I finished reading Zadie Smith’s White Teeth a while ago, and I highly recommend it, especially if you’re in the mood for a dose of really good British humor and drama. I think I’m particularly fond of British writing because I spent the first ten years of my life at a little private school where we wore gray and purple uniforms and sang God Save the Queen every morning. Here’s an excerpt from the book which had me laughing out loud while I read it:

“Put your hand down.” “I will not put it down.” “Put it down, please.” “Let go of me.”

“Samad, why are you so eager to mortify me? Put it down.”

“I have an opinion. I have a right to an opinion. And I have a right to express that opinion.”

“Yes, but do you have to express it so often?”

This was the exchange between Samad and Alsana Iqbal, as they sat at the back of a Wednesday school governors’ meeting in early July ‘84. Alsana, trying her best to force Samad’s determined left arm back to his side.

“Get off woman!”

Alsana put her two tiny hands to his wrist and tried applying a Chinese burn. “Samad Miah, can’t you understand that I am only trying to save you from yourself?”

As the covert wrestling continued, the chairwoman, Katie Miniver, a lanky white divorcee with tight jeans, extremely curly hair, and buckteeth, tried desperately to avoid Samad’s eye. She silenty cursed Mrs. Hanson, the fat lady just behind him, who was speaking about the woodworm in the school orchard, inadvertently making it impossible to pretend that Samad’s persistent hand had gone unseen. Sooner or later, she would have to let him speak.

(pg. 106, White Teeth by Zadie Smith)

June 12th, 2007