Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116755 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Peter Parker, The Times Literary Supplement
'Smart, linguistically inventive and very funny.'

Independent
'a bhuna of gang-fights, inter-faith romance and organised crime, and the dizzying humour is sharp, clever and convincing...'

Sunday Telegraph
'interesting observations about identity and the way in which the culturally oppressed can take strength from their exclusion.'

Customer Reviews

Great....first third.
As someone who grew up in Hounslow in the 60s and 70s among an emerging (and relatively deferrent) Asian culture, part of the attraction of 'Londonstani' was to read about the tensions between the peers of my youth and their antecedents, in and around the town of my childhood.

The first third of the book captures these tensions really well, with the constant pressure of respect for elders and traditions heaped on top of the existing (and timeless) youth identity issues associated with growing up suburbs like Hounslow (although I felt that Har(d)jit's 'hard man' acts of violence out of keeping with the rest of his chaotic interactions with his mates).

Unfortunately the book failed for me with the introduction of Sanjay (and the plot contrivance leading to this) and then things went downhill shortly afterwards. True it would have been difficult to sustain a book entirely constructed from the bickerings of the gangsta wannabes, although clearly I would have preferred this - a shorter and more existential work could have been an option. Instead the rather tired spiral of events (and the appalling ending) resulted in 'Londonstani' becoming rather tedious and increasingly implausible.

Frustrating indeed, as the first third of the book was rather brilliant. I've been practising my 'phone face' ever since finishing 'Londonstani', and the boredom of life in Hounslow rendered in the book is pretty much as I remember it.

Not bad...but not great
Not a bad effort by gautam Malik, considering this is the first and long overdue novel about south asian youth culture.I assumed from the title, the focus of the book would be pakistani kids so i was a tad dissapointed. Alot of the focus here is hindu culture,which is rather ironic as the whole bad boy asian thing is mostly a pakistani/sikh thing.Most indian kids are still mommys boys/coconuts.
Some great insights/topics but the plot twist at the end really damaged the whole story.It was just so unfeasible and contrived ,it just didnt make sense.It also kind of took the story away from its intended audience.
If this book was set in bradford,it would be much better and harder!
If it wasnt for the ending would have deserved 4 stars easily.

Irving Welsh meets Ali G
This is the story - drawn with crayons, I might add - of an Asian crew from Hounslow and their exploits...

On a positive note I did enjoy the street slang, but after about 20 pages of it I decided that I had had enough. Ummmm...I liked the cover, the stenciled tigers were great.

However there are too many problems with this book to make it even halfway recommendable. Firstly the characters are so childish as to make one cringe, with inter-relationships that are logic defying and implausible.

The plot is, essentially, non-existent until 3/4 of the way through the book by which time I had had enough of reading prose off of a mobile phone screen sent by a fifteen year old. Finally the language did not ring true for me, it felt laboured and pastiche. I think a major problem is Malkani's reticence for punctuation - the dialogue would have read more fluidly if he had used apostrophes instead of numbers and single letters. His style reminded me so much of Irving Welsh it was embarrassing - trainspotting this is not.

One star is a shame because this is a part of London's community that should have more of a voice, but this isn't it.