Brick Lane - Monica Ali > Reviews (18)

The Blurb
At the tender age of 18 Nazneen's life is turned upside down. After an arranged marriage to a man 20 years her elder she exchanges her Bangladeshi village for a block of flats in London's East End. In this new world, where poor people can be fat and even dogs go on diets, she struggles to make sense of her existence - and to do her duty to har husband. A man of inflated ideas (and stomach), he sorely tests her compliannce.
But Nazneen submits, as she must to fate and devotes her life to raising her family and slapping down her demons of discontent. Until she becomes aware of a young radical, Karim.
Against a background of escaltting racial and gang conflict, they embark on an affair that finally forces Nazneen to take control of her life...

The Author
Monica Ali was born in Dharka, Bangladesh too a Bangladeshi father and an English mother. At the age of 3 her family moved to Bolton, England where she lived until she went to college in Oxford. Monica Ali now lives in South London with her husband and 2 children.
Brick Lane is Monica Ali's debut novel, when the novel was first published some Bengali Muslims did not like the way they were portrayed in the novel and planned a demonstration where they intended to burn copies of the book, although the demonstration went ahead no copies of the book were actually burned.
Brick Lane was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2003.
Since the Ali has had her second book, Alentejo Blue published which is a collection of stories set in Portugal.

The Story
The story begins in 1967 with Nazneen's birth in East Pakistan, she was born dead but by some miracle she began to breathe, after this Nazneen refused to suckle at her mother's breast and everyone thought she would die without medical intervention but Nazneen's mother decided the baby should be left to fate and fate decided Nazneen should live, after that her mother taught her that everthing in life should be left to fate.
Nazneen is then blessed with a sister Hasina who she is very close to but Hasina decided to go hr own way in life rather than have fate decide everything. After their mother's death instead of being married off Hasina runs away with the man she loves while Nazneen is married off to Chanu, a Bangladeshi man 20 years older than herself who lives in London.
Nazneen had a vision of England , living in a cottage with flowers around the dog, but what she gets is a flat in Tower Hamlets, with a husband who she finds quite irritating, yet she feels blessed as he does not beat her. The couple have a son who later dies and then go on to have two more daughters.
Meanwhile Hasina is having a colourful life back in Bangladesh she is beaten by her husband, leaves him, gets a job in a factory, is raped, and turns to prostitution.
Nazneen's life becomes more interesting when she takes a job doing piece work from home and meets middleman, Karim. Nazneen finds herself attracted to Karim and they end up having an affair. Eventually when Chanu wishes to return to Dharka and their daughters don't Nazneen is forced to make some decisions for herself instead of leaving everything to fate.

My Experience
To be honest although this book has been critically acclaimed i didn't actually think it was that great. For most part Nazneen's life is just like any other housewife's life and I don't need to read about it to know what that's like. Hasina has far the more eventful life (although sad) and the book wouldn't really be worth reading if it wasn't itterupted by Hasina's letters to her sister. Nazneen's life only really picks up when she meets Karim and begins to rebel against everything she has ever known.
A lot of the book is filled with Chanu's speeches, these are irritating and boring but that's how he supposed to be, you definatley wonder how Nazneen has managed to out up with him for so long.
What I did like about the novel was how it dealt with so many issues, drugs, gangs, prostitution and how events like the Oldham riots and 9/11 effected the characters and what was going on around them.
I enjoy reading a lot and will happily read any genre but I did find this hard going at times and had to force myself to stick with it. The ending probably does make it worth it as there are lessons for most people in here and it's quite thrilling when Nazneen does what you've been willing her to do all along and stands up for herself.

Chapters 21
ISBN 0552771155
Price: rrp £7.99 (I got it as a swap from readitswapit.co.uk)