Product Description

The literary debut of a huge storytelling talent

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2941 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-01
• Released on: 2004-04-22
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
With its gritty Tower Hamlets setting, this sharply observed contemporary novel about the life of an Asian immigrant girl deals cogently with issues of love, cultural difference and the human spirit. The pre-publicity hype about Brick Lane was precisely the kind to set alarm bells ringing (we've heard it so often before), but, for once, the excitement is fully justified: Monica Ali's debut novel demonstrates that there is a new voice in modern fiction to be reckoned with.

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.

This is a novel of genuine insight, with the kind of characterisation that reminds the reader at every turn just what the novel form is capable of. Every character (Nazneen, her disappointed husband and her resourceful friend Razia) is drawn with the complexity that can really only be found in the novel these days. In some ways, the reader is given the same all-encompassing experience as in a Dickens novel: humour and tragedy rub shoulders in a narrative that inexorably grips the reader. Whether or not Monica Ali can follow up this achievement is a question for the future; it's enough to say right now that Brick Lane is an essential read for anyone interested in current British fiction. --Barry Forshaw

Sunday Times
'Written with a wisdom and skill that few authors attain in a lifetime'

Observer
'Brick Lane has everything: richly complex characters, a gripping story and it's funny too'

Customer Reviews

...so it's not just me...
I read on my way to and from work. I find that, with the help of a good book, the one hour trip usually flies by. When reading Brick Lane however, I constantly caught myself staring out the window and usually had to force myself to continue. There were a multitude of threads to this story that I grew to dread because I knew that I was in for a few pages of painfully dull reading. Still, I persisted in the diminishing hope that eventually I would be rewarded by the introduction of a character imbued with a third dimension. Sadly I wasn't. Instead I was treated to a series of events which were so drawn out and dull that I gave up the ghost about 80 pages from the end of the book. Ordinarily, this would horrify me, but on this occasion I felt it was for the greater good.

Brick Lane gets more than a single star because Ali is a technically adept author. The descriptions of Bangladesh are particularly vibrant. The characters and pace bitterly disappoint.

It isn't good. It isn't bad. It's just boring.
Given this as part of a book club and this is the only reason I struggled my way through it. I can't say its a bad book, its not poorly written or with a horrendous storyline but it's definitely not a good book. It's just boring and tedious. You don't feel any connection with any of the characters, they have no redeeming points and the main character just comes across as so pathetic that it begins to get annoying.
The most grating thing about this book is the absolutely pointless letters written by her sister, all are in terrible broken English, add nothing to the story and just succeed in making you want to rip the spine out of the book. The huge leaps in time confused me, I couldn't picture the characters at all and the frequent jumps back to her childhood seemed pointless. She does develop well as a character and that is the only good thing I can really say about this book, but because you find yourself not caring about the characters it doesn't redeem the book even slightly.

Can't see what the fuss was about
I had this given to me as a book club selection from our local library and just the description on the back was enough to make me groan.
Yet another book about'issues', 'worthy', 'prize-winning' etc but is all so hackneyed, all been done before and better in book, tv, film etc.
I just couldn't read it, it said nothing to me all this outsiders view of British-which seems today to mean LONDON-culture and how we assimilate into the country we live in our defend our religious/cultural/societal origins.
At the end of the day we none of us belong anywhere, we make our home wherever we are and try to make the best of things.
Or don't.
I really didn't care about the characters and didn't finish it and was glad I wasn't the only one to think so in the group.