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Boy With The Topknot: A Memoir Of Love, Secrets And Lies In Wolverhampton (2009)

by Sathnam Sanghera(Favorite Author)

3.78 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0141028599 (ISBN13: 9780141028590)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Penguin Books

review 1: I really wish I hadn't read this family melodrama set in the Punjabi Sikh 'community' of Wolverhampton in the last quarter of the 20th century,& relating the lonely quest of Sanghera to make sense of his father's severe mental illness & its malign influence on his wider family & on his own personal & private development. I had,until now, a generally benign view of the ethnic Sikh-Punjabi immigrants into Britain since the 1960s,feeling them to be a generally peaceful, civilised & decent & tolerant,with much to offer their fellow subjects in Her Majesty's realm; alas,the scales have been removed from my 'gora' eyes,& this particular 'community' are a danger to both themselves & to the hope of good inter-racial relations with their well-established, ignorant,narrow-minded,ra... morecist,sexist & materialist views.No wonder Sathnam Sanghera escaped at the first opportunity to Oxbridge & London,only to be dragged back in by his evident sense of guilt over & betrayal of, his mother's love. I felt only a mild interest in his common-place memoir-- school,university,glittering career in fashionable journalism-- and found it difficult to empathise with his hideous family & their self-inflicted traumas,dictated by their religion & the wilful inability to acknowledge their new circumstances in England,& their need to adapt to a new social ethos,where wife-beating,alcoholism & illiteracy are considered to be negative factors,& holding racist views about their 'First Nation' neighbours disqualifies them from claiming any Moral High Ground in the continuing debate about 'racism' in contemporary Britain. Truly, from now on,I will regard the Sikh-Punjabi community as no better or no worse than any other,with grievous faults & prejudices, which Sanghera's sad story draws inadvertent attention towards,highlighting once again the terrible consequences of delving into areas which are better left alone.I really wish I'd left this book well alone.
review 2: Really enjoyed this insightful, humorous book. In parts I felt it was a four- star book, but it falls a little short as there were some errors in the way it had been edited that jarred for me. It is a fascinating portrait into a family affected by schizophrenia, and I particularly enjoyed learning about Sikh culture and the difficulties of growing up in an Indian family in a Western culture. Definitely worth reading. less

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