Books : Alentejo Blue

• Digging to America
• Brick Lane
• One Good Turn
• Theft: A Love Story
• Black Swan Green
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• Authors, A-Z - Fiction - Subjects - Books - Ali, Monica
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The homecoming is the subject of continuing speculation, and when Marco Afonso Rodrigues does finally appear, villagers, tourists and expatriates are brought together and jealousies, passions and disappointments must inevitably collide.

From the Publisher:
An evocative tale of belonging and exile by one of Britain's best young novelists.


From the Inside Flap:
Alentejo Blue is the story of the Portuguese village of Mamarrosa told through the lives of those who live there and those who are passing through – men and women, children and old people, locals, tourists and expatriates.

For some, such as Teresa, a beautiful, dreamy village girl, it is a place from which to escape; for others – the dysfunctional Potts family – it is a way of running from trouble (but not eluding it). Vasco, a café owner who has never recovered from the death of his American wife, clings to a notion that his years in America make him superior to the other villagers. One English tourist makes Mamarrosa the subject of her fantasy of a new life, while for her compatriots, a young engaged couple, Mamarrosa is where their dreams finally fall apart.

At the book’s opening an old man reflects on his long and troubled life in this beautiful and seemingly tranquil setting, and anticipates the return of Marco Afonso Rodrigues, the prodigal son of the village and a symbol of this now fast-changing world. The homecoming is the subject of continuing speculation, and when Marco Afonso Rodrigues does finally appear, villagers, tourists and expatriates are brought together and jealousies, passions and disappointments must inevitably collide.

From the Back Cover:
For some, Mamarrosa is a place you merely pass through. For others it is somewhere from which you want to escape. Some people come here to disappear. A small town in rural Portugal, it is on the way to other places, but you rarely stop there.And those who do usually have a reason.

Men and women, children and old people all tell their stories, piece by piece, locals, expatriates, tourists alike, and in so doing assemble the story of the town itself, a tale of exile and belonging, rich with resonance and regret.

‘Her craftsmanship is superb and her descriptions rich with quirky, sad, funny and lovely details…The beauty of her writing gives her a starring role in this literary generation’ USA Today

‘In her new book…the prodigiously gifted Monica Ali demonstrates her versatility and hints at the breadth and variety of her interests’ New York Times Book Review

About the Author:
Monica Ali:
was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and grew up in England. She is one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists of the decade, Newcomer of the Year at the 2004 British Book Awards and has been nominated for most of the major literary prizes in Britain. Brick Lane was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the George Orwell Prize for political writing and the prestigious Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Internationally there has been similar recognition including, in the United States, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times ‘First Fiction’ Prize where the book was shortlisted.

Monica Ali lives in London with her husband and two children, and is working on her next novel.

Average Rating:

Rating: - Fragmented
Overall, a rather disappointing book, though the writing is quite good and there are particularly good passages/sections throughout. The trouble is that 'Alentejo Blue' is a fragmented novel with no real central narrative drive or plot to pull together the disparate strands. It reads like a collection of linked short stories set in the same Portuguese area.

Each chapter focusses on a different character living or staying in Alentejo. Inevitably with any book of this kind, some characters are more interesting and easy to identify with than others. I found the first two sections particularly hard going and almost stopped reading, although some of the subsequent sections were better.

I've never been to the area so ... Read More:

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Rating: - How does she do it?
This book is awesome. I'm a Brit living in Canada but have been intimately connected with the south of Portugal since the 60s.
I can't begin to fathom how Monica Ali did it. She got into the minds, language, innuendo and naked emotion of the Alentejo to give us a refreshing, behind the scenes, look at this loveable parallel world. If you don't love this book it's because you just don't get it. Do yourself a favor and read it. It's everything that "facing reality" isn't.

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Rating: - Not sure if this is actually a novel...
Alentejo Blue is certainly a work of fiction which runs for just shy of 300 pages - but that isn't enough to make a novel. It's really more like a collection of short stories all set in the same rural Portuguese village. There is occasionally some wonderful use of language in the description, but this fails to make up for the fact that it just doesn't hang together. I can't help feeling that it would have been a more absorbing and satisfying read if more time and attention had been given to fewer characters, rather than skimming the surface and risking stereoptype and characature in the process. Or perhaps the range of characters and perspectives would work if there were a strong plot driving there interactions, but ultimately this is a ... Read More:

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Rating: - A worthy successor
I have to admit I only bought this book because I loved Brick Lane so much. I have never been to Portugal so have no idea if these interlinked stories are representative of a way of life. However, I did enjoy it. This is a very different book to Brick Lane - rather than being drawn into a very tightly knit family - here we are given a brief but intense look at many different people all linked by the village they live in (or pass through). There is no logical conclusion to the stories we hear but the lack of a contrived ending only makes each story more believable. They are not written as separate short stories but Ali has shown that her writing skill could be used in this medium. A page turner but a very different experince to Brick Lane.

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Rating: - Go and read something less boring instead
Having loved Brick Lane I was very eager to read this but it was a huge disappointment - so much so that I don't normally write reviews for Amazon but I am compelled to say "save your money!"

This book comes with a very big "So what?!" It reads like a random collection of short stories which are badly thought out, lacking in plot and with weak characters. There are character links between the stories but they are so shallow and predictable.

Like most books I read, I could not wait to finish this book- but for all the wrong reasons - it is boring and I actually became desperate to get my teeth into something decent and revive my dying brain cells.

As for the insight to the Alentejo region.... it feels like ... Read More: