Review of Brick Lane By Monica Ali

Brick Lane was Monica Ali’s first book which was released to glowing reviews a few years ago. It was certainly a book that I noticed and had every intention of buying and reading. Things being the way they are this never happened until I picked it up in a second hand book shop.

Of course, all that meant was that it was there to be read but had to find a way of getting to the top of the pile. In due course, this was engineered by requesting it as a book to be read by the Book Group.

On a recent trip to France, I took the book and duly munched it as my SO would say. That’s not to say it was a bad book or a pulpy book. Far from it, however, the circumstances were such that I could read a lot when away on holiday.

The novel tells of the story of Nazneem, a Bangladeshi girl born in a small village near Dhaka in Bangldesh in the sixties. At the age of 18 she is sent to the UK to be married to Chanu, a Council Worker in Tower Hamlets in London. There is no argument with this, obviously this is expected of a Muslim girl.

They become ensconced in a Council flat near the eponymous, Brick Lane, where Nazneem learns to look after her husband.

Now, Chanu is a dreamer who likes to think he’s going places because of his education in Dhaka and continuning education with the Open University. He always talks of the expected promotion which never arrives. As they say, he always talks a good game.

Then Nazneem falls pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy. Everybody is happy until the baby falls ill and sadly dies in hospital.

There the first part ends. During the course of the narrative it is broken up with Nazneen’s correspondence with her sister, Hasina, back in Bangladesh. She starts off being married, then runs off to work in the factories of Dhaka. Hasina does seems to have a hellish time of it and Nazneen would dearly love to bring her sister to the UK.

After the baby’s death time moves onto to 2001 where we find that Nazneen now has two daughter’s, Shahana and Bibi. Bibi is the well-behaved, dutiful one and Shahana is the one with the attitude that parents all dread.

At this point, Nazneen starts doing piece work at home on her sewing machine to help bring money in because Chanu has walked out on the Council in disgust. Through this she meets Karim, who helps open her eyes on what life is all about and they soon engage in an affair.

Through the second part, Chanu is determined to return home because he feels has done his best in the UK and thinks that the grass is greener back in Bangladesh. You can see that the story is building up to this force trip back home and you know that Nazneen doesn’t want to go and neither do her daughters.

The whole story is also building up to social unrest in the area lead by Karim which end up in rioting in Brick Lane.

The story is very well written and is a fantastic first novel. The characters at time are larger than life, in particular, Mrs Sharma, the moneylender stands out.