Ah, books... Most people who know me, know that I don't shop clothes or shoes, or make-up or hardly ever music and films. But books, ah... I don't shop books often, in fact almost only when I visit my brother in London since taxes and fees on books in Denmark are too high for my cheap spender's mentality, or when the yearly book sales kick in here in February. But when I do shop books, I do it properly. My grandmother once, when I was in dire economic straits, asked me what I'd done with all the money from my student loan. I answered by pointing to my book shelf.
Last year, a friend of mine lent me her copy of Monica Ali's
Brick Lane. It is great story of a woman who's married off from Bangladesh to a man of similar origin settled in London's East End. She lives her new life in Brick Lane, the main street of the East End, from her window with worries about her sister back in her home country and a disinterested contentment with her husband and children. Now, I hardly remember the specifics of that book because its significance relates to another one.
Brick Lane inspired me, or more plainly made me curious about the East End. So I went to walk up and down real life Brick Lane when I visited London last year. And guess what? There's a bookstore... A lovely little one, old-fashioned one might say, with wooden book shelves and a cat on the counter. And there I found
Salaam Brick Lane by Tarquin Hall (
www.tarquinhall.com), a portrait of both the author, an 'indigenous' English man forced to live in the East End by his monetary situation, and the people whom he befriends. This is a must-read!
I've tried to explain the brilliance of this book to many of my friends but never seem to convince them properly which is mainly due to my unbridled enthusiasm with it. I read it in two days while walking the streets of London, and when realising that I was at the end of it simply opened on first page again and started over. How much of it is fiction and how much is real doesn't really interest me - the point is that it is authentic and could be real even if it isn't.
Among the people the author meets are the last of the Jews who orignally inhabited the East End in the 1940s and 50s, a charming group of elders who behind their proclaimed distance to society of today aptly represents it through its history; the Indians, many of them descending from seamen coerced to work on colonial ships and still carry the burden of colonialism with them; the Bangladeshis who share much of the Indians' history but are now the most dominant community in the East End; the refugees and asylum seekers from the Balkans, rejected and desolate in their search for better lives.
These stories are told through individuals which is the ultimate strength of the book. It outlines a history of poverty and disillusion, of shame and emotional chaos, of pride and the wish for a better life. To me, it tells the story of a modern humanity, surviving identities in a world of financial destitution and personal anger. Even if the stories, the persons aren't real they could be. And Hall tells these stories with empathy and realism, distance and compassion - and in the vernacular of the individuals described. With a global perspective manifested in the radically local, he tells the stories that we should listen to, the stories of individuals who are caught up in circumstances, who worsen those circumstances by making uninformed and sometimes even downright stupid decisions. I am always, when reading this book which I've done 3 times now, certain passages more than that, overcome by the urgency of humanity. We need to listen, I need to listen to these stories, these lives. I need to listen because these stories are human. Maybe others should too.
There's an abundance of literature about the East End, my favourites being the above mentioned and also Jack London's
People of the Abyss. And there's still more to read...
