Recently, I had an idea for a writing project and so, in research, I started to read Zadie Smith's White Teeth. For all hermits and rock dwellers out there, I'll reiterate: White Teeth is Zadie Smith's debut novel, for which the literary aniticipation was SO high (i dont even know how she got it that way but hell, she must have an amazing Ari-Gold SuperAgent for a literary agent, to get a bidding war started over HALF a manuscript) that when the book finally came out, the literary community pounced on it.
And yet...reading this, I could only maintain my quizzical brow. How to describe White Teeth in non-derogatory terms? How to say how bad it is in a helpful manner without moaning about the utter waste of time it was? How to exlain/understand why the fuck it was so loved? Okay, well that's an easy one. This was written around the Bend It Like Beckham time in England. To give it fair credit, BilB was in 2002 so I'm not insinuating that White Teeth is apeing. But the Asian London fad is hard to miss. Think Jay Sean and all.
But, honestly, for the quality of the book and the sheer number of utter stereotypes in the lives of Black and Asian Londoners relative to white Londoners is...appalling to say the least. There is not one redeeming quality to the book. Not even the wry smile it pulled from me at the butchering pigeons/halal meat shop can redeem the 480 pages of the great big NOTHING I just had to put msyelf through.
And for what? To read some mixed, divorced, over-privileged, 20 something, child's take on what culture is? I agree wholeheartedly that writing about culture - especially one that isn't your own - takes a huge amount of courage. Because you're always going to run into people who say well THIS is not the correct representation of me or my culture, this is not our people's general attitude, don't generalize, blahblahblah. And I get that, truly I do. Because, culture in itself is sort of a generalization too, isn't it? Any culture for that matter - the mere meaning of the word groupds together a mass of people. So, yes, there are going to be generalizations.
But my gosh! At least make it the right KIND of generalization! At least get it right. I'm not indignant because I'm Asian or I was a Londoner or anything. I'm indignant because the author seems to have taken NO pains whatsoever to research! To immerse herself, meet with people who are different, to truly go out there and capture the soul of a peoples. And for crying out loud, she had a 6 figure paycheck as an incentive! What was she doing sitting on her ass, screwing about with pre-Nick Laird-boyfriend??!
There are tons of people who swear by the book, tons of people (Salman Rushdie included) that would gamble their literary reputations (as the endorsements littered on the jacket of the book can only lead me to believe) on what they think is the utter bible penned by a 20 year old with amazing insight into cultural communities and immigrants of London.
Let me tell you: it is not. Here's what White Teeth is: it is a mish mash of stereotypes - horny brown man, disgruntled white man, radical youth, absolutely 1 dimensional wives...the list is endless. And the reason it is so revered is because White Teeth...is for white people.
Seriously. The ones who put this book up on a pedestal are either naive people who tend to like their cultures oversimplified, commoditized and packaged, the people who have NO insight into multi-cultural lives or have lived around immigrants and are delusional enough to think that they are "in the know".
Yeah. Okay. LOL, is what I gotta say to that. It is utterly insulting, I think, that the author thought that she would sit in her apartment (and the apartments of others) and pen characters that are empty, hollow, and complete caricatures of just about every South Asian stereotypes you might have come across. The book lacks focus - what is she talking about? Love? Friendship? War? The Immigrant status? What? And more importantly...why do I care?
I'm an immigrant, technically speaking. Born in India, never lived there, move to Bahrain, then to London, then to New York back and forth and Toronto. I couldn't say I fully understand culture but I love to steep myself in it. I couldn't define it (at least not in such flat, dry terms as Zadie Smith) but I feel it all around me. Smith, on the other hand, is trying to package a Bollywood Crossover, an cheap imitation of Nair (in terms of pull of different cultures) and Rushdie in literary style, trying to write on the lives of people she clearly has no knowledge of...and doesn't seem to want to take the effort of getting to know!
While her use of colloquial dialogue is accurate, at best, the rest of the novel completely falls short. I don't know how she expected us to eat this garbage up; honestly speaking, i'm quite surprised. Her mother is Jamaican and her father is English and you'd think that she might have some empathy and understanding for stereotypes and the way they ensconce. But no...I have read English authors with more authority and panache with a similar topic, who excute a story in a much more unassuming, less brash, not as pretentious manner than what White Teeth has done with its poor, lifeless characters.
My thoughts, after reading such a massively POINTLESS novel are as follows: how dare she waste trees for this? How could they pay her so much money to spew out crap that she has clearly taken from silly crossover movies and the new "south asian author" fad that is going on? It is like she sat home and watched television, possibly re-runs of Skins and wrote this. Unbelieveably insulting that she clearly did NO research.
Not only is it slightly incoherent, what with the pastiche of timelines but its characters are unbearable. On more than one occassion I wanted to smack Samad and the lot (maybe not Clara though) because they were SO. RIDICULOUSLY. PREDICTABLE. This should have been marketed as a satire, seriously, because that is the only way I can take it seriously. If I knew that the book was aware of the caricature it was drawing up and thus mocking books that take this pretentious tone on the subject of immigrant-fare then I would've understood, maybe even clapped.
And to think: the painting of such a ridiculous, farsical image of immigrants from the country that gave us John Berger and the Ways of Seeing. For shame.
The book is serious. It is not a satire. It is not a farce. And it has been nominated for awards and the like. THAT is the satire, that is the comic tragedy, I think!
Which means two things: people are easy to amuse; everyone is looking for an easy packaged image or representation and nobody wants to question; everyone is happy getting fed utter bullshit.
And those literary awards are published by idiotic people who consider themselves scholars but eat up Deepak Chopra and Yoga like its going out of style and love Indian culture for its "bright colours" and "beautiful rituals" and "diverse people" and all that other people-commoditizing-a-culture speak.
Culture is a lot of things. I wouldn't presume to be the expert on its definition. But I know one thing for sure: culture sure as hell isn't White Teeth. If I didn't have any backbone, I would say I wish I had capitalized on this, thought of doing this first; I wish I had though to throw in stereotypical, idiotic, careless, farsical caricatures of several characters and show how their lives are all connected like a twisted version of Love, Actually.
Major Fails. Actually.
Showing posts with label london. Show all posts
Showing posts with label london. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
(Au)Oral 808s
One of the reasons that I love lofts is their ability for excessive echo. To me, nothing is more sexier than an expensive set of best-that-money-can-buy speakers filling an entire space - every nook and cranny, every converging corner of a space - with beats. With music. Those 808s, the lovesounds, the aural manifesto.
It don't matter whether I'm bleeding Jazz or seeping Soul, if I'm in the mood to dance to pseudo-rave or dance to house. Sometimes it is undefinable and guilty of genre tripping. Every gram of music that hits me, I fall in love with. I would be absolutely no where without it. This is one love affair that will possibly never end - I'm in too deep.
Music puts me in a whole other world; it is an alternate universe where everything is logical and flows so well all at the same time. Some people use music to set a mood. I say allow it to respond to your mood. When everything is quiet in my mind, like a gas within a test tube, my mind fills with an orchestra of my most cherished sounds. I crave better headphones to be able to track and feel every single twist and turn, every shot of instrument. It flows in my veins and fills even my breath with a beat. It challenges my pulse, sedates me and prods me at the same time. I've never met such a flighty temptress as music, nor ever had the pleasure to play second fiddle to a more commanding mistress.
My awareness of music started at a very young age, on the merits of the 90s and a very strange relationship with my father. The double advantage of having two mother tongues, two identities made me open my eyes, to a quality of music that transcended mere words or regions. It began in Bahrain, every Wednesday night Hollywood musicals and Bollywood singsong. It manifested into a fondness that solidfied in Queens, New York. It returned to London, just off of Kilburn and trickled through the streets of Hounslow and Southhall in a garishly obvious manner. Then, it was silent for quite a while, awakening every year in the summer of Manhattan. I do not know when music became about textures, flowing in ribbon-like rivers; when it became about a defining stance, or when it transformed into a heady drug.
When I arrvived in Canada, I became very self-conscious about my music. I began to brand and classify. I began to hide it all away from others. I didn't expect many to understand. At first, I didn't understand the true spectrum of the essential listening. There was so much standard music that I hadn't even heard of.
Aural tradition and I slowly picked up the pieces. I understood the great fashioners of rock, the Kurt Cobain, the Stairways, the Doors. My curiosity piqued at trips to the then-Soho with The Ramones playing out of lofts and that's when I knew. It didn't matter if I was listening to A.R. Rehman or AC/DC. It was all just one in the same language, utterly beautiful in its creation.
I'm very close to my music. I love my iPod not because of its quality or its feature (well maybe a little because of that) but just its sheer ability to set my scene anywhere I go. For me, it is like a piece of me. That sounds conceited but when I lost my first iPod to the wiles of this world, I grieved like I would grieve for a friend. I was so lost without it. I had to have my music. It was my only comfort in a world so forgone. I still believe that the thread of music spells out my life.
So where did this all come from? Well, I was sitting on the bus one too-early morning and amidst all the mediocre music I had put on for the sake of it and out of the blue came 3 by 5. I don't know how, but a day that was doomed spun and turned on its head. And I partially attribute that to music for its strength (though Don Miguel Ruiz may have had something to do with the other part).
Because music is so important to me, like anything that loves too deeply, I let it blind me. I couldn't stay open to music because I had such a severe definition of what music should be and do. I became an elitist and expected music to have and be and do something for me other than just being itself. Without even realizing it, I cast out music that I didn't understand (like Rap) and my extreme dislike for the obvious slaying this genre of music was doing to the very definition of music turned into a gavel for my judgement.
But eventually I realized. Music frees all borders. It brings you closer. It's beauty is that it can fit in a genre and then yet completely not conform. It is malleable and undefinable in its definity and possibly the only definite thing about any sort of music one listens to is that it is all subjective. What I like is a direct reflection of me. What someone else likes is a direct reflection of them. It is a characteristic, a consequence but it should not be used as a judgement.
Today, I absolutely revel in its undefinity. Every track that I have, that I have the privilege of being able to to listen to, is a spiritual journey for me. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes healing, sometimes funky. But always it is music.
Other people fall out of love as they grow older. It becomes a collection of the greatest hits or current UK Top 40s for them. It is a trend. Their lives take over. I don't feel that happen yet, with me. Music matters to much for me not to want to explore and hear more than the Singles chart. I wouldn't have it any other way.
May the era of Aural 808s live on.
It don't matter whether I'm bleeding Jazz or seeping Soul, if I'm in the mood to dance to pseudo-rave or dance to house. Sometimes it is undefinable and guilty of genre tripping. Every gram of music that hits me, I fall in love with. I would be absolutely no where without it. This is one love affair that will possibly never end - I'm in too deep.
Music puts me in a whole other world; it is an alternate universe where everything is logical and flows so well all at the same time. Some people use music to set a mood. I say allow it to respond to your mood. When everything is quiet in my mind, like a gas within a test tube, my mind fills with an orchestra of my most cherished sounds. I crave better headphones to be able to track and feel every single twist and turn, every shot of instrument. It flows in my veins and fills even my breath with a beat. It challenges my pulse, sedates me and prods me at the same time. I've never met such a flighty temptress as music, nor ever had the pleasure to play second fiddle to a more commanding mistress.
My awareness of music started at a very young age, on the merits of the 90s and a very strange relationship with my father. The double advantage of having two mother tongues, two identities made me open my eyes, to a quality of music that transcended mere words or regions. It began in Bahrain, every Wednesday night Hollywood musicals and Bollywood singsong. It manifested into a fondness that solidfied in Queens, New York. It returned to London, just off of Kilburn and trickled through the streets of Hounslow and Southhall in a garishly obvious manner. Then, it was silent for quite a while, awakening every year in the summer of Manhattan. I do not know when music became about textures, flowing in ribbon-like rivers; when it became about a defining stance, or when it transformed into a heady drug.
When I arrvived in Canada, I became very self-conscious about my music. I began to brand and classify. I began to hide it all away from others. I didn't expect many to understand. At first, I didn't understand the true spectrum of the essential listening. There was so much standard music that I hadn't even heard of.
Aural tradition and I slowly picked up the pieces. I understood the great fashioners of rock, the Kurt Cobain, the Stairways, the Doors. My curiosity piqued at trips to the then-Soho with The Ramones playing out of lofts and that's when I knew. It didn't matter if I was listening to A.R. Rehman or AC/DC. It was all just one in the same language, utterly beautiful in its creation.
I'm very close to my music. I love my iPod not because of its quality or its feature (well maybe a little because of that) but just its sheer ability to set my scene anywhere I go. For me, it is like a piece of me. That sounds conceited but when I lost my first iPod to the wiles of this world, I grieved like I would grieve for a friend. I was so lost without it. I had to have my music. It was my only comfort in a world so forgone. I still believe that the thread of music spells out my life.
So where did this all come from? Well, I was sitting on the bus one too-early morning and amidst all the mediocre music I had put on for the sake of it and out of the blue came 3 by 5. I don't know how, but a day that was doomed spun and turned on its head. And I partially attribute that to music for its strength (though Don Miguel Ruiz may have had something to do with the other part).
Because music is so important to me, like anything that loves too deeply, I let it blind me. I couldn't stay open to music because I had such a severe definition of what music should be and do. I became an elitist and expected music to have and be and do something for me other than just being itself. Without even realizing it, I cast out music that I didn't understand (like Rap) and my extreme dislike for the obvious slaying this genre of music was doing to the very definition of music turned into a gavel for my judgement.
But eventually I realized. Music frees all borders. It brings you closer. It's beauty is that it can fit in a genre and then yet completely not conform. It is malleable and undefinable in its definity and possibly the only definite thing about any sort of music one listens to is that it is all subjective. What I like is a direct reflection of me. What someone else likes is a direct reflection of them. It is a characteristic, a consequence but it should not be used as a judgement.
Today, I absolutely revel in its undefinity. Every track that I have, that I have the privilege of being able to to listen to, is a spiritual journey for me. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes healing, sometimes funky. But always it is music.
Other people fall out of love as they grow older. It becomes a collection of the greatest hits or current UK Top 40s for them. It is a trend. Their lives take over. I don't feel that happen yet, with me. Music matters to much for me not to want to explore and hear more than the Singles chart. I wouldn't have it any other way.
May the era of Aural 808s live on.
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