words to you so many years later, but you said in a New Yorker interview, I really don't think anyone should write a first novel at my age. You said this when you were like 24. You know, I was in shock because I didn't know about this idea.

machine that goes around novel writing. I was really naive. I just didn't understand what I was getting into. So it was kind of hard to suddenly have to be a public person of any kind or someone who was meant to know things about things. I didn't feel like I knew anything about anything. So it was like a kind of catch up. I had to play catch up with this idea of what a writer is. But I don't get that. You say you didn't know anything about anything.

But you're writing about the – I just read the book. It was a huge hole in my literary history, but I just read it so it's on my mind. Okay, thank you for reading it. But when you were 19, 20, 21, how did you know what it was like to walk around the world as a middle-aged Bangladeshi man cheating on his wife and splitting up his twins? But you knew so much intrinsically about other people. Yeah.

I thought everybody thought that way about other people, I guess. That's the surprise when I published it, that it seemed an unusual thing to others. But I've always operated like that. And I think for me, everything about people interests me. And I have this kind of, I don't know, just like deep affection. I know it's not very fashionable, but I kind of, you know, I like people for the most part. Yeah.

Does that mean the idea of writing a memoir is anathema to you? It's inconceivable, yeah. So are those characters at all in your consciousness anymore? Oh, God, that's a good question. I don't know. My characters, maybe one character in each book stays with me strongly. Like I guess in White Teeth it might be Samad, and on Beauty it's definitely Kiki. It might just be the person who's...

most well created is the one you feel fondness for because they seem most real. Real. And you spent the most time with them. And you spent most time with them. I like the idea of them all kind of existing independently from me. That seems like a wonderful thought if it were true, if they kind of exist in the world somehow. But I don't know. Where's your creative energy focused right now? Um,

I think for the very first time in my life, I may have run out of that. We'll see. But, you know, up from, you know, the earliest age, I've always known exactly what I was writing, what was coming next, et cetera, et cetera, without a moment's doubt or... And now, if I'm really honest, I have a lot of doubt. I don't know what is next for me. I finished a book of essays, which comes out in October. But because I've never had a very professional...

when it comes to writing. I've only ever written because I felt I had to or felt compelled to and wanted to. I don't know how writing will be if I don't have that feeling. But maybe it will pass. Maybe it's just something to do with midlife. I mean, as a person who is also sharing that experience of midlife, I think that's a normal thing. Yeah, it's hard. It's a hard moment. And you're not kind of driven on in the same way. But at the same time, whatever that...

retraction is of your great big shining personality. New things can come into that space. I find myself just enormously moved by people. I always was, but now it's really almost overwhelming. Everybody seems to me so precious. That's how I feel too. Little tiny moments. Zadie Smith, the author of many books, including White Teeth, which is marking its 25th anniversary.

Thank you so much for talking with me. Thank you. That was just a snippet of a longer conversation Zadie Smith had on the NPR podcast Wildcard. You can find the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

And that's it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. If you want more, you can sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash newsletter slash books. I'm Angel Limbaugh. The podcast is produced by Chloe Weiner and edited by Megan Sullivan. Our founding editor is Petra Mayer. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Adriana Gallardo, Mansi Karana, Megan Lim, Sarah Handel, Carla Estevez, Dave Blanchard, and Summer Tamar. Yolanda Sanguini is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.

This message comes from Comcast. Every day, thousands of Comcast engineers and technologists create connectivity solutions that change the way people work, live, and play. Like Kunle, a Comcast engineer who is focused on revolutionizing the in-home Wi-Fi experience today and for the next generation. Kunle builds powerful Xfinity Wi-Fi devices for a fast, reliable connection with capacity to connect hundreds of high-bandwidth devices at once. More at comcastcorporation.com slash Wi-Fi.

This message comes from Thrive Market. The food industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, but not everything on the shelf is made with your health in mind.

At Thrive Market, they go beyond the standards, curating the highest quality products for you and your family while focusing on organic first and restricting more than 1,000 harmful ingredients. All shipped to your door. Shop at a grocery store that actually cares for your health at thrivemarket.com slash podcast for 30% off your first order plus a $60 free gift.