Londonstani Book

Hmmm. Just finished the book and I'm pretty sure I don't like the ending, but I'm not 100% sure. Is it a lazy trick or is it an intriguing way to challenge authenticity? I mean, I thought the whole middle-class-rudebwoy-desi-male-angst thing was semi-interesting, althought I get tired of the insecure-male-identity-leads-to-misogynistic-expression-of-guarded-love-or-affection-for-woman-or-bitch vein of writing because, frankly, I'm a woman and I get it and I think it's stupid. I mean, constipated male emotions, not the writing.

From watching his interviews, I know that one of the "themes" of the book is to challenge authenticity and perception. That's obvious, considering the amount of time these big-house-living, beemer driving, versace wearing desi rudeboys spend posin their masculinity and shit, and glinting their communal tensions, and quoting Ice Cube and 50 Cent (an area that could be talked about more), and talking about sex. But I feel that the ending was so strange because then so much of the story becomes a proxy for white shame and a discussion of white identity. And then the narrative elides the very impact that a white body would have on the "authenticity" of narratives of the brown characters in the first place. I mean, would Jas(on) really be ushered into Arun's family beatdown? Which makes it seem that his whiteness doesn't matter. OR does his marginality give him access? Then, his whiteness does matter.

That is, if it's whiteness we're talking about. But who really knows? Which then kind of makes his point about authenticity relevant, in that the obsessing reader might end up wondering what the race of the narrator is so that we can readjust all the associations that we made with signifiers throughout the book. In any case, there are interesting questions to ask about what Jas(on), as a narrative observer to this particular desi community would be privy to, accepted into, allowed to see. And if he'd really get it.

The other question is, even if we are questioning these so-called signifiers, or are inferring meaning into shit that isn't really in the text, what does it prove? Does it prove that as readers we're all dumb and racist? Or does it mean that there's a value to those signifiers in the first place, depending on who's reading it, that lose meaning when the entire narrative is pulled out from under you. Shady, innit?

BTW, unlike other reviewers, I loved the language in the book 'cause I actually had to read the first chapters out loud (and alone!) in Madonna's fake brit accent to get it at first. It takes you away from dominant cultural modes of middle-class language and writing (even if it is grounded in middle class desi boys posin...), and it changes your experience as a reader. I think the debates on the net over the language of the book are really telling of the biases of reading audiences, and how readers think stories should be represented. And there were some fuckin brilliant scenes with desi families, and pots being thrown, and moms goin crazy, and dad's being passive, and children feeling unheard, and all feeling unappreciated, that I think he hit dead-on. Loved reading his dialogue.

Damn, because of that ending now I gotta to read this whole book all over again.