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Brick Lane: A Novel
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Manufacturer: Scribner
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9780743243315
ISBN: 0743243315
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 432
Publication Date: 2004-05-25
Publisher: Scribner
Studio: Scribner
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Editorial Reviews:
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After an arranged marriage to Chanu, a man twenty years older, Nazneen is taken to London, leaving her home and heart in the Bangladeshi village where she was born. Her new world is full of mysteries. How can she cross the road without being hit by a car (an operation akin to dodging raindrops in the monsoon)? What is the secret of her bullying neighbor Mrs. Islam? What is a Hell's Angel? And how must she comfort the naïve and disillusioned Chanu? As a good Muslim girl, Nazneen struggles to not question why things happen. She submits, as she must, to Fate and devotes herself to her husband and daughters. Yet to her amazement, she begins an affair with a handsome young radical, and her erotic awakening throws her old certainties into chaos. Monica Ali's splendid novel is about journeys both external and internal, where the marvellous and the terrifying spiral together.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Worth starting
Comment: Brick Lane begins well. The characters are wittily drawn -- the protagonist's husband, Chanu, wouldn't be out of place in Dickens (and I'm afraid he'd take that as a compliment, poor fool). The structure is promising - the protagonist in London and her sister back home in Bangladesh tell their stories in counterpoint. We see how poverty and culture constrain their choices. Their lives unfold in a series of carefully explored scenes, from which we can infer the years between. *SPOILER ALERT* But then, alas, the second half of the book drifts off into all the cliches of chick lit. The female protagonist has an affair - of course - with a handsome young stranger - and uncovers an ill-concealed family skeleton - I'm sure you can guess, it's always either suicide or sexual abuse isn't it? - and finds empowerment, and sisterhood, and sexual self-determinism, blah blah blah. The really interesting issues raised in the first half of the book - acculturation, labor economics, the development of love in an arranged marriage - are just dropped without resolution.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the real thing
Comment: I did find this book intriuging enough to read it all in one go,which is quite an achivement considering it's size.
Unfortunately it did leave a somewhat of a bitter after taste.To use an analogy from the book itself,it was a bit like going to a Bangladeshi restaraunt pretending to be an Indian one(replete with Hindu statues that the propieters secretly disdain)
Ultimately i just couldnt escape the impression that it was more than just a bit phoney and designed specifically to cater to the imaginations of tourist, in this case, of the literary variety.
The book started off well for me assuming the voice of the doomed ,but dignified asian woman in suffering that was familiar from the pen of some great writers such as Amy tan,Jung Chan (wild Swans)Xinran (good women of china) et al.
I didnt consider this immediately as derivative as a part of me really wanted to like this book and the Setting was a new and exiting one in literature,the Mysterious Brick lane In Londons East End.Besides i thought, this was a voice that would serve the Bangladeshi womens experince quite well.
After finishing the book though ,and doing some research folllowing up my suspicions about the author ,it strikes me now as being very formulaic and calculating.
Although i frequented the heart of Brick Lane quite often in the early 90's,you dont need to have been to that area or lived there to pick up its lack of Authenticity .Any asian person with a traditional upbringing will tell you that no asian person ,let alone a village bumpkin like the books Heroine Nazneen, would think of her self and her life in a way that is described in this book.The charecter did not speak for herself,it was a voice imposed upon her by an outsider,a middle class,comofartable Oxford educated outsider,who has never lived anywhere remotely resembling Brick Lane.
It felt really infuriating having this village woman explained away through the sophisticated literary contrivances of an oppurtunist.You wanted to hear how Nazreen really felt. This book does not give women a voice as it purports,it takes it away. At the end i was fuming!!
The overall effect of this book is absurdity,it is writing in a voice that the person who is supposed to be being written about would not recognise themselves!
Tower Hamlets and Brick lane has many many stories to tell.A true tale of the underbelly of this area would in reality be much more tragic and heartbreaking (but ultimately much more human) than this.I hope somebody delivers a novel of the quality this part of London really deserves.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This novel is not a representation of Bangladeshi culture
Comment: This noble is complete garbage. There are so many immigrants Indian novel emphasize Indian immigrant's economic contribution and upheld Indian culture as a whole. On the other hand Bangladeshi immigrant novels, drama, short films must depict Bangladesh in bad way and do an insult to our culture. I often wonder why. I mean immigrant writers from both origins are looking for their 10 minute of fame. That is totally fine. But why you have to pull out some bad smell from closet to do that? You think Indians don't have an ugly story to tell about themselves? But are they saying it to the world? Why would they? I understand that you can just ride along with the tide and make few bucks on the side. You say something bad about Bangladesh, you would get an award. You say badly about India, no one would buy your book. So the incentive is there.
Apart from my political view, this novel is not a representation of Bangladeshi culture: not of Bangladesh, and definitely not of Bangladeshi immigrant in UK. I understand that a writer is free to pick her character from extreme example or even beyond imagination. That's fine. But when you write a novel about a specific community (or you know that it will be portray as so), you must write something in the side to upheld the real picture and to do a fare judgment to that community. It is very fare to say that she knowingly ignore that part.
Here is a reader's comment "Monica Ali appears to be telling a story about what she knows best in her novel, Brick Lane. Monica Ali was born in Bangladesh and grew up in London. Most of us do not have background knowledge of Bangladesh, and this book gives us insight into that land and culture."
Imagine that!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't let the [negative] reviews put you off!
Comment: Although I was obviously attracted to the 'blurb' on the back of the book enough to buy it, 'Brick Lane' then sat on my book case for about a year waiting to be read purely because the reviews put me off. However, I'm glad I got around to it because I enjoyed it.
The first few days of Nazneen's life were touch and go and left her with a story that her children would request again and again. The story of 'How You Were Left To Your Fate'. Brick Lane is the story of how Nazneen grows as a person and is able to take her fate into her own hands.
Nazneen and her sister Hasina were both born in a Bangladeshi village but where Nazneen comes to London after an arranged marriage to Chanu, Hasina at sixteen, elopes to the city of Khulna to marry for love. The story is really about Nazneen but we discover what is happening to Hasina through the letter's she sends from Bangladesh which whilst showing us the parallels in their lives it also creates an excellent way in which the author can move time on a few years.
All the characters were brilliantly described, and really brought the book to life. Even the minor characters weren't skimped on. "...Son Number One wore a round necked peach jumper and a collar of chest hair. The distance between his nostrils and his upper lip were unusually small. As a result he appeared constantly offended. He looked like he was making up insults. And failing."
Surely I wasn't the only reader to try and recreate that face?!! ;-)
Although fictional, real events such as the riots in Oldham and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon are touched on and it was interesting to see how they effected the Muslim people in Nazneens neighbourhood.
If you are interested in people, how they live and what effects and shapes them...then you'll enjoy this novel.
*****SPOILER*****SPOILER*****SPOILER
Although it was interesting to see Nasneen grow and become more confident I was disappointed that her and Chanu went their separate ways in the end. It was mentioned that there were two kinds of love; "the kind that starts off big and slowly wears away...And the kind that you didn't notice at first, but which adds a little bit to itself everyday" I realise that Chanu had his dream but I felt that he did love Nazneen and that she had grown to love him. So although it was a turning point for her when she took her fate into her own hands and decided to stay in England, it left me feeling a little sad.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brick Lane: a journey and a destination
Comment: This was Ms Ali's debut novel, and was shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize. While Brick Lane is about a particular set of experiences for a specific set of characters, it is also more broadly about the dislocation experienced by all migrants.
Brick Lane tells the story of Hazneen, who came to England from Bangladesh at the age of 18 for an arranged marriage to Chanu. When she arrives, she has very limited English, but falls into the role of a dutiful wife to a man who is also culturally dislocated and whose rigid adherence to remembered custom and practice renders him sadly ineffectual.
This novel explores cultural difference, family ties and associated impacts on individuals.
Highly recommended - not because it provides all of the answers or instant understanding but because it identifies so many of the questions.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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