This is the book that started my love-hate
relationship with Zadie Smith. Seriously, if you are 25 and have a degree in
English literature, you should be worried about making ends meet, not getting
stuck in a dead-end job and making sure that your flatmate has left you the
money to buy the kitchen foil, instead at that age Zadie Smith had just
finished writing one of the best British novels of the last 30 years!
Archie’s family is really interesting to begin
with, but Samad’s is even better. Probably I’m saying this because I’m an
immigrant myself and have questions about my roots, but the upbringing of Magid
and Millat is somewhere between hilarious and astonishingly fascinating. And I
can absolutely relate to Samad completely disregarding so many Bangladeshi
customs yet constantly defending the memory of his supposedly glorious
grandfather.
The last few pages, summarizing the lives of
the main characters after the epic FutureMouse conference, give the reader hope
for the future of Willesden/London/the UK/humanity as Alsana and Clara join
their husbands at O’Connell, a place that in my mind is so seedy that it’s
actually kind of charming.
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