Monday, June 21, 2010
Toothsome or tedious?
I kind of sense that the discussion of this book has petered out, but I still thought it mandatory to mention the title "White Teeth" and whether it — and all the oral references, from Clara getting her buck teeth knocked out to Irie's plan to take up dentistry (and all the toothy references in between) resonated with you at all. Clever or heavy-handed?
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3 comments:
I thought the teeth references were fairly well-done, i.e. not too obvious or annoying. But what do you think the purpose of them was? Are teeth a metaphor for something?
I couldn't really tell. Clearly they were supposed to have some great significance given the title, but it was kind of lost on me. The thing that kept occurring to me is that British people are sort of famous for their rotten, tea-stained teeth. In recent times politicians like Gordon Brown have had to pay more attention to their dental image because of the relentless public gaze on them. It wouldn't do to have brown teeth like he had, so he had them worked on (I read about this recently in "The Anglophiles.")
The immigrants typically have nicer teeth, or at least whiter, and their skin color emphasizes the fact.
There's that one disturbing passage where the kids go to visit that crazy, racist old man for their school project.
He says: "One sometimes forgets the significance of one's teeth. We're not like the lower animals — teeth replaced regularly and all that — we're of the mammals, you see. And mammals only get two chances, with teeth. More sugar?"
"...But like all things, the business has two sides. Clean white teeth are not always wise ... when I was in the Congo, the only way I could identify the nigger was by the whiteness of his teeth, if you see what I mean... And they died because of it, you see?"
Oh, I forgot about that crazy old man!
The immigrant thing does make some sense with the story. I guess I'm inclined to think all the teeth references were sort of silly because, as you say, the significance was lost on me. If you're going to use a running metaphor (if that's what it was), it has to be one readers will get.
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