Brick Lane, Glass Houses

SPEAKING VOLUMES

There's a simple Bengali phrase that gets to the heart of the authenticity debate: "Holo na." It encompasses everything from "it doesn't work" to "the author didn't get it" to "I'm not convinced". I heard this phrase a lot in Calcutta after the release of Monica Ali's Brick Lane, a first novel that cast light on the Bangladeshi immigrant community by following the travails of a young couple in London.

Some readers found the letters written by Hasina, a character who lives in a Bangladeshi village, risible in its clumsy rendering of village Bengali patois into English. Some found Ali's description of lice-ridden immigrants from Sylhet arriving in London offensive. Others were horrified that she would bestow on a Good Bengali Woman the right to have an extramarital relationship and, worse yet, to think independently. Some of those who were offended on one count were offended by those who were offended on other counts! And yet, Calcutta took amiably enough to Brick Lane, its citizens, according to taste, applauding Ali for her formidable literary skills or decrying her naïve portrayal of the immigrant community.

Most readers recognised that the right to be offended is a limited right. If a book offends you, don't read it""it really is as simple as that. And some of us also recognised that the only duty a writer of fiction has is to breathe as much life as she can imagine into a character, or a community. Ali was brilliant at imagining the shifting nuances of a marriage; she was clumsier at depicting the internal life of a specific community. You took both on board, and shrugged.

Over the last month, a handful of protestors from Brick Lane have held the filming of the novel to ransom. According to reports, barely 120 people turned out in Brick Lane to protest Brick Lane; there were few young adults or women among the group. Germaine Greer set off a storm when she wrote, in passing, that "The community has the moral right to keep the film-makers out...."

Salman Rushdie knows what it is to be banned and censored by a community. The Satanic Verses furor affected the filming of his Midnight's Children, when first the Indian and then the Sri Lankan government refused to allow the film to be made on home soil. Both the governments feared reprisals by, again, a small and misguided handful of protestors who felt that the right to be offended gave them the right to trample on larger freedoms. He hit back at Greer: "Her support of the attack on this film project is philistine, sanctimonious and disgraceful."

We do not demand accuracy of a novel in the same way that you might demand accuracy of a work of non-fiction, though we might well prefer it. As a reader of fiction, I admit to a preference for authors who have done their research, who get the subtle nuances, right. Accuracy in fiction is not essential, but it maintains the reader's engagement with the text. I stumble when I come across an incorrect fact, or a dubious "voice", because it drags me away from the author's imagined world for at least a fleeting moment.

But a novelist has the right to get it wrong; she has the right to try to imagine a world that is not entirely hers. When Brick Lane worked, it really was an amazing debut novel; when it didn't, it was mildly annoying. It is important to recognise that Ali never set herself up as the authoritative voice of the Bangladeshi community""she merely asked for the right to imagine a fictional version of that community.

Protestors have successfully shut down the filming of Water and Midnight's Children, closed down Hussain's painting exhibitions and forced the author of a play like Behzti into temporary hiding.

The problem with these protestors is that they think shouting louder than the rest of us gives them the right to speak for all of us. There are people in Brick Lane who are indifferent to Brick Lane, the book; there are those who would like the filming to continue, there is a small handful who may or may not have read the book, but who don't think that Ali should have presumed to write it.

The larger community of readers understands that writing is about presenting multiple opinions. No community, however hurt or offended it might be, has the right to remain immune from criticism and scrutiny, or to insist that only one kind of portrayal can be allowed. A writer's voice must be unfettered""even if you think she hasn't got the accent right.

nilanjanasroy@gmail.com