White Teeth’s Embodied Metaphors: The Moribund and the Living

Abstract

Early reception of White Teeth, as has often been emphasized (Tew, 2010), tended to celebrate the novel as the expression of a relatively unproblematic ‘diverse’ London, where the iconic figure of Zadie Smith and her irreverent writing could thrive and become representative of the ‘New Britain’, a privileged space of conviviality and transformative interaction.¹ Beyond such millenium optimism, in the political mood caused by the events of 9/11, the 2005 London bombings and the global economic crisis, and also after some distancing from the initial marketing of the book and the writer, closer readings of the text have provided more nuanced interpretations of the book’s politics. These acknowledge Smith’s ambiguous use of irony and her critique of what she labels ‘Happy Multicultural Land’ (McLeod, 2005; Jakubiak, 2008), and assign greater complexity to her urban representations, even while conceding that the light comic tone sits uncomfortably with the genuine fears that appeared in the new millennium.