6.28.2006
Londonstani (Summer Fiction)
Title
Malakani, Gautam. Londonstani. New York: Penguin, 2006.
I got my hands on an advanced copy of Londonstani and have been making my way through it for the past few weeks. It is actually out now, so you can get it in your hot little hands if you so desire. I am trying to keep up with the new Asian Diaspora Shit. Shit, we'll get to that (don't we always...) Londonstani is being billed as Trainspotting for Desis. It's written in rudeboy SMS-speak stream of conscious and fancies itself funny. It's not that funny. I think it's actually closer to Better Luck Tomorrow for Desis, making it a different kind of meta asian can you believe those nerds swear and beat the crap out of people jaw dropper.
It is a stagnation of a bildungroman in that we have Jas, a former self-proclaimed coconut with gangsta dreams who falls in with a group of small time thugs. The first part of the book is probably the best (although it falls into the same shit that I'll get to later). This group of four friends make their cash in Hounslow's grey cellphone market and while trying to live a rudeboy lifestyle of bling, girls and bashing, they debate Big C Culture, gender, family, race and economics. But still, even if we are seeing through Jas' eyes, reading through his first person voice, which is supposed to be marginal (afterall, Jas is still working out his new, non-batty, non-gorafied lifestyle) and conflicted, Malakani isn't letting us soak into the story, pulling us from identification, which fine, whatever, we can never be one with narrative, blah blah, but on some level, if we are talking about indentity and youth grappling with it, it seems a cop out to hold onto irony of voice, that author peeking out and sneering, undercutting so he never really has to committ. Anyway, that is my big problem with the book. Jas also has problems. He falls for a Muslim girl. He gets involved in more big time crime after being introduced to suave Oxford grad Sanjay, a mysterious fellow with a huge flat downtown, a Porche, and the keys to the most fabulous, illicit, underground lifestyle London can offer. The book kinda goes downhill from there. I mean, same old, same old, although then there is the shit. See, as I have mused about Asian lit / culture in general (Indians in particular) there is an obsession with shit in this book. You'd be suprised by the number of ways Malakani can use diarrhea as a metaphor for intergenerational conflict.
Then there is the most insane twist at the end. I have to admit, I never saw it coming and it played on all my assumptions. I felt a little used. But you know, like the Sixth Sense, it was sort of worth it for that alone, but you know, don't think it's gonna change your life.
Malakani, Gautam. Londonstani. New York: Penguin, 2006.
I got my hands on an advanced copy of Londonstani and have been making my way through it for the past few weeks. It is actually out now, so you can get it in your hot little hands if you so desire. I am trying to keep up with the new Asian Diaspora Shit. Shit, we'll get to that (don't we always...) Londonstani is being billed as Trainspotting for Desis. It's written in rudeboy SMS-speak stream of conscious and fancies itself funny. It's not that funny. I think it's actually closer to Better Luck Tomorrow for Desis, making it a different kind of meta asian can you believe those nerds swear and beat the crap out of people jaw dropper.
It is a stagnation of a bildungroman in that we have Jas, a former self-proclaimed coconut with gangsta dreams who falls in with a group of small time thugs. The first part of the book is probably the best (although it falls into the same shit that I'll get to later). This group of four friends make their cash in Hounslow's grey cellphone market and while trying to live a rudeboy lifestyle of bling, girls and bashing, they debate Big C Culture, gender, family, race and economics. But still, even if we are seeing through Jas' eyes, reading through his first person voice, which is supposed to be marginal (afterall, Jas is still working out his new, non-batty, non-gorafied lifestyle) and conflicted, Malakani isn't letting us soak into the story, pulling us from identification, which fine, whatever, we can never be one with narrative, blah blah, but on some level, if we are talking about indentity and youth grappling with it, it seems a cop out to hold onto irony of voice, that author peeking out and sneering, undercutting so he never really has to committ. Anyway, that is my big problem with the book. Jas also has problems. He falls for a Muslim girl. He gets involved in more big time crime after being introduced to suave Oxford grad Sanjay, a mysterious fellow with a huge flat downtown, a Porche, and the keys to the most fabulous, illicit, underground lifestyle London can offer. The book kinda goes downhill from there. I mean, same old, same old, although then there is the shit. See, as I have mused about Asian lit / culture in general (Indians in particular) there is an obsession with shit in this book. You'd be suprised by the number of ways Malakani can use diarrhea as a metaphor for intergenerational conflict.
Then there is the most insane twist at the end. I have to admit, I never saw it coming and it played on all my assumptions. I felt a little used. But you know, like the Sixth Sense, it was sort of worth it for that alone, but you know, don't think it's gonna change your life.
# posted by SMRT : 9:07 AM
