This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik
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What I liked most about Malik’s entertaining third novel is the way she asks questions about significant issues, without demonising any of her engaging cast of characters. What is home? Does economic progress change who we are? When we speak or write about religion and culture, are we driven by underlying attitudes? How can we identify our unconscious biases?
Bilal and his family have become well-integrated residents of Babbel’s End, since moving there from Birmingham eight years ago. As low-key Muslims, they easily pass under the radar of difference. The local accountancy business Bilal has set up provides much needed employment, and he has served on the parish council. Although his journalist wife Mariam speaks Punjabi and eats halal, the long-standing inhabitants of this English country village see them as being like everyone else. Most importantly, Haaris, Mariam’s son from a previous marriage, is happy and doing well at school. However, when Bilal announces his intention to fulfil the last wish of his recently deceased mother, by building a mosque in the village, their adopted community turns against them.
The outcome of this shift in alliances is new friendships being formed and old ones falling apart, amid an outbreak of calamitous misunderstandings. To add to the general confusion, Mariam’s ex-husband reappears, disrupting the peace of her marriage to Bilal. What’s more, Bilal’s Aunty Rukhsana suffers an accident and comes to stay with the family while she recovers. This rich mix is truly delightful, and at times laugh-out-loud funny.
Some of the characters may be a little stereotypical, but no more than is necessary to create convincing comedy. The book is easy to read, and gets under the reader’s skin. The pace of the story is fast, moving on swiftly from the latest personality clash to the next risky action and back again. I continued to think about the book when I was not reading it, and wondering how the latest twist would be resolved.
I thought the sensitively drawn character of Bilal was very interesting. Unused to analysing his feelings, his mother’s passing propels him into an emotional storm he does not have the intellectual tools to resolve. He starts to question his faith, as some people in the Christian community of Babbel’s End have already been doing. When his mosque-building proposal is met with rejection, not only of the project but of himself and his family, he is surprised and appalled. On one hand, the reader may wonder what he expected the response to be. On the other, they will admire him for his innocence and kindness.
The person who does most to resolve the differences within this formerly harmonious community is Rukhsana, the aunt who helped Bilal’s mother to bring him up, after his father’s desertion. Initially introduced as Khala (Aunt), that is what she continues to be called by everyone in the village, because they form a fixed idea that it is her name. Inspired by her new surroundings, after living for fifty years in Birmingham, for the first time ever she attempts to learn English. She is supported in this by her affectionate great-nephew Haaris, who hopes to teach her Mandarin next. This is the source of some of the best comedy in the book, because Rukhsana tries to link her limited English vocabulary to her observations of people’s body language, leading to hilarious misinterpretations.
Rukhsana, even though she has led a sheltered life, understands the behaviour of the non-Muslim villagers much better than Bilal and Mariam. Wisely, she compares the proposed building of the mosque to the work of Christian missionaries in Africa, which shocks her nephew because it has never occurred to him to convert people. A gentle, kindly woman who writes poetry in secret when she is not preparing delicious Indian sweets, Rukhsana does not understand why people who live in such a beautiful green Paradise cannot get along. The friendships Rukhsana forms with women of her own age during country walks, in spite of ill-fitting wellington boots and a fear of dogs, are key to resolving the issues raised by Bilal’s well-intentioned gesture.
At the conclusion of the story, all loose ends are tied neatly and the characters paired up, in a style reminiscent of Shakespearean comedy. I’m concerned by some of the partnerships Malik has decreed for her creations. One couple, in particular, I’m sure will be tearing out their own hair, or their partners, within days. But who am I to spoil the fun?
