White Teeth Read online

  But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to speed the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect. And as Archie knows, it’s not like that. It’s never been like that.

  Maybe it would make an interesting survey (what kind would be your decision) to examine the present and divide the onlookers into two groups: those whose eyes fell upon a bleeding man, slumped across a table, and those who watched the getaway of a small brown rebel mouse. Archie, for one, watched the mouse. He watched it stand very still for a second with a smug look as if it expected nothing less. He watched it scurry away, over his hand. He watched it dash along the table, and through the hands of those who wished to pin it down. He watched it leap off the end and disappear through an air vent. Go on my son! thought Archie.

  Zadie Smith

  White Teeth

  Zadie Smith was born in North London in 1975, and continues to live in the area. White Teeth is her first novel.

  Copyright © 2000 by Zadie Smith

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton, London, and subsequently in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, in 2000.

  Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all names and characters with the exception of a few well-known historical figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical figures do appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning these persons are entirely imaginary and are not intended to depict any actual events or change the entirely fictional nature of the work.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc. for permission to reprint an excerpt from “As Time Goes By” by Herman Hupfeld, copyright © 1931 (Renewed) by Warner Bros. Inc. and an excerpt from “Lydia, The Tattooed Lady” by E. Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen, copyright © 1939 (Renewed) by EMI Feist Catalog, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami Fl 33014

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Random House edition as follows:

  Smith, Zadie.

  White teeth: a novel / Zadie Smith.

  p. cm.

  I. Title

  PR6069.M59 W47 2000

  823'.914 21—dc21

  99-043658

  www.vintagebooks.com

  eISBN: 978-1-4000-7550-8

  v3.0_r1