Empowering Voices and Cultural Clashes: "Brick Lane" Novel Review

The busy streets of London are alive with the stories of immigrants. Monica Ali's Brick Lane is an example of novels that delve into those experiences. Brick Lane serves as a story about Nazneen, a young Bangladeshi woman who faces the complexities in her mind because of an arranged marriage to Chanu, a Bangladeshi man twenty years older than her who lives in London's East End. She faces cultural displacement as she moves along to her husband's place. She struggles to find the meaning of her existence while she needs to do her duty to her husband until she meets Karim, a man who takes her attention. Appearing as the debut novel of the author, Brick Lane was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003. It also got a film adaptation in 2007 under the same title.

Brick Lane is categorized as a contemporary fiction novel. Other than that, it also has the genre of urban fiction. There are several aspects this novel has to be categorized as this genre. This novel mainly it is set in a Bangladeshi immigrant neighborhood in London. The characters are shown as a community of immigrants and they face systemic inequality and socio-economic challenges. However, this novel also has several sub-genres. The first one is social realism. This novel gives us a picture of the real-life and social conditions of the Bangladeshi immigrant community in London. We can see from this novel how they face the struggles and challenges in everyday life. Another sub-genre is the coming-of-age genre where the main characters often throw back on their younger self. Nazneen often thinks about her young self when she was in Bangladesh to remember her principles of life. 

If we look at the genre and themes, we can assume that the target readers of Brick Lane are people who are interested in contemporary and urban fiction. These people usually like the kind of story that explores different cultures, or we can just say multicultural stories. This also might attract people who enjoy women's fiction stories since the protagonist of this novel is a woman and we can get into the story from a woman's perspective. Interestingly, students like me, who like gender studies might find Brick Lane a valuable novel by looking at its themes and cultural knowledge. 

Brick Lane was written by Monica Ali, a British-Bangladeshi author who lives in London with her family, just like the characters in the novel. However, she did not intend to write this novel based on her life story. It is just the theme of immigrants who need to position themselves between their original culture and the culture where they live now. She might not have used her immigrant experience since she moved to England at three years old, but she might know how to navigate the core story since she has the background of it.

Brick Lane delves into themes of cultural displacement, gender roles, identity, finding a voice, and racism. The cultural displacement faced by Nazneen and other characters in the novel is caused by the urge to adapt to the new environment and the change in their life. This novel also highlights how social class can highly influence their life in various aspects including job, education, and economy. Given that they examine the struggles encountered by immigrants in British society, these books might also be categorized as social commentary.

This novel also has some elements of feminism. Ali explores a lot about women and gender roles in this novel. She describes the traditional role of women in Bangladeshi society and how Nazneen struggles to always live up to these expectations. She is struggling to find independence and a voice in her marriage and community. Throughout the novel, she often mentions how married women must dedicate their lives to their husbands. There is one line that I remember, maybe it is not the exact words but it sounds like this, "If a woman goes to work, that means her husband could not feed the family." If I am not mistaken, this line was said by Razia, Nazneen's neighbor in London. She was having financial problems because her husband was very stingy and she had to feed her children, but she could not find a job because of that statement. That line shows the limited opportunities given to women. 

Another theme is racism. This novel explores the discrimination faced by Bangladeshi immigrants in London. One of the examples is Chanu's position in the job. For the longest time, he always expected to be promoted at the job. But time passed and every promotion month was not for him. Even though he is an excellent worker, there is something that prevents him from getting a promotion. And yes, what you think is true, it is because he is not British.

The family dynamics is one of the highlighted themes in this novel. The relationship between Nazneen and Chanu is not that close. There is a lack of intimacy because of the cultural and emotional disconnect between them. Nazneen who just resignedly following his father's wishes to marry and move, her feelings still remain in his homeland. On the other hand, Chanu who only needs someone to take care of him and his house and has already lived in London for several years, already fits with British culture and society, and that issue causes them to disagree. Regarding Nazneen's family in Bangladesh, she terribly misses them, especially her younger sister, Hasina. Nazneen and Hasina often exchange letters that a little to cure her longing, which sometimes also makes her worry. But there's also a feeling of duty and pressure to live up to their expectations.

There are some social movements portrayed in this novel besides those which I mentioned earlier. One of them is the community activism portrayed by Karim, a man who caught Nazneen's attention. He is active in organizing protests to fight for the issues that affect the Bangladeshi community. One of the issues he protests is regarding the islamophobia that the characters face in terms of negative stereotypes and discrimination. 

When we put aside those themes and issues in the novel. I would like to talk about the whole book as well. If we talk about the narrative, Ali uses a third-person point of view but in Nazneen's perspective. What I mean is that she shows what Nazneen is thinking but uses substitute words like 'she'. It is more like a traditional novel with a linear narrative. 

Regarding the timeline, at first, I was a little bit confused about the shifting. There are clear marks of the place and the year, but in the first chapter, there is no year shift mark of when Nazneen was born and when she grew up. That is what I thought when I just began reading. But as I go along, I realize that there is a mark. But not with the written year but with the space between the paragraphs. After discovering that, I was no longer confused when changing scenes afterward. However, this novel has a fast-paced timeline. There is one chapter when it has no narrative at all. It was chapter 7, the whole chapter is full of letters that Hasina, Nazneen's sister in Bangladesh, wrote to Nazneen from the year of 1988 until 2001. It is like a collection of letters in one chapter. So, during that timeline, the author tells the readers about the life update of Hasina as well as Nazneen's life implicitly through the letters from her sister who responded to her letters.