Brick Lane (original 2003; edition 2004)

I like to read about other cultures and lifestyles through fiction. i loved the book immensely because being a Muslim myself(though not the same socio-economic background) i related to the characters and found the depiction of the particular socio-cultural life very true to reality. i did not find a moment of boredom while reading this book and enjoyed the way the author formed the personality of each character as he/she hurled through life by fate. ( )

S'OK ( )

It's a good book; I learned some things about what it feels like to be a Bangladeshi immigrant in London, and a Muslim immigrant in the post-9-11 world. But it wasn't always easy to read, mainly because the protagonist is so incredibly meek and subservient through two-thirds of the book. I'm sure this is realistic, but it was hard to spend any time in her world.

All through the novel, we're privy to her thoughts, and we know she's smart and observant. But even when she commits the supremely rebellious act of taking a lover - punishable by stoning - she still defers to him. It's only in the last quarter of the book that Nazneen starts to take some power in her world. The ending is realistic and strongly plotted.

( )

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.
Nazneen's daughters chafe against their father's traditions and pride -- and to her own amazement, Nazneen falls in love with a young man in the community. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters, and her new world.

While Nazneen journeys along her path of self-realization, her sister, Hasina, rushes headlong at her life, first making a "love marriage," then fleeing her violent husband. Woven through the novel, Hasina's letters from Dhaka recount a world of overwhelming adversity. Shaped, yet not bound, by their landscapes and memories, both sisters struggle to dream -- and live -- beyond the rules prescribed for them. ( )

Didn't love it, didn't hate it. This book is definitely not anywhere near the top of my list of immigrant south asian novels, but it wasn't terrible to read either. If only I could have identified or sympathized with at least one character .... ( )