Customer Reviews

An American Brat

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sidhwa's story opens in the author's birthplace, Pakistan, where Muslim fundamentalism has swayed 16-year-old Feroza Ginwalla, a lively, headstrong child who berates her mother for showing her arms and refuses to answer the telephone - even though the Ginwalla family is Zoroastrian, or Parsee, not Muslim.

Her mother, Zareen, decides to remove Feroza from these influences and sends her to visit her young uncle, Manek, a student in America.

Feroza's arrival in New York, from her humiliating ordeal at Customs, to the whirlwind tour of museums, towering buildings and glittering Fifth Avenue shop windows, to the bag ladies, derelicts and predatory young men, is a starkly humorous study of extremes.

Before leaving New York Feroza ventures out alone. The reader's sense of danger to this ebullient neophyte diminishes as she successfully negotiates the streets and shops and returns to the YMCA building where she and her uncle are staying. Only to be trapped in the fire stairs 22 stories up. As she loses her bearings, finds every door locked and begins to hear stealthy noises, Feroza succumbs to abject panic.

Chastened by this experience, Feroza wastes most of her visa watching television and eating delicacies like Vienna sausages out of cans. It's Manek who decides she, too, should study in America. To escape his bossiness, Feroza decides on Twin Falls, Idaho.

Feroza's initiation into things American accelerates under the tutelage of Jo, her roomate, who Feroza categorizes as "a 'juvenile delinquent,' a Western, and more specifically, American phenomenon." Jo drinks, curses, shoplifts and picks up men.

Slowly Feroza sorts through American customs, adopting those that suit her, and recognizing Jo's self-destructive behavior and becoming protective of her.
Then she falls in love with an American. At home in Pakistan all hell breaks loose. A Parsee girl who marries out of her religion is ex-communicated (not so, a Parsee man). Although determined not to, it seems Feroza must choose.

Sidwha's ("Cracking India") style is humorous and turbulent. While sometimes the story seems to digress from its focus - delving more deeply than necessary into Jo's and Manek's lives - vivid details illuminate an appealing heroine's unusual coming of age.

Bapsi Sidhwa has now become one of the best writers in English language from Pakitsan. Her books have been loved in Great Britain and United States. "An American Brat" is just another one of her classics. Starting in Lahore: One of the most historic and beautiful cities of South Asia the book moves to United States. The story revolves around a Parsee religion girl and her life. The story highlights the political instability in Pakistan and takes place in the time when Bhutto govt. was overthrown by martial law that imposed Islam on every citizen. To avoid another religion's effects on the girl she was sent to America... and as its said "Someone somewhere is made for you," the girl finds her soulmate in America and gets married to a non-parsee boy and the news becomes a shock for the family in Pakistan because unlike America, religion is an issue in South Asia... The book is just stunning and i highly recomend you to read it... to see, how a simple girl moves to "gimme coke" from "May I have a Coca-Cola?"

I loved all of the characters but was never sure where we were going with Manek (Mike). I wish I had know that there was a glossary at the end before I finished the book. I think the characters were built on the previous book so now I'll go back and read that one. I want more by this author - great. And were are the Parcees from?

I picked up this book while I was travelling in Delhi, being interested in the culture clash when young South-Asian discover the Western culture firsthand. I thought this book started really slow, and the writing doesn't flow very well. Feroza doesn't seem to have a mind of her own and seems to be made up of a lot of preconceptions instead of being a person true to herself throughout the book. I thought this made her a little annoying, but then maybe it just shows how narrow-minded she was to start with when she left Pakistan. There are some parts of the story that are completely useless (such as the locked-in-the-staircase incident, or the time Marek loses her). The story does pick up after the first half, but it's a long way to get there.

Yet again, Bapsi Sidhwa has delivered another great novel. I have not read the Crow Eaters, yet, but now I am eager to read it. As a Pakistani girl who's grown up in the States, I enjoyed Bapsi Sidhwa's depiction of the effect of the western society has on Feroza, transforming her from a simple and scared young girl into an independent young women who is able to make her own decisions.

Always interesting to read of other cultures reacting to the USA. I feel this is a timely book and needs to be read.

An overall enjoyable read, but I found it to be lackadaisical and undeveloped at times. The twist at the end did come to my surprise and I was impressed by it. The end certainly tied the whole theme of the novel tightly together; that is, a pampered young Pakistani woman maturing into a an independent Pakistani-American in the US, allowing her to choose the best of both worlds, the mother-land and the new-land. She also learns that she will fly only when her wings strengthen, as they do throughout the novel.

In response to the earlier review, Manek's character allowed a bird's eye view narrative of what may be in store for Feroza, perhaps a male's account of being a Pakistani immigrant. Also, with Pakistani culture, Feroza couldn't have been sent off alone to America by herself. Manek, her uncle was young enough to provide comic relief through their sarcastic banter, yet he also somewhat of an authority figure for her. Any other relation such as a cousin or family friend may have not provided both aspects of character.

The book starts out very well with vivid portrayals of the family life of the "old country," but as soon as the main character lands in the United States, everything becomes a dull stereotype. The story arc and character development stop dead in favor of a series of "lessons" that the protagonist learns about American culture. The style of the storytelling also changes from a natural flow to one of pure exposition. Feroza ceases to be a fully realized character and transforms instantly into a MacGuffin being led around from scene to scene. One gets the impression that Sidhwa was trying to portray "typical" Americans; however, much like Anurag Mathur ("The Inscrutable Americans") and Anita Desai ("Fasting, Feasting") she fails miserably in creating convincing American characters and is clearly out of her depth in her superficial attempts to recreate American speech and manners. The protagonist and her relatives also transform into stereotypes.