Brick Lane (Export edition)

Monica Ali's "Brick Lane"

This lengthy and ambitious first novel explores, with indifferent success, the lives of Bangladeshi immigrants to London and the growth in independence and modification of culture of a young Bangladeshi woman.

The heroine of the book is Nazneen who at the age of 20 enters an arranged marriage with Chanu, age 40, a Banladeshi struggling to establish himself in London. Chanu is striving for a promotion, is proud of his attempts to secure education, and is portrayed at the outset of the book as rather vain and foolish. Bangladeshi society and traditional Islamic practices are patriarchal by western lights, and much is made of this throughout the book. Nanzeen and Chanu have a son, who dies as an infant, and two daughters Shahana and Bibi. Mid-way in the book, with her growth in independence and awareness of her physical and emotional needs, Nanzeen takes a lover, a young man and would-be Islamic radical named Karim. Nanzeen has a beautiful younger sister, Hasina, who remains in Bangladesh, and writes many letters to her sister in a broken English about the course of her life and its hardships.

The book gives a portrait of life of the Bangladeshi immigrant community in London. I had no prior knowledge of this community. It describes how the immigrants lived in cramped living conditions in the poorer sections of town with up to ten people per room trying to support themselves in a culture utterly foreign to most of them. Some of the people work at assimilation while others try to retain their religious and Bangladeshi identity. Drugs and violence come to plague the community and, of course, the open sexual mores of modern London prove irresistible to many. The community is shown as divided in its response to the terrorism that has come to dominate world news in recent years.

There are a host of well-drawn secondary characters in this novel, including the loan-shark, Mrs. Islam, Nanzeen's lover, named Karim, a friend of Chanu named Dr. Azad, and Razia, a friend of Nanzeen. These characters give weight and texture to the novel and partly succeed in bringing it to life.

The book focuses on Nanzeen's development, and the parallel development of Hasina, as it involves Nanzeen's husband, her lover, and, ultimately her independence. It also centers upon Chanu's and Nanzeen's differing desires in terms of returning to Bangladesh.

I was intrigued by the excellence of the 100-some discussions by my fellow Amazon reviewers and by the wide divergence of considered responses to this book. Reading the reviews helped me focus upon my own response to the book. Many reviewers found this novel an outstanding first attempt to describe the immigrant experience of the Bangladeshis and the personal growth of the heroine. Other readers found the novel vastly overpraised, difficult, and trite. There is something to be said for both views, but on the whole I agree with the latter opinion. I was happy to have it reinforced by a substantial group of fellow reviewers.

The book does portray eloquently the difficulties of the Bangladeshi immigrant community and provokes reflection on how many individuals, in immigrating to a new land, respond to the various choices of assimilation on the one hand and remaining deeply attached to one's initial identity on the other hand. Some of the characters in this book are convincingly drawn. But these are largely the secondary characters, such as Mrs. Islam and Dr. Azad, and also, surprisingly enough, Chanu, Nanzeen's husband.

The problems with this book far outweigh its virtues. To begin with, I found it far too long, too slow, and, in many places, dull. It was an unrelieved chore to finish this book. The long sections of letters to Nazneen from her sister Hasina break up the story are difficult to read and detract much more than they add.

Equally important, the character on whom Ms. Ali lavishes most of her attention, Nazneen, is trite and unconvincing. I don't think we need another long novel to inform the reader that traditional Islamic society is patriarchal. At times, both at the beginning and at the end of the story, the book does little more than that. Portions of the Nanzeen's development show more depth, as Nanzeen learns of her sexuality and also stands up to Mrs. Islam. But the main theme of the book is predictable and boring and has been done many times in many other contexts.

While Nazneen's development shows predictable stereotyping, the author, possibly in spite of herself does a better job with Chanu who for all his faults is a complexly drawn human being deserving of compassion and, perhaps, of a better fate.

Thus, in spite of some good moments, I cannot recommend this book due to its length and structure and due to its stereotyped plot line and heroine. I found it worthwhile to review the comments of my fellow reviewers and to offer my own comments here.

Robin Friedman