White Teeth

More a 3.5 than a 4.
I expected to fall in love with this novel, the same way I did with On Beauty. But the love affair did not happen and I found myself, unfortunately, racing through the pages not because I was entranced but because I wanted to get to the end, quickly.
The core issues are that of identity and belonging - do these come with family, nationality, religion, culture, or cause? Along with these, the novel explores migration, nationalism, genetic engineering, extremism, elitism, love, activism, and a smattering of other subjects. The narrative is super-smart; you're definitely in the company of high and frank intelligence, one with plenty of wit and humour, layered faintly with condescension.
The characters are richly drawn out - there's Archibald Jones, the middle-aged white guy; his unlikely best friend Samad Iqbal, the Bangladeshi who uproots from his home country to have a better life in England; Clara Bowden, Archie's young, Jamaican wife; Alsana Begum, Samad's wife; their children Magid, Millat, and Irie; and the Chalfens, just to name a few. Their dialogue sparkles. The author takes great delight in poking fun at her characters, in whose emotions, lives, and minds we delve quite deeply but without - at least on my part - the effect of caring about them.
One critic praised the novel as being a “riot” and that is an apt word. The author throws out many threads of plots, characters, arguments, and histories, and we get this amazing weave of colour and texture. It's just that it's hard to discern the pattern in the tapestry.
This is a smart and funny novel but though my mind was stimulated and the funny bone tickled, the heartstrings remained quite untouched.