Brick Lane
I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve been reading the book, Brick Lane, that the movie was based on. The author, Monica Ali, sure knows how to write.
One thing she does — as it was done in Greek Tragedy – is have much of the serious action happen offstage. The author leaves great gaps and doesn’t tell you everything. For instance, when the main character’s baby son dies, we see the young mother’s shock, but then the book skips about twelve years. We don’t see everything. We don’t go through the mourning with her. And yet we know it.
The author will go into great detail about a mole on a woman’s cheek, spend pages and pages on the husband’s mannerisms. She brings the characters to life, and they are unforgettable. I had many laughs as I read this book, and yet I could, if not weep, certainly feel the main character’s anguish.
The story is about an eighteen-year old Muslim girl from Bangladesh whose arranged marriage is with an older man from her same country who now lives in London.
Brick Lane is an actual street in London, a well-known multi-cultural street. (When my friend Jacqueline was in London a few years back, she went to a bakery on Brick Lane.)
Nazneen, the young girl, never had a say in her life. As a married woman in the time and culture, she is bound to ask her husband for permission for everything. He doesn’t want her going out of the house, so she doesn’t go out of the house. He wants her to cut his corns, so she cuts his corns. She literally waits on him hand and foot. He is not lovable while Nazneen is.
Comparing the characters in the book the way I see them and the actors in the movie, they’re all perfectly cast except for one.
The actress who plays Nazneen is perfect for the part. The actor who plays her oaf of a husband is perfect for his part.
But the only character that, just from the photos, does not seem perfectly cast to me, is Karim, who is, in the book, a minor character, after all. The still photo I saw of him and Nazneen seemed to show him as more love-smitten or lovelorn, not the driving force he was in the book.
Karim in the book had no hesitancy. He was a fireball of energy in the book. In the book, he was wiry. He was a mover. He knew what he wanted and went for it. Karim took life by the horns and steered it. He took over every scene he was in. I did not see this energy in the still photo of Karim. The actor seems too tall and too ordinary to be the Karim I pictured.
Heaven Admin had seen the movie but not read the book. He found the movie excellent. So maybe that actor did play Karim to the hilt.
Anyway, this is a rare book, and I recommend it.
P. S. Lauren is sending me the movie.
Godwriting is a blog by Gloria Wendroff and is about Gloria's daily life as the Godwriter of the Heavenletters project that is having a profound effect on the lives of people around the world.
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