WHITE TEETH'S CLARA BOWDEN

Zadie Smith came up with an ironical, cosmopolitan and multicultural glimpse to London's modern society. In this endeavour, a woman character was born, Clara Bowden (or should we say Clara Jones?), whose story resembles the life path of many girls having former british colonies' ascendants. The exclusion and depressive atmosphere of the suburbs, the way how their growth and education becomes sometimes sinuous (the opposite of Zadie's dignified education - perhaps Clara is the girl Zadie could, under different circumstances, have been...), the identity and xenophobia issues, they all are approached in a clever manner.

 

Clara is a tall black-caribbean origin girl disappointed with her first red-haired british boyfriend, who treacherously converted to her mother's Jehovah sect. That's when Archibald Jones comes into her life, an older man whom she meets during a hippie new year's eve party, the day after Archie attempted suicide by carbon dyoxide intoxication inside his car in the middle of nowhere ("nowhere", here , means London's ugliest suburbs...), after a disturbing divorce from an italian woman. Clara's father has been a paralised mumb for years, a home statue sitting on the couch for days with his mouth open, dribbling while watching tv. So for Clara, who wants to run away from her ex, Archie becomes the perfect refuge, a protection, an older male figure, the possibility to own her own apartment and to have a "home". And for Archie, an average man, Clara represents the youth's freshness, but something else. Clara will join two indian women related with Archie's best friend to start wondering and to unite on the path of building their own destinies.