I’m not going to question criticisms from such an authority. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for The Simpsons who’d briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Smith also said, soon after the book came out: “When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But it’s not, it’s more like a fat, messy kid who needs help.” If it were a perfect piece of statuary, then no, one wouldn’t want anybody’s grubby fingers upon it. The truth is, it could do with some touching up. “I had come to realise that my White Teeth was about 100 pages too long and suffered from a calamitous ending, dragging at the rear like all unnecessary tails. Take it from Smith, who has described the end of White Teeth as “calamitous”. The “rebel” mouse gives a “smug look” and escapes. Someone accidentally gets shot in the leg. There’s a surprise reveal about a suspected Nazi war criminal. Every other main character in the book is also conveniently gathered there (or singing hymns outside).

Two different sets of hapless wannabe terrorist organisations (several of whose leading members are stoned) descending on a New Year’s Eve launch party for a new kind of genetically modified mouse. I wonder if Smith knew then how she would end the novel – with (spoilers): White Teeth is a 500-page baggy monster and plenty of its considerable reading pleasure comes from the easy way it ranges over time and space. Not least because the plot of White Teeth is tangled, meandering and very silly. I’m also curious what was in her extract. Publishers are often criticised for being risk-averse, but that sounds like one hell of a risk to me.

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