false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175885300m/570285.jpg 386347 8 Jas is in trouble. Because of who he is-an eighteen-year-old Asian living in London. Because of the gang he hangs out with. And because of the woman he fancies, Samira, who Jas shouldn't have taken a shining to because she is, as his pals point out, not one of his own. He's in trouble because his education, never mind his career, is going nowhere. And he's fallen into the schemes, games and prejudices of his friends on the streets of the big western city in which he lives. But Jas's main trouble is Jas himself, and he doesn't even know the trouble he's in, and try as hard as he does, he's failing to make sense of what it is to be young, male and what you might say is Indostani in a city that professes to be a melting pot but is a city of racial and religious exclusion zones. Without his parents' aspirations to assimilate, without the gifts of his more academically accomplished contemporaries, Jas is a young man without a survival plan to get by in the big city. He's out of touch, an anachronism posing as young man who's up-to-date, living free-style, making things up as he goes along in suburbs of West London. <br><br> Gautam Malkani's extraordinary comic novel portrays the lives of young Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu men in the ethnically charged enclave of one of the biggest western cities, London. A world usually-but wrongly-portrayed as the breeding ground for Islamic militants is, in actuality, a world of money (sometimes), flash cars (usually), cell phones (all the time), rap music and MTV, as well as rivalries and feuds, and the small-time crooks who exploit them. In Malkani's hilarious depiction of multiculturalism, race is no more than a proxy for masculinity, or lack of masculinity, among young men struggling to get by in a remorseless city. Just as Martin Amis and Irving Welsh captured the mood and the ethos of the eighties and nighties, twenty-nine-year-old Gautam Malkani brilliantly evokes the life of immigrants who are not immigrants in <i>Londonstani</i>, bringing an entirely fresh perspective to contemporary fiction as he does so. 1818800 22 6 2006 Londonstani total:342|5:49|4:98|3:137|2:42|1:16| 342 1148 512 93 3 4 false false Sun Jan 25 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Dec 11 10:58:36 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 26 07:41:35 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 22 09:10:42 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 12:41:11 -0800 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed May 13 14:43:48 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 14:43:48 -0700 2009 Londonstani, has plenty of fuel. Throw in a narrator who tells the story with perception and humor in an argot comprised of English, Punjabi and urban slang and you're in for an intriguing ride, even if the payoff might leave you skeptical...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Jan 22 14:25:26 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 22 14:26:45 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Apr 25 09:17:54 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 09:27:28 -0700 2009
The first pages made me fear I was embarking upon a pale imitation of Clockwork Orange—in which, rather than being immersed into a futuristic dystopia th...more...]]> 2 0 false true Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 18:15:12 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 22:41:17 -0700 2009
The language and dialogue is so engrossing. It feels like a London/Desi version of a Tarantino or Guy Ritchie film. Malkani goes far beyond rudebwoy banter and ad...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Sep 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 03:42:28 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 03:51:05 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu May 14 11:53:36 -0700 2009 Thu May 14 11:57:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false true Sun May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 10:38:44 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 10:46:22 -0700 2009
WTF is wrong with your ending? If you're going to suddenly change everything your audience thought they were experiencing without explaining anything, then we don't actually take anything away from your book except confusion. Is this an attempt to get your ambiguous book...more...]]> 3 0 false true Wed Oct 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 23 08:24:17 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 23 08:35:52 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Dec 14 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Oct 05 12:58:03 -0700 2008 Sun Dec 14 08:57:12 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false true Sun Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 13 10:58:50 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 13 11:17:46 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 25 13:57:06 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 31 13:32:24 -0700 2008 1
The Plot: Jas is friends with some of the toughest east Indian guys in his end of London - near Heathrow airport. Instead of being the lowest man on the totem p...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Mar 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 15 22:34:54 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 15 22:45:02 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 11 16:25:08 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 11 16:33:23 -0800 2008
Pros: the social commentary on many Indian customs still carried on in fa...more...]]> 4 1 true false Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Fri Mar 23 07:03:56 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 23 13:23:59 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Apr 27 14:15:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 03 21:31:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jun 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 06:24:45 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 06:24:45 -0700 2009 A Clockwork Orange. Only the story is very real, in that it is set in present-day London, and reflecting actual lifestyles and the unique speech idioms of a specific subculture in Britain.
The ending is quite a surprise, although a credi...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 21 21:26:23 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 21 21:36:20 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Dec 09 19:03:40 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 19:04:21 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=570285