# Life isn't always ha ha hee hee, book review

Category: book Nook

## Post 1 by TexasRed (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Monday, 28-Nov-2005 14:52:22

Life Isn't Always Ha Ha Hee Hee by Meera Syal
I got this one fromIsis Audio books,. I had won it from the daily puzzles
and had it saved for a day when I had nothing from the NLS. Below is some
information that I found on the book and on the author. NLS didn't have
this book. It was really a surprise. A good little read. I give it a 3
out of 5.
Happy Reading,
Carla/TexasRed
Syal’s latest book, Life isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee is a novel ‘take’ on the
‘Bridget Jones’ scenario. The book focuses on three childhood friends who
are
now all in their thirties: the attractive, professional Tania who pursues a
successful job in media, Sunita, who has chosen family over a career, and
frumpy,
unworldly Chila who is the envy of her mates after marrying the
devastatingly handsome Deepak.
Like Anita and Me, Syal’s latest offering treads a fine line between
sympathy and satire in its portrayal of Asian British culture. While she
pokes fun
at the conservative ambitions of her characters, Syal also encourages her
readers to consider the wider cultural climate in which they are caught. At
one
point a restaurant receptionist whispers to Chila, '"Loove your outfit [a
Punjabi suit], by the way. This stuff is really in at the mo. Is it DKNY?"
Chila
looked down for a moment. "No, Bimla’s Bargains, Forest Gate, I think …"'.
On one level Life isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee is a wry look at the way ‘ethnic’
culture is currently marketed as a fashion accessory in the West and the way
in which Chila and her friends either exploit or are caught up in that
scene. Like all of her work to date, Syal laughs at her protagonists without
resorting
to the usual cliches and stereotypes. In this sense it represents a break
with the ‘goodness gracious me’ brand of humour that the title of her
radio/television
show ironically evokes. Her work in fiction and on screen is exemplary for
the way in which it uses humour to both challenge the limits of political
correctness
and to contribute to a politicised understanding of British Asian culture.
Writer and actress Meera Syal was born in 1963 near Wolverhampton in the
West Midlands and was educated at Manchester University where she read
English
and Drama. She co-wrote the script for 'My Sister Wife', a three-part BBC
Television series, and wrote the film Bhaji on the Beach for Channel 4. She
co-writes
and is a cast member of the popular BBC Television comedy series 'Goodness
Gracious Me'. She also works as a journalist and is a regular contributor to
The Guardian.
Meera Syal's childhood experiences growing up in a small mining community
provided the background to her first novel, Anita and Me (1996). The novel
was
shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and won a Betty Trask Award. It
tells the story of Meena Kumar, a young Asian girl struggling to accommodate
the opposing influences of her white schoolfriends and her traditional
Punjabi background. Syal's second novel, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee
(1999), narrates
the adventures of three young Asian women growing up in Britain.
Meera Syal was awarded an MBE in 1997 and won the 'Media Personality of the
Year' award at the Commission for Racial Equality's annual 'Race in the
Media'
awards (2000), as well as the EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award)
for Media Personality of the Year in 2001.