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.

Vertigo ***1/2

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Released in 1958.
Written by Alec Coppel & Samuel Taylor.
With James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore.
Seen in Theater.

School has started and I'm way behind in blogging. Must..... keep..... short! This is two films in one. It starts off as a kind of ghost/detective story and turns into a psychodrama for the last fourth of the film. The latter part of the film, I thought, was more interesting.

An idle detective with vertigo is grounded from duty to to an accident in which his vertigo got in the way of saving some one's life. He is asked by an old friend to watch his wife. His friend is convinced that his wife is possessed. This is the slower part of the movie, since we are privy to the slow and monotonous life of a detective on watch. As he follows her around, he begins to have feelings for her as she is of course, in the Hitchcock tradition, beautiful. He watches her jump into a river and proceeds to save her. From there, he falls in love and she (Novak) seems to return his affections. They proceed together to an old mission in the country that has a large tower and Madeleine (Novak) has an "episode" of other worldliness and runs up the tower in a panic. Stewart's character (the detective - "Scottie") runs after her, but of course since he has vertigo, he can't make it up to the top and he hears her scream and sees her falling body from the window.

At this point in the film, there is a beautiful shot of the church from a bird's eye view in which the audience can see the woman laying on the roof, the police hurrying in one side of the mission, while Stewart staggers out the other side of the mission. All in one shot. If I recall, there was many beautiful shots but after two weeks, I can't remember any of them - except for that scene. it was simply stunning! I should start taking notes!

So now the second half of the film begins. Stewart has a nervous breakdown and is institutionalized. When he gets out, every one and every thing he sees reminds him of her. One day he sees a woman that reminds him so much of her that he pursues her. He bullies and coerces her to go out with him. When she does, he tries to turn the new girl into Madeleine, his love. Stewart starts to get controlling and manipulative. He's down right mean. Something you don't see often with him except for maybe in his roles in Anthony Mann's westerns. Meanwhile Novak's character (she plays both roles - so she really DOES look like his dead lover) is starting to get scared and nervous. It turns into this incredibly uncomfortable narrative that makes a person squirm in their seat.

There's a twist in the film, but I won't divulge it here.