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Fiction 8. Biography
7/le /;".‘:"l:2:" MONICA ALI Brick Lane
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Shelf life
Classnc novels revnsuted, This issue: The (So-Between
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If you were to lay out end-to-end the many superlatives this book is going to gather, the path of praise would likely stretch all the way from Pakistan to Tower Hamlets. Easily. Deservedly. It is a fine debut, the spirit and story of which cannot fail but to enthral. Have a little care and patience though. Brick Lane may not make you laugh till page 65 (and then a tiny one at that, something to do with a man who resembles a beetle which simply defies explanation) and you may not realise how captured you are until the twist on page 118. A mighty kick in the guts it is too. Forget all that Roald Dahl bollocks with the unexpected sprung at the end — Ali turns the knife just a quarter of the way through. And it hurts.
Comparisons with Zadie and Salman are inevitable, of course; this year's White Teeth, goes the PR spin. Well, there‘s worse company for a new author to keep. As another take on the Asian-
Wha the critics said
British/British-Asian experience, it M" M i 1 ' " -- '
is welcome, respectful and I“ ~ i' :e r l l « 7'
quizzical. As the older generation I m x’. H a i t '
cling to ‘home' with all its values, tomv , .uw: mi ' '
so their children embrace the here "4*" " l ' ’ f' " 1
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contradictions. mu 'ni.."t-: l -:.«-' " w Brick Lane begins in a small Key moment “1" "'13"
village in Pakistan with a mini- im‘xri: w, :1 .vf'vi;=,, ; u,
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miracle: Nazneen is stillborn but fate intervenes (or rather her mother refuses to intervene in fate) and the baby grows up to find herself living in an arranged marriage on a housing estate in Monica Ali keeps good company with Salman and Zadie London. She has little education
but becomes an acute observer of the human epiphany, and friendship. Oh and love. Don’t forget that. condition. Her unsolicited husband Chanu is an Ali’s prose is even and unfussy, frequently splendid in autodidact with a penchant for quotation and musing comic understatement even amidst the pain and shock '4
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0" the 'immigrant tragedy'. of 11 September, race riots and generational conflict. ' l «d >‘ ‘ ‘ " M' The plot charts Nazneen‘s spiritual journey from duty And finally there’s a fantastic and sanguine closing "'7' ‘1 ‘ /'-- I “ “I III 1 and devotion to self-realisation and expression via line (but one which spoils nothing of the plot). “‘This is 1' t“; "w ° «' " ' i ‘ l ’ I ”’ "-;:’_I’,'1‘,':;,‘,‘M' i??-
family tragedy, a fondness for ice skating, 17 frozen England,” she said. “You can do whatever you like. I ' cows, an affair, correspondence with her ‘fallen‘ sister, Ah, the joy of optimism in the possibility of everything. Postcript l i1 l w: a, .2»,
one nervous breakdown, politicisation, a chilli induced (Rodger Evans) J‘ 1‘1“ ‘3'“: ""3 "W": ‘- ‘7‘“: {1f:‘:' HUM: ()f‘:{)' ‘r' ./ Uli". :1 ‘.'.",’, "U féif'n’,”
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