Brick Lane **1/2

By Monica Ali.
Published in England by Doubleday 2003.
This Edition: Scribner 2003.
369 pages.

Once in a while I like to look at what other people say about a book, so I went on Amazon and looked at some readers' reviews. Most people loved this book, which is not surprising since it won several awards, including Barnes & Noble's Discovery award, which is where I had heard of it first. So I went to the readers' comments who gave the book a bad review. The trend was that it was slow moving and too long (valid). Some said that it was too soapy (valid) and some said that the depictions of Bengladesh were inaccurate (wouldn't know if that was valid or not since I have never been there). While I agree with some of these criticisms, over all, I liked the book.

This is a story about a young girl, who was saved by 'fate' from sure death at infancy. Fate, or God's will, is what drives her philosophy her whole life, though she does occasionally fight againts fate. She has an arranged marriage to a middle-aged, overweight man in England who lives in the Brick Lane neighborhood, a poor neighborhood with a variety of immigrants. Meanwhile her older sister has run off, scandalized with a man and moves to a Bengaldeshi city. Her life, which is filled with a variety of failures and tragedies, is told to us by a series of letters that she sends to her sister in England.

The young girl, Nanzeen, doesn't really love her husband, Chanu, though he treats her relatively well, which she mentions often. T o make money, she starts a sewing business and meets a young man who brings her orders to work on. They have an affair and she falls in love for the first time. In the mean time, she has become more appreciative and affectionate for her husband. So she's torn. Her oldest daughter (some years have passed at the point of the affair) is rebelious and bitter. And she owes her neighbor money for the purchase of the sewing machine, but she can never seem to pay the debt off, since the interest is continously accruing.

While Nanzeen seems to have found herself and learned to be independent by the end of this book. I really feel sorry for her husband who is painted as arrogant, repulsive and a bit foolish, though he is an educated man. After quitting his 'real' job, because he gets passed over for the promotion everytime, he takes a series of dead end jobs until he finally settles for a taxi job and becomes at peace with him self just to go out and bring home money. He truly loves Nanzeen, after some time, and seems to understand that he has lost her with the gaining of her independence, though he apparently does not know about the affair.

Overall, I liked the characters, and the narrative went to some interesting places.

Here's a trailer of the movie.