₦airaland Forum

Ever since I read Andrea Levy's Small Island,
all books that have come after regardless of the
disparities in their subject matter have been measured
against that book, my favourite for a few months now.

Zadie Smith's White Teeth has the life of Immigrants like Levy's
book as its theme. But where Levy's book is funny, with pages crackling
with scenes of pure comedy, Smith's debut novel has a bit more depth, the characters
a lot more varied as well as being socially and politically relevant in general.

The friendship between a Bengali immigrant Iqbal and the mumbling Englishman Archie is at the
centre of the book. Their friendship cemented in the Belgian woods durin World War II where they
had been colleagues in the British Army. Separated for years, they would be reconciled again years later.
They would both take young wives and the offsprings would come to play a pivotal part
in the plot.

Their reconciliation occurs in a much changed Britain. Infact, the book almost reads as the historical descent
of Britain from Colonial heavyweight to aided winner in World War II to a modern nation, unsure of itself, liberal
to the point of a farce, where appeasing immigrants or saving mice are worthy causes.

Archie's young bride for example is the granddaughter of a buccaneering English sailor who had sailed to Jamaica, cutting a
picture akin to  Captain Jack, the Honorable Pirate of the Carribean. We are also briefly acquainted with condescending colonial
Lords who in various instances give morsels of charity to their colonial vassals. It seemed like such great fun to be British back then.

Fast forward a couple of generations, and the proud days of yore have given way to an Island nation with as much power as its geographical size. Our white British characters are Archie who tosses a coin before he makes an important decision in his life, or the uber-liberal family who are taken for a ride by Iqbal's twin offsprings.

The Immigrants themselves do not fare any better. The crisis of Identity, the hankering for a homeland left behind all make them
pitiful. Iqbal's life in London is so 'pathetic', the exploits of his great great grandfather in the previous century during an uprising that was
ultimately crushed is his primary source of pride. Archie's brides mother, a Jamaican, lives in a dinghy South London flat, a Jehovah's Witness
frantically waiting for the coming of Jesus.

All rather a sad picture you might say. Well it is. I was laughing away, cause like Levy, Smith is also adept at creating comical scenes and absurd situtations
with her characters. But I became more muted the deeper I got into the book. After all I am a Nigerian immigrant, living in a dinghy South London flat, every now and then I imagine myself in the cool Lagos breeze, with people that fully get my accent.

Levy's book is still my favourite. The scenes in that book still haunt me from time to time, and I get all these weird looks from
Londoners, probably wondering, who is this weird weird Assylum seeker laughing to his bloody self.