Monday, February 5, 2018

Reading Journal: White Teeth and The Music Shop

Vintage Books, 2000
448pgs

A huge undertaking of a debut novel, this paperback edition has moved with my library many times.  I don't even remember how the story ended when I picked it up again last month, thought I did remember the hilarious beginning, and could see in my minds eye, the Halal butcher wielding his knife at the mess of pigeons.

The unearthed bookmark in it, is a boarding pass from JFK to Heathrow Airport, sometime in March, of what year I am also not certain.  But I deduce that at the time of this first reading, I was dating an American sculptor who had grown-up in England (Ealing to be exact) and I must have been going to visit his family for spring break and though I visited the Romer family often, I’m sure we probably broke up not too long after I read this book. Because of these visits, I realize, Ealing has always been a ramshackle, immigrant filled neighborhood, even though Zadie Smith's narrative takes place in Willesden Green, six miles from Ealing.  

I’d forgotten all the “big” issues, that were contained in this book.  Colonialism, Cross racial marriages and friendships, war buddies hashing over their youth in a Irish-named Arab owned bar, history of the Pakistani uprising against the British, conflicts of religion (mainly Hindus, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslim fundamentalists called KEVIN with an unfortunate acronym problem), genetic engineering, animal rights activists, issues of children of immigrant parents, separation of twins, and so much more.  The whole time as I read, I was amazed at how such a young author (age 25 at the time of publishing) could tackle so much and write from so many different viewpoints.   

Though the writing was a pleasure to ingest, it was hard for me to keep up, and I could sense many chapters as being submitted to the New Yorker as stand alone chapters for the young fiction issues.

I reserved a few more Zadie Smith books from the library; Swing Time the most recently published book now sits on my nightstand.  Then I remember that I had vowed not to read any books by one author in a row.  Last year I spent most of my reading time going through all the books written by a single author in one go, and found it to be too confusing:  Richard Russo- The Bridge of Sighs, Empire Falls, Nobody’s Fool, That Old Cape Magic….and after the third book, I found myself getting thoroughly confused at which characters belonged in which book.  The tone of writing was so familiar that timelines and characters easily became jumbled in my mind; Lucy from The Bridge of Sighs could easily have been cavorting with Miles Roby.  Even the most disparate settings and reading audiences from one author such as JK Rowling could get mixed up; Casual Vacancy and Harry Potter, one being a grown up version of the other…though reading Rowling through the eyes of her pseudonym Robert Galbraith was a bit different in tone.

I’ve just realized that unconsciously, and unpurposefully, I’ve been reading books that take place in England.  (With Hiro, I’ve been reading Neil Gaiman; Coroline and now The Graveyard Book)

Random House, 2017
306 pgs

Another British import, this novel was plowed through in a single day.  Just as the title suggests, it was a lovely weaving of music throughout the narrative, classical, jazz, blues, classic rock, pop, everything.  The author writes as she speaks, starting thoughts and sentences, but leaving them unfinished for you to guess at and later understand.  The location is an old dodgy street, and has the small town feel of the little shop around the corner.  It is a book that will probably mention Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity in every review, though instead of mixed tapes, we have a lover of vinyl.  The soundtrack is great, though after reading this book, you can’t listen to it as background music, it must be paid attentioned to while lying on the floor with your eyes closed.


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