Review of Londonstani
I finally finished reading Londonstani, and what a fine book it was. It's a politically incorrect portrait of present-day Hounslow, the heart of London's desi culture. We got 4 rudeboys as our main characters, innit: Harjit, who at the start is bruckin up some gora before he gunna scrap a lick wid some bhanchod Pakistani, Amit whose bruther Arun is always whingin bout his shaadi with Reena, Ravi who's obsessed with Bollywood actresses.
Basically that's the style the narrator uses-- a text message style combining Punjabi, gangsta, and British slang. Don't worry though-- there's a glossary provided at the back to help you guide yo poncey gora ass through the story. The three characters I mentioned above are the best friends of our narrator, whose name is Jas. These four young men call themselves rudeboys-- young South Asian men with expensive tastes who devote their much of their time to conspicuous consumption and improving their image to impress the ladies (who are essentially their own category of bling). As the novel progresses, lo and behold, yes, rudeboys (and more broadly, desis) are our textbook example of people in a state of unhomeliness. One of the subplots of the novel involves Amit's older brother Arun, who must wade through the "complicated, family-related shit" that his traditionalist parents dump on him. The characters struggle to distinguish themselves from their parents' generation; meanwhile, their parents struggle to live vicariously through their children. At the same time, many rudeboys try to distinguish themselves from other races and ethnicities (all divided for the most part), especially white Britons. They use the slur "coconut" to describe a desi who has been assimilated into British culture. The convergence of English, Indian, and Middle Eastern cultures has led to the cultivation of a generation of young people who are distinctly different from their parents, but resist the melting pot of assimilation.
The writing style I referred to earlier--it's like the language of the desi subculture. The language use is one of the most fascinating things about this book. Girls, parents, goras, etc. each speak their own dialect of English. Now obviously, authors tend to change the spelling of words in dialogue to emphasize how they sound when the character speaks them, but Malkani takes that to a new level. One person refers to a cell as a "phone", another calls it a "fone". The dialogue of one of Jas' teachers has "too" and "be" while in Harjit's dialogue, the same words are written as "2" and "b". Interesting, no? To me, the different types of dialogue show how truly divided everyone in Hounslow is. And yet, as the narrator, Jas picks up on these differences and weaves them all together in his narration.
Now, with or without all that wannabe-critic crap I just hit you with, Londonstani is innovative, powerful, and gripping. Its only weakness in my opinion was the middle of the book, for about 50 pages or so, where I began to question where these loose plot threads were going. But Malkani does not disappoint, take my word for it. His writing is dark, hilarious, and offensive--the ingredients for the best novels.
