Brick Lane

[Blu]

This keeps cropping up as somehting people have read - but without it's own thread!

I loved it...but I need some teasing questions solved: for example, IS her husband aware of her affair?

I thought it was a brilliant exploration about change and how we make it happen, as against accepting fate, or ideas without action or action without sense.

Monica Ali's style really hooked me, too- great storytelling.

For the first 100 pages, I was raving about this book, wildly recommending it to everyone.. for the next 100 pages, I was wavering a bit, a little less enthusiastic, and for the last 100 (+) pages, I was skim reading. I thought it was way too long, and her editors should have told her. SO brilliantly written, but just not enough self discipline from Monica Ali. If it had been half the length, it may have won the Booker instead of just making the shortlist.

WARNING: PLOT SPOILER, DO NOT LOOK AT THIS THREAD IF STILL READING OR PLANNING TO READ THE BOOK!

Like skie I enjoyed the first part of the book, I felt it fell flat in the middle to the point I was struggling to keep going (although I did like the characters and wanted to find out what happened to them) but I found the last couple of chapters very gripping, couldn't put the book down.

I don't think the husband was aware of the affair, all through the book he seemed very taken up with what he was doing, in the end the trip back home was consuming him. I don't think he noticed, but I could be completely wrong.

I would like to know if Chanu came back or if he stayed away.

Yes the book could have been shorter.

Going to put a plot spoiler heading on this, just in case anyone still reading looks at this thread.

Well done for setting this up Blu- it needed doing! I actually thought that Chanu did know about the affair. I think he first appeared to be very vain and shallow, but was revealed as a much more sympathetic character as the book went on. I think he was really rather dignified and honourable in the end. I took his slience over the affair to be part of that, but I'm willing to be proved wrong!

I agree about the middle part, and I think it could have done with stricter editing. One of the problems she had was that September 11th happened when she was in the middle of the book, and it changed a lot of perspectives. I think if she hadn't tried to incorporate it the book would have been better.

*** True about 9/11, perhaps she should have missed that out. I also thought when their son died alot more could have been made of that part of the story. I was bracing myself for tears at that part but the book suddenly moved on years.

I really enjoyed it too, and loved the way the characters were developed. Agree the 9/11 bit seemed out of place, but I suppose the book was very much set at a certain time. I thought the bit near the end when she finally told Chanu she wouldn't be going 'back home' with him was really moving. It was then I thought he must have been a much wiser (and perhaps therefore even more tragic) bloke than we had been led to believe.
When we discussed it in our book group those of us who had actually managed to finish it fell about laughing about some of the bits (death by 17 frozen cows, for instance ) which seemed much funnier then than they had as we'd read it.

I thought that this was one of the worst books I had read in a long time. It was too long and turgid and I was sick of the whole lot of the characters and had no sympathy for any of them. (And why were the letters written in broken English? Didn't get that bit at all. Or am I being thick and have missed something?). It was (a teensy bit) interesting from the point of view that the Bengali community was new to me, buut my view (sorry!) was that if you had had the same story but with a different community (eg Jewish - something that had been done before) it wouldn't even have been published. I won't rush out to buy Ms Ali's next novel, I must say. Pity, as I was looking forward to reading it and had even stumped up for the hard back edition.

I loved it and also thought that he knew about the affair but chose to 'ignore it' maybe hoping that it would go away. i don't think he knew how to deal with it. Having lived and worked in Tower Hamlets and near Brick Lane I recognised so many places and 'people'..I loved the interaction with the doctor.

Tanzie, I thought the letters were written in broken english because that refelcted hasina's style/level of literacy. it was important because of the constant threads through the book juxtaposing spontaneity against a struggle for a more 'measured' expression. Hasina is able to express herself emotionally and passionately, and live in the same way - but wthout other qualities, and in the cultural conetex she finds herself in it brings her nothing but disaster.

I agree with Tamum about Chanu's dignity and his slow acceptance that he must lay aside his 'old' assumptions abouit what a marriage is...

That's a brilliant description of Hasina's situation, Blu. That's why Book Clubs are so good- they make you see things you've vaguely sensed much more clearly once someone explains it properly!