Londonstani (Paperback)

by Gautam Malkani (Author) "Serve him right he got his muthafuckin face fuck'd, shudn't b callin me a Paki, innit..." (more)
Key Phrases: rudeboy rule, chattin bout, bhangra gigs, Samira Ahmed, High Street, The Matrix (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Malkani's debut novel is set among the South Asian rudeboys of London's Houndslow section. Aimless, middle-class 19-year-old Jas is adopted by a small gang headed by Hardjit, a Sikh bodybuilder, that includes sexual braggart Ravi and Hindu nationalist Amit. The crew, with Jas in the backseat, ride around a lot in a Beamer and say things like, "Dat bitch b trouble, u get me?" To make money, they unblock stolen cell "fones." This attracts Sanjay, a Desi entrepreneur who hires them and organizes their activities. Briefly, the money rolls in, and Jas, taken under Sanjay's wing, makes the more hazardous move of courting the beauteous but Muslim Samira Ahmed. Hardjit's feeling about Muslims and Samira's brothers' feeling about Hindus mean that disaster starts mounting for Jas before you can hum a chorus of West Side Story. Malkani, who is director of the Financial Times's Creative Business section, follows such masters of the London subcultural slumming sendup as Martin Amis and Will Self, but this book doesn't have the verbal gear to keep up; Jas's strained, graffiti-like teen talk is wearying (as is a major plot point centered on the EU's value added tax) and never rises to the kind of Burroughsian lyricism one is hoping for. And a final twist on race isn't much of a surprise. (June 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker
London's second-generation Asians are given the "Trainspotting" treatment in this slang-driven first novel, about four "desis" ("our own word for homeboy") who fight and preen in the backwater borough of Hounslow. Jas, the teen-age narrator, was a "dickless khota" before being taken under the muscled wing of the self-styled gangsta Hardjit, and his painstaking efforts to emulate his cohorts' "rudeboy finesse" are related in illuminating detail: facial hair should look "drawn on with a felt-tip pen" and riding in a Beemer requires staring "out the window like some big dumb dog with a big slobbery tongue." The incessant blend of boyish patois and text-message speak ("we had 2 call Davinder b4 we left dis place, innit") is captivating, but the plot becomes overwrought and absurd when the boys stumble into the world of high-stakes crime.
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143112287
• ISBN-13: 978-0143112280
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #309,799 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Promising, but negated by an embarassing ending, October 11, 2006

By	illnoise (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Londonstani (Hardcover)

Londonstani starts out great, with a realistic (realistic-feeling to an outsider, anyway) look at a newly-affluent youth culture getting in trouble in London, along the lines of Quadrophenia or Absolute Beginners (the baddie is a desi Vendice Partners). The first half is great and original, with dialogue reminiscent of The Committments, and the plot thickens nicely, but by the end it dissolves into Scarface cliches and a crying-in-a-rainy-cemetery scene. In the last couple chapters, the plot gets less and less realistic (a typical situation where anyone but a fictional character would just leave town, commit suicide, or go to the police) but still holds together well, and the book would get four stars if it wasn't completely ruined by a cheap, irrelevant M. Night Shamalayn surprise-ending in the last couple pages that negates the signifigance of the rest of the story.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very impressed, July 29, 2006

By	PCM2 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Londonstani (Hardcover)

This was a good read. Much of the book is written in dialect, similar to how Irvine Welsh captures the Scots accents of his characters, so it helps if you're at least passingly familiar with British slang and idioms. But if you can get over the occasional stumble (and there is a glossary in the back), _Londonstani_ is an insightful and educational look into the desi subculture in London.

While it's true that the book features crime, and "gangsta" type characters, it is not an exploitation novel. In truth, it's more _The Outsiders_ than _Goodfellas,_ with even a few _Catcher in the Rye_ moments. Malkani knows his characters and he makes them believable, flawed and human.

Watch out, also, for Malkani's tricks of the language. There are more than a few sudden turns here, where you think you know what's going on throughout an entire chapter, and not until the very last paragraph do you realize that what you thought was going on was really something else again. Indeed, it's not until the very end of the book that we realize the full tragic proportions of Malkani's troubled main character.

Recommended. I look forward to Malkani's next book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Shades of A Clockwork Orange, August 25, 2006

By	Innocent girl "from the Spanish and Indian Ho... (Fort Washington, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Londonstani (Hardcover)

Overall, you have to be impressed with Malkani's pyrotechnics. Jas's descriptions of his adventures was reminiscent of the style of A Clockwork Orange. Malkani's done his research in that the argot of these rudeboys rings true. However, Malkani seems to bend over backwards to make the machinations of his plotting work. The ending was so far removed from anything that had gone before that I was wondering whether it was slapped on to make some one from "on high" happy.

It was a worthwhile read to get a glimpse of the desi culture. But you'll have to be prepared to suspend your belief when you get to the final pages.