Brick Lane

With its gritty Tower Hamlets setting, this sharply observed contemporary novel about the life of an Asian immigrant girl deals cogently with issues of love, cultural difference and the human spirit. The pre-publicity hype about Brick Lane was precisely the kind to set alarm bells ringing (we've heard it so often before), but, for once, the excitement is fully justified: Monica Ali's debut novel demonstrates that there is a new voice in modern fiction to be reckoned with.

Nazneen is a teenager forced into an arranged marriage with a man considerably older than her--a man whose expectations of life are so low that misery seems to stretch ahead for her. Fearfully leaving the sultry oppression of her Bangladeshi village, Nazneen finds herself cloistered in a small flat in a high-rise block in the East End of London. Because she speaks no English, she is obliged to depend totally on her husband. But it becomes apparent that, of the two, she is the real survivor: more able to deal with the ways of the world, and a better judge of the vagaries of human behaviour. She makes friends with another Asian girl, Razia, who is the conduit to her understanding of the unsettling ways of her new homeland.

This is a novel of genuine insight, with the kind of characterisation that reminds the reader at every turn just what the novel form is capable of. Every character (Nazneen, her disappointed husband and her resourceful friend Razia) is drawn with the complexity that can really only be found in the novel these days. In some ways, the reader is given the same all-encompassing experience as in a Dickens novel: humour and tragedy rub shoulders in a narrative that inexorably grips the reader. Whether or not Monica Ali can follow up this achievement is a question for the future; it's enough to say right now that Brick Lane is an essential read for anyone interested in current British fiction. --Barry Forshaw

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Can't see what the fuss was about - Rated
I had this given to me as a book club selection from our local library and just the description on the back was enough to make me groan.
Yet another book about'issues', 'worthy', 'prize-winning' etc but is all so hackneyed, all been done before and better in book, tv, film etc.
I just couldn't read it, it said nothing to me all this outsiders view of British-which seems today to mean LONDON-culture and how we assimilate into the country we live in our defend our religious/cultural/societal origins.
At the end of the day we none of us belong anywhere, we make our home wherever we are and try to make the best of things.
Or don't.
I really didn't care about the characters and didn't finish it and was glad I wasn't the only one to think so in the group.

Don't let the [negative] reviews put you off! - Rated
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.

Thoughtful, sensitive view of immigrant life in London - Rated
A tastefully written treatise on the delicate subject of immigration and integration; Monica Ali has captured the life of immigrant Bangladeshis in East London at the end of the twentieth century.

Born in 1967, Nazneen spends the first 18 years of her life running free in her Bangladeshi village. Imagine the upheaval and readjustment as she moves to London to become the wife of a man 20 years older than herself. She speaks no English, lives confined to a squalid appartment block and is entierly dependent on her husband.
He, meanwhile, is stuck in a dead-end job in the Civil service, patiently awaiting promotion.
We follow her adjustment to this situation with nothing less than admiration. She ventures further from home each time, meets other Bangladeshi women and starts to obtain a degree of independence.
Thankfully her husband is loving and gentle, itself unusual in modern fiction. He is thrilled when two daughters are born and I felt that a genuine love blossomed in the relationship.
Meanwhile, politics start to intervene, unrest in the area becomes more widespread and the daughters grow to teenagers amongst an atmosphere of drugs and truancy. The 9/11 catastrophe impinges painfully on the little family as popular opinion polarises against Muslims.
Nazneen and her husband react differently to these pressures and Nazneen starts to become the stronger personality, while still bowing to her husband's position in the family.
Running parallel with Nazneen's story is that of her sister who eloped to Dhaka and married a young man from her village. Rejected by her family for her behaviour, she keeps in contact with Nazneen via letters detailing the developments in her very different life.

While a bit of an epic the book kept me with it the whole way. I thought the characters were beautifully drawn and the emotions and struggles true to life.
Recommended.

Over-rated - Rated
I got to about chapter seven and had to stop reading it. The way the author wrote was extremley annoying and made it seem as if she was trying to be too clever. Was the book good? Who knows, I didn't finish it. The story had the potential to be good but I got bored by the writing style. I read at least 2 books a week and its not often I don't finish one. Read Cloth Girl - much better.

A book to make you think - Rated
I loved this book. I've never been to India, and not to Brick Lane since it became Bangladeshi, but Monica Ali's novel brought them both to life. I found the juxtaposition of the lives of Nazneen and her sister most compelling. We are all aware of the exploitation of workers in sweatshops, be they in India or the UK, but it was interesting to consider whether the workers themselves would lead better lives without their jobs. For me the book did not demean the Bangladeshi/Muslim community, rather it highlighted how difficult it is for ordinary people to break free from the situation that they are born in.